June 2, 2005

MEDIA RELEASE

World premiere of song by local composer and poet

Local composer Phil Tudor and local poet Martin Alexander have collaborated to create a specially commissioned new song for the Kassia Women’s Choir. The song, Survive the Night, will have its world premiere at the Raising the Roof! concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall on Thursday June 16.

Ms. Bethan Greaves, the Musical Director of the Kassia Women’s Choir, explained: “Phil attended a Kassia concert last year, and approached me to say he wanted to write a piece for the choir. We agreed that we wanted to commission a local poet to write the lyrics, and Phil suggested Martin. They then decided that they wanted to write a lullaby.”

Survive the Night, based on Martin’s poem Hit and Run from his volume Clearing Ground (Chameleon Press, 2004), tells the bitter-sweet story of the writer’s grief at hearing of the death of a young man (an “English boy just seventeen”) in a hit-and-run traffic accident in Spain, and his simultaneous guilty relief that his own sons (“immortal, reckless, dear”) are safe. Martin said: “The song is a twist on a lullaby – it’s not for children; it’s more to reassure the parents. I attended the first rehearsal and it blew me away! The transformation from the page into the air was very moving.”

Phil and Martin both teach at Island School (Phil teaches Music and Martin teaches English). Their colleague Jo-Anne Trevenna, Head of Music at Island School, will sing the solo soprano part in Survive the Night.

Raising the Roof! is a joint concert featuring the Kassia Women’s Choir, the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir and the Kassia Youth Choir (although only the Kassia Women’s Choir will be singing “Survive the Night”).

Tickets ($120-$220, concessions $100-$180) are on sale

at all Urbtix outlets, tel: 2734 9009

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SEE BELOW FOR THE TEXT OF THE SONG

For further information, please contact:

Martin Alexander, tel: 97016565 Martin@Alexander.Org

http://www.martin.alexander.org/Writing.html

Ms. Bethan Greaves, tel: 2575 3931, e-mail: bethan@katterwall.com

or Ms. Celia Leung, tel: 2575 3931, e-mail: celia@katterwall.com

Katterwall, Room 5, 4/F, 3-5 Jervois Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong http://www.katterwall.com/

Survive the Night - (24 lines)

Both my boys will be all right

they'll both of them survive the night.

Someone else has died instead -

this summer's child's already dead.

My sons, I pray, are safe tonight

But still we lie awake in fright

and think of last night's English boy

just seventeen, some mother's son

some father's source of trial and joy

spattered on the road - a hit and run.

At three a.m. the thumping disco din

was stilled by screams as bloodied friends burst in

in desperate search for help in turning back

his clock. Too late - that murderous smack

of cruel steel on flesh had left his shattered

hands stretched out, stopped dead at ten to three.

The ambulance picked up his bits. What mattered,

though, his soul, was left behind, unseen; and we,

are also left behind, so much aware of Death

who fills these carefree summer nights with his hot breath.

And our own boys, immortal, reckless, dear,

will ride on scooters out into their nights.

Our incantations cannot kill the fear

that grips us, sleepless, waiting for their lights.

Hit and run –

original version, from Clearing Ground (Chameleon Press, 2004)

Both my boys will be all right

they’ll both of them survive the night.

Someone else has died instead –

this summer’s child’s already dead.

My sons’ smooth skin, soft knees, brown arms

and fragile bones are safe tonight

from drunken darkness, careless harms.

But still we lie awake in fright

and think of last night’s English boy

just seventeen, some mother’s son

some father’s source of trial and joy

spattered on the road – a hit and run.

At three a.m. the Moli’s disco din

was drenched in screams as bloodied friends burst in

in desperate search for help in turning back

his clock. Too late – that murderous smack

of cruel steel on flesh had left his shattered

hands stretched out, stopped dead at ten to three.

The ambulance picked up his bits. What mattered,

though, his soul, was left behind, unseen; and we,

quite vacuumed out, stunned by the blow that killed

that boy and left our souls distraught, unspilled,

are also left behind, so much aware of Death

who fills these carefree summer nights with his hot breath.

The garage told Andrés about the lie –

unlikely dog that left pale hair and skin

in broken glass, on dented steel – and not yet dry.

He found the driver, cuffed him, took him in.

That driver’d thought to turn his own clock back, the car once mended –

but as I write he sits in jail, an accident become a crime.

For father, mother, killer, friends and us, there’s nothing ended –

we wait our turn and listen for that final tick of time.

And our own boys, immortal, reckless, dear,

will ride on scooters out into their nights.

Our incantations cannot kill the fear

that grips us, sleepless, waiting for their lights.

Martin Alexander

Moli: a disco in Javea, Spain. Andres: the policeman who caught the driver.