Hay Music have commissioned a new song cycle of R S Thomas settings for The Hermes Experiment, which will be premiered in early April 2027 at Hay Castle (Hay-on-Wye) and proceeded by talks/interviews about R S Thomas from leading scholars and enthusiasts.
I am very excited to be writing for this unique and wonderful quartet, and I have been enjoying soaking myself in R S Thomas’s poems over the most part of this year, discovering the many depths and ambiguities in his work, and eventually landing on a selection from his 1988 volume ‘The Echoes Return Slow’ for this song cycle.
I am extremely grateful to Mick Peake (Hay Music), Mike Thomas, Susan Fogarty (RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Society) and Tony Brown (Bangor University) for their generosity and enthusiasm in guiding me along the RS path so far.
More info/updates to come!