I wrote star-strewn in 2017 for White Lines, an improvisation / performance trio in which I play double bass. The other members of the trio are clarinettist Mandy Burvill (who I?m married to) and cellist Alexander Holladay.

star-strewn grows from a short phrase in Three Cornish Songs, which I wrote in 2014 for Camerata Kernow, the choir in Penzance that my father sings in. In Three Cornish Songs I set three poems by Charles Causley. The first of these is ?Elizabethan Sailor?s Song?. The music that I wrote for the word ?star-strewn? is the germ for this piece, hence the title.

Here's an excerpt from the poem:

My love my love is a green box-tree
?? And the scarlet hawthorn berry
Give me five cocky starlings on a grass-grown sea
?? And a lute to be merry.

Then shall we wander in star-strewn meadows
?? Frosted by ancient October
Where ice like iron rims the shadows,
?? And never be sober.

Though the piece is mainly notated, there are two improvisatory passages, first for cello and later for clarinet. I each case I specify the starting and ending notes of the improvisation, but what happens in between is entirely up to the individual players.