For this song, I set Emily Dickinson’s beautiful poem.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

I wrote ‘Hope’ in 2020 for Charlie Kelso, a young Australian singer who was performing as a mezzo at the time. Charlie is now in the UK, singing soprano repertoire.

The piece has since been performed by both sopranos and mezzos. Here’s a recording by Karina Bailey another Australian singer I have worked with who is now based in Austria.

The original key ranges from low G to F, and as suits a lower mezzo, the melody mostly sits between A3 and C4. I’ve included a higher version that ranges from B3 to A5 which will sit in the pocket for sopranos and tenors. But don’t feel constrained, the beauty of an acapella piece is that you can sing whatever key suits your voice.

To bring out the simple, beautiful words, I wanted this piece to feel as natural as a folksong. Acapella solo folksongs can have quite fluid timing, driven by the singer’s expression of the text, with silence between phrases to create magic. To capture this on manuscript can be challenging and on first impression the sheet music for ‘Hope’ can look complex, with a lot of changing meter. The secret is simple - it’s all in the words.

In 2023 mezzo Sally-Anne Russell included ‘Hope’ as an opener for a Mozart Requiem at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Because she had a chamber orchestra in the concert, I added a score for strings and basset horn, a feature instrument in the requiem. I adjusted the timing slightly of the vocal line, to give the instruments some moments to have their say.