Herz Ensemble & Kate Moore

What happens in the moment between departure and arrival? Composer Kate Moore created a composition cycle from that question: The Crossing. The work is rooted in research into long-distance walks, composing outdoors, and the sounds a landscape produces.

Water is the connecting element. A stream, river, sea or ocean marks the boundary between the familiar and the unknown - sometimes as a literal crossing, sometimes as an image for a life transition or the threshold to the afterlife. Moore draws on mythology and folk tales: Charon ferrying the dead across the Styx, Saint Christopher carrying travellers through rising water, Nehalennia protecting seafarers on their journey.

Herz Ensemble performs the cycle with soprano, tenor, saxophone, harp, recorder, electric guitar and percussion. The music alternates between turbulent and threatening on one hand, hushed and open on the other - much like the space it describes.