Commissioned by Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, 'The Ladybird' was composed in 2025 and first performed on 24th November 2025 at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands by Lucie Horsch, recorder & Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, as part of a tour to Utrecht, Arnhem, Leeuwarden, Amsterdam and Haarlem.
Instrumentation
Solo recorder, harpsichord (or keyboard) and strings
A few weeks into writing this piece, as my first few sketches were beginning to become a bit more than just sketches, there was an unusual influx of ladybirds in the UK. I didn’t know yet that this was happening, but I while I was writing I kept noticing ladybirds landing on my desk or my hand. Some of the patterns in the music started to resemble the patterns on the cheerful red bug and its dots, flights, and ways of moving. The piece is not a programmatic work that describes a story or an image - it’s music written foremost with the sounds of the ensemble in mind - but there is just a little flavour of late summer and the ladybird in there.