Helen Roe


Composer

Whether or not my pieces have an overtly religious theme, they all stem from my early experience of the church and its music. I remember being astounded to realise that the most extravagant expressions of love, despair, grief and joy could be contained within the formality of ritual. There was a particular quality of attention, too- an attention given first to the stillness out of which the music would emerge, and then to the hearing of the music itself- which has remained at the heart of my music.

In the music Helen Roe has been writing I’m hearing the unsimple colours that move in the mind’s eye and the unremembered spaces between expected sounds, and I’m beginning to get hooked on tunes that filter through densities of silence to make aural atmospheres that have to be climbed for, jumped for, and reached over abysses for. New action.”         

Russell Hoban

“Meticulously crafted and highly individual, her music is always a pleasure to perform, and she herself possesses the quiet tenacity and strong sense of purpose to carry her intentions through most impressively, despite other demands on her time and energy.”

Jane Manning

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Click HERE to listen to Helen’s recent choral composition, Speak, Mary