8. Benjamin BrittenFour Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes

Britten lived in Aldeburgh in Suffolk, and I’ve lived near there for a long time now, so the sea interludes from Peter Grimes do things to me on different levels. Britten’s trying to capture the North Sea in his music, and the story of this ordinary man. You can hear the waves in this, and the lull, and the movement of the water. His music is so experimental with this pastoral edge, yet it is somehow still accessible – that’s an incredible thing to pull off. I know I respond to his music because so much of what I do is connected to the land. Music exists in space, and this shows that amount of possibility in that combination really perfectly.