the skin of the forest cradles the earth's soul (2026)

programme note

In composing the skin of the forest cradles the earth’s soul, I thought often about materiality and approaching sound not just in terms of its own properties but also the physical properties of the instruments, and the physical gestures that produce them. Sound is not the only residue of performance. When you think of the bruised skin of a drum, the build up of condensation in a wind instrument, or the flakes of rosin on the body of a string instrument, you’re left with physical evidence of sound production.

Formally, the work comprises a series of cycles between two musical states: agitation and calm. It’s partly an allusion to the daily walks I take in the modestly foresty suburb where I live in Outer West Durban. My daily walks are an indispensable soother of my mind after the build-up of tension during uninterrupted periods of often intense creative work. Perhaps more poetic and attractive, is the idea of the floor of a forest as a warm, pacifying blanket enveloping the land and its earthly troubles.

The aforementioned cycles do not recur at regular intervals; rather, their temporal spaces expand and contract like a living, breathing organism. At certain moments, the boundaries between the two states are obscured as tension and serenity intertwine to establish a kind of odd narrative stasis in those moments.

— Njabulo Phungula