INFINITE NORIZONS - debut disc by Ewan Campbell,
in collaboration with the Marsyas Trio
Ewan Campbell (Director of Music at Churchill and Murray Edwards Colleges, and Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge) composes music that often has a strong relationship to specific geographical places and times. His unique cartographic scores, written directly onto maps, and other pictorial scores, embody this situatedness, putting the music very literally in situ. The landscapes and subjects of the score images have a strong link to nature, and environmentalist aspirations run through much of Ewan’s music either overtly or tacitly.
Through their Artist By-Fellowships at Churchill College, the Marsyas Trio have been working closely with Ewan over the past three years. This has included three new commissions for the trio, and now in the final year of their Fellowship the trio intend to record all of these works in an album of Ewan Campbell’s chamber music.
A River, from In Situ (2021)
Ewan’s music is to be seen as well as heard, and so it is intended that the launch concerts of the album (Cambridge & London, Spring 2027) will also include exhibitions, and the prints of the scores will be available for distribution along with the recorded album.
Most of the disc will be recorded by the Marsyas Trio (Helen Vidovich – flutes, Val Welbanks - cello, and Olga Stezhko - piano) for whom most of the music has been composed over the last three years during their tenure as Artist By-Fellows in Churchill College. There will also be guest performances from mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, and the duo Sopriola, featuring violist Rachel Stott and soprano Rachel Godsill.
The recording will take place in summer 2026 in Churchill College, University of Cambridge, who are collaborating to support the making of the album.
TRACKLIST:
Written in Air (2024, 15 minutes) – for flute, cello and piano
Six movements composed directly onto a set of images of birds in flight by photographer Xavi Bou.
Spiral Resonance from Written in Air (2024)
Translations of the Night (Traduit de la Nuit) (2025, 18 minutes) – for soprano, flute, cello and piano
Settings of French texts by surrealist Malagasy poet Jean-Joseph Rabierivelo (1901-1937), national poet of Madegascar, commissioned to partner Ravel’s Chanson Madecasse for his 150th anniversary.
Ewan Campbell -Traduit de la Nuit - Lente
Marsyas Trio & Lotte Betts-Dean, The Chapel at Churchill College, Cambridge
Ewan Campbell -Traduit de la Nuit - Ce qui se pass sous la terre
Marsyas Trio & Lotte Betts-Dean, The Chapel at Churchill College, Cambridge
Two Recitations (2024, 8 minutes) – for cello and recitation
The timbre of the spoken voice is partnered with that of solo cello in these two settings: The Man in the Wind by Anne Stevenson and The Hunchback in the Park – by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953).
River Time Sketch (2014, 8 minutes) – for live and pre-recorded alto flutes
Three intertwining, simultaneous palimpsest flute lines give voice to the changing pathways of an imaginary river as it evolves over a geological timeframe.
Ewan Campbell - River Time Sketch
Helen Vidovich, flute
Glynde (2018, 5 minutes) – for soprano
Dido’s Lament by Henry Purcell is overlayed onto the contours of a hill near the Glyndebourne opera house. The geographical undulations, twist and refract the staves, and similarly distort the lament.
Listen to Glynde sung by soprano Héloïse Werner HERE