INFINITE HORIZONS - debut disc by Ewan Campbell on NMC Recordings
in collaboration with the Marsyas Trio
Score excerpt from Infinite Horizons by Ewan Campbell
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 several years. This has included three new commissions for the Trio, forming the kernel of Ewan’s portrait album Infinite Horizons on NMC Recordings, scheduled for release in June 2027.
The disc has been recorded by the Marsyas Trio (Helen Vidovich - flutes, Val Welbanks - cello, and Olga Stezhko - piano), with guest artists mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, and the Sopriola duo (Rachel Stott - viola, Rachel Godsill - soprano).
The recording took place in September 2026 in Churchill College, University of Cambridge, who are supporting the making of the album.
A River, from In Situ (2021)
Ewan Campbell’s music is to be seen as well as heard. The launch concerts of the album will include exhibitions, with the prints of the scores available for distribution along with the recorded album.
The Marsyas Trio are also very excited to bring Ewan’s music to French audiences through their upcoming Franco-British collaboration Traduit de la nuit, supported by Diaphonique, the Franco-British-Irish fund for contemporary music. The project will explore the themes of transformation, memory and the legacies of colonialism.
Ewan Campbell and the Marsyas Trio are very grateful to the following organisations for their generous support with producing the album:
Vaughan Williams Foundation, Francis Routh Trust, Diaphonique and Churchill College (University of Cambridge).
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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 Rabearivelo (1901-1937), national poet of Madagascar, commissioned to partner Chansons madécasses for Ravel’s 150th anniversary.
Ewan Campbell - Ce qui se passe sous la terre - from Traduit de la Nuit
Marsyas Trio & Lotte Betts-Dean
From the album ‘Infinite Horizons’, NMC Recordings
Ewan Campbell - Lente - from Traduit de la Nuit
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.