Gill Horitz
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Three songs written for the Choral work "Otter: Lutra Lutra on the Stour” performed in Wimborne Minster and Guildford Cathedral, produced by Common Ground as part of the Confluence Project .
As members of Wimborne Community Theatre, we talked to residents of Streets Meadow Care Home, Wimborne, about their memories of seeing otters along the River Stour when they were children.
Using these words, we wrote librettos which were then set to music by various composers, in styles ranging from traditional church music to contemporary jazz.
Once a Girl Glimpsed
Once a girl glimpsed an otter
On the reedy bank downstream
From Julian’s Bridge.
It slipped in to her memory.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Slept dryly, shyly, like a fond toy.
Sof tand lost, seventy years passed.
Woke when someone said,
‘Otter’
Lyrics by Gill Horitz, Music by Raymond Sargent (song starts at 52/55 secs)
Voice of a Woman
We lived by a stream
And you could hear them splash.
I followed one home
To the bridge at Pottern.
I saw it with its babies,
One, two, three, four.
I thought it was a rat
But it was bigger than that!
I looked it in the eye
And it looked me back.
Lyrics by Gill Horitz, Music by Raymond Sargent, singers...
Names I Remember
I’ve forgotten your name
But I remember the otter’s,
Which brings the river with him
Back into my mind.
And woods, too,
Brings woods and the spent hours
Beneath Julian’s Bridge back into my mind.
Hours spent waiting to catch a glimpse of it,
Catching a breath of air!
Names I remember, otter, water, river,
Dissolve in the blood stream, losing their sense.
I remember a girl
On a wooden bridge
Who saw an otter
On a reedy bank downstream
When she was ten,
She saw it dive out of sight
Out of mind
Names I remember, otter, water, river,
Dissolve in the blood stream, losing their sense.
In red chalybeate waters In the crux of an oak
Roots make a couch
Where the swimmer
Plots a secret route.
The river soothes its fear
At the sight of the girl
On the wooden bridge.
Names I remember,
otter, water, river,
Dissolve in the blood stream,
losing their sense.
Lyrics by Gill Horitz, Music by Philippa Forrest with Helen Porter
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