Drake Music Commission: Rufus Isabel Elliot – ‘An Consolation’

Showcase

Rufus Isabel Elliot is a composer and musician originally from Tower Hamlets, living now in Skye.

Rufus has written funerary music for doomed spaceships and orchestral music about rotting seaweed. It cares about honesty and openness. Its work is concerned with testimony, the conditions in which one speaks out, and how those stories are passed on. Its music is ‘fluid and ambitious’ (The Wire) and ‘stunningly intimate’ (The Quietus). Rufus’ first album A/am/ams (come ashore, turn over), was released in 2021 in collaboration with Glasgow tape label GLARC, documenting its one-act chamber piece commissioned by OVER / AT.  Its second album, Three sexual pieces for solo violin (this and this and this) was released in 2022.

About ‘An Consolation’

Around ten miles south-west from here the village of Caradal lies deserted. Around ten miles north-west from here lies the gateway to the other world.

Seals bask on dark skerries as the tide comes and goes from an empty beach.

A character – Maiden, maiden – lives here. This piece was a story about staying and going.

Listen under the covers, with headphones, during a long winter’s night.

Music and words by Rufus Isabel Elliot
Clarinet portrayed by Alex South
String Trio portrayed by Katherine Wren, Kieran Carter, and Seth Bennett

Recorded and mixed by Ronán David Fay at the Green Door Studio.
Audio Description by Michael Achtman
Subtitles by Stagetext

Drake Music Collective is generously supported by:

PRS Foundation
Help Musicians UK
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
David Family Foundation
D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust
Fenton Arts Trust
Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation
Idlewild Trust
Leche Trust