Errollyn Wallen - Are you worried…?

Are you worried…?

1. Beehive (The Priest, the Pall-Bearer and the Hanging Man)
2. Mary
3. White Christine
4. Guru
5. End of My Days

I have set so many songs by other writers for my classical works, but as well as In Our Lifetime and my opera, Four Figures with Harlequin, I have written about forty pop songs for which I have been responsible for both the words and music. I very much enjoy working in this way, as I don’t have to worry about ‘sabotaging’ the structure of an existing poem and I can be free to let one medium inspire the other spontaneously.
For this commission I wanted to bring my songwriting experience to bear on a classical work and to bring popular music influences to classical performers. The common theme to this set of songs is death and I found the title on a local council leaflet.
Errollyn Wallen

Errollyn Wallen’s Are you worried…, premiered last night as the latest result of BCMG’s Sound Investment scheme. Wallen brings a strong melodic gift to the settings of her own texts.
The Birmingham Post

First performed by BCMG at the Adrian Boult Hall on 20 March 1994.