Requiem & Gallipoli
Requiem & Gallipoli is the seventh album by Astrid Williamson and contains her first full classic composition.
Williamson first performed Requiem & Gallipoli at Requiem for the Fallen, a D-Day Remembrance event at All Saints' Church, Hessle, Yorkshire on 6 June 2015. The event raised funds for a local Hull veterans' charity and Operation Warrior Wellness, a process to address post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans using transcendental mediation in collaboration with the David Lynch Foundation.
Williamson explained the writing process: "I would translate each movement from Latin, then start writing the music at the piano, later orchestrating and singing each individual voice; as I began to transcribe the piano arrangement for the orchestra I found myself thinking, 'this section must to be on flute, not oboe, not bassoon', it was incredibly intuitive work – the music seemed to unfurl before me. I actually dreamt the 'In Paradisum' and had to get up and write it down immediately. I also found it liberating that in essence the piece was not personal to events in my life. It was refreshing to not be pouring out my experiences, rather I felt I was drawing upon a more collective understanding of loss and release."