Night Sky in a Stone is a work for solo guitar, commissioned by Tom Kerstens for International Guitar Foundation (IGF) for its Young Artist Platform. With the generous support of Cockayne Grants for the Arts. This work was composed in 2025 and first performed on 19th July 2026 at Kings Place, London by Maryna Vosmirova as part of the IGF Guitar Summit
When I was writing Night Sky in a Stone, a memory kept surfacing of floating in a lake at night under the stars, the gentle rocking of the water around me and the dark green and silver of pine and silver birch trees lining the banks. I was writing this far away from the lake and the clear night sky, at my desk in London. On my desk, I keep various small objects and musical instruments. One of them is a dark blue stone with white patterns in it, and while I was writing this piece, it struck me as being like a stone with the night sky inside. The feeling of holding the stone in my hand also reminded me of the tactile nature of the guitar, with everything happening at the touch of the performers fingertips. In the gentle rocking patterns of the opening, and the melodies that emerge as the piece goes on, I wrote in such a way to leave as many strings ringing as possible, especially at key moments, so as to feel that contrast between touch and release.