The premiere of Thomas Stearn’s ‘Where Light is a Thought’, also featuring composition by Anna Appleby.
There will also be a free Rush Hour concert in the Upper Chapel earlier in the day performed by Classical Student Ensembles. Doors 5:10pm, start time 5:30pm.
In this Song Cycle premiere of Thomas Stearn’s ‘Where Light is a Thought’, five poems by Katharine Towers tell the story of a lone figure who walks from darkness into light. She leaves her home during the night and walks through woods and then onward into fields, encountering a holly tree and a robin. As dawn arrives the world slowly appears, each of its details acquiring colour and shape and, in some way, becoming real. The musical settings of the poems immerse the listener in the journey of the lone figure as she walks, stopping at various points to observe, listen and think.
Programme
Tom Stearn – Where light is a thought – Song Cycle Premiere with Teresa McKendrick (Mezzo-soprano), Iris Rea (Cello) and Alley Bridge-York (Harp)
Plus performances from:
Alley Bridge-York (Harp) & Charlie Hardwick (Cello)
Anna Appleby – From the River – Song Cycle performed by Teresa McKendrick (Mezzo-soprano) & Yang Guo (Piano)
From the River is a short song cycle woven from three poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
- A Musical Instrument
- How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnets from the Portugese 43)
- Go From Me (Sonnets from the Portugese 6
It begins with the creation of the poet: she is plucked from the riverbed by the mischievous god Pan and is carved into an instrument, losing her identity as one of the many reeds in the river. She falls in love, a feeling beyond anything she has felt before, and then loses her lover… yet keeps their heart in her own, a second pulse.
the piece was commissioned by Glyndebourne for the Jerwood Young Artists recital series while Anna was resident as a composer. It was premiered by Stephanie Wake-Edwards and Matthew Fletcher on the 11th August 2019 at Glyndebourne. The original song, ‘A Musical Instrument’ was the starting point for the cycle as it was created in July 2018 for Hull Urban Opera and Rosie Middleton. Glyndebourne commissioned the two following songs in July 2019.
Artist bios
Thomas Stearn is a British composer of contemporary vocal music, with a focus on SATB and small ensemble works. He won first prize at the 2024/25 Stella Jockel Young Composers Competition, with his setting of for music like the sea – Curlew at Redmires (2025). In 2023, his piece Every Shade of Light was premiered at the Leeds Song Festival. He is currently completing his PhD in vocal composition at the University of Sheffield. Thomas achieved an MMus degree from the University of Aberdeen (2018) and a BA (Hons) degree from Falmouth University (2016).
Katharine Towers has published three poetry collections with Picador, most recently Oak (2021). The Floating Man (2010) won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and The Remedies (2016) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. A pamphlet The Violin Forest was published by HappenStance in 2019 and in 2023 The Maker’s Press published let him bring a shrubbe, a pamphlet exploring the life and music of English composer Gerald Finzi. A fourth collection, The Worrying Rose, is being published by Picador in summer 2026.
Teresa Mckendrick is a Mezzo-soprano and final year English and Music student at the University of Sheffield, currently studying voice under Emily Howard Cobley. Throughout her time as a student, she has enjoyed performing and recording a range of new compositions and arrangements, and previously gave the premiere of Thomas Stearn’s song Fall, Leaves, Fall (2024) at St John’s Church, Ranmoor. Outside of her experience as a soloist, Teresa has arranged music and provided musical direction for several vocal ensembles; she also works as an Events Assistant for Performance Venues’ Curated Programmes concert series.
Yang Guo grew up in Sheffield, and studied piano with Valentina Kalashnik. He read philosophy at Cambridge, KCL, and Durham (where he taught until 2022), worked briefly as a maths teacher in Bradford where he sang with the Cathedral choir, and in 2025 completed an MA in law with the University of Law at Sheffield. As a pianist, in addition to solo and orchestral playing, Yang has especially enjoyed collaborating in chamber music and art song, including recent recitals of music by Finzi, Gurney, and Venables with baritone Peter Taylor. Yang has been an accompanist for the Sheffield University Singers’ Society since 2015, and a trustee of Classical Sheffield since 2025.
