Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Genesis Cradle draws on themes of origins, safety, cocooning, and beginnings. While writing this composition my wife and I were expecting our first child (who was born two days after the piece was finished!). Each night, we played music for him in the womb, including an LSO recording of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Genesis Cradle reimagines the lullaby as heard from an ethereal distance, evoking the gentle rocking motion of Debussy’s famous work. Allusions to the opening motif of Clair de Lune surface intermittently throughout the piece, like glimpses of the moon appearing briefly from behind clouds. The piece is composed in Just Intonation, a tuning system where intervals are tuned to the natural resonance of the harmonic and subharmonic series, creating sonorities of crystalline clarity, contrasted with shimmering dissonances that vibrate with complex beating patterns. This resonance ties in nicely to Debussy’s intended sound-world for Clair de Lune, evident from his instruction to pianist Maurice Dumesnil 'to depress the two pedals before starting, so that the overtones would vibrate immediately upon contact'.
Note by Anselm McDonnell
Mira Benjamin violin
#LondonSymphonyOrchestra #ContemporaryMusic #Composer #Violin
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Biographies
Anselm McDonnell is an Irish/Welsh composer who has composed over 90 for orchestra, chamber groups, choirs, soloists, and electronics. His music has been performed in fourteen countries and includes commissions by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Crash Ensemble, Hard Rain Solosit Ensemble, the BBC Singers, BBC Radio 3, British Council, and NCH Dublin. His music features on fifteen CDs, including three self-released albums, the third, Politics of the Imagination, an upcoming CD with the LSO, Crash Ensemble, and a trio of rap artists from Birmingham. He is one of 25 composers commissioned for BBC Radio 3’s quarter-century celebration in 2025, a broadcast series leading up to BBC Proms 2025.
In 2023 he had portrait concerts dedicated to his music in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand, by the TACETi Ensemble. His music has been played at NCH Dublin, LSO St. Luke’s (six performances), Wigmore Hall, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hugh Lane Gallery (four performances), and New Music Dublin Festival (ten performances). He is a LSO Jerwood Composer+ for 2023/24 and has held residencies at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (Oct/Nov 23) and Belfast City Council (2021-2022). His recent interview with the BBC Music Magazine features in their March 2024 issue. His compositions have been described as 'abrasive and compelling' (Irish Times), 'bright as fluorescent light’ (Journal of Music), ‘a wide musical imagination with a vision to match’ (Morning Star), and 'perhaps the contrasts and complexities that it contains are a musical reflection of the multi-layered nature of what it means to be a composer in a community as complex as Northern Ireland.' (Robert Hugill)
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Mira Benjamin is a Canadian violinist, researcher and new-music instigator. She performs new and old music with an experimental outlook, and is interested in how the human body holds and experiences knowledge. After growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Mira spent ten years in Montréal, where she was a member of the Bozzini Quartet. Since 2014 she has resided in the UK, where she performs regularly as a violinist with Apartment House and Plus Minus Ensemble, and is Lecturer in Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Genesis Cradle draws on themes of origins, safety, cocooning, and beginnings. While writing this composition my wife and I were expecting our first child (who was born two days after the piece was finished!). Each night, we played music for him in the womb, including an LSO recording of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Genesis Cradle reimagines the lullaby as heard from an ethereal distance, evoking the gentle rocking motion of Debussy’s famous work. Allusions to the opening motif of Clair de Lune surface intermittently throughout the piece, like glimpses of the moon appearing briefly from behind clouds. The piece is composed in Just Intonation, a tuning system where intervals are tuned to the natural resonance of the harmonic and subharmonic series, creating sonorities of crystalline clarity, contrasted with shimmering dissonances that vibrate with complex beating patterns. This resonance ties in nicely to Debussy’s intended sound-world for Clair de Lune, evident from his instruction to pianist Maurice Dumesnil 'to depress the two pedals before starting, so that the overtones would vibrate immediately upon contact'.
Note by Anselm McDonnell
Mira Benjamin violin
#LondonSymphonyOrchestra #ContemporaryMusic #Composer #Violin
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to the LSO's channel: bit.ly/LSOsubscribe
Subscribe to LSO newsletter: https://smarturl.it/lsonewsletter
Follow the LSO on:
Instagram: instagram.com/londonsymphonyorchestra
Facebook: facebook.com/londonsymphonyorchestra
TikTok: tiktok.com/@londonsymphonyorchestra
Twitter: twitter.com/londonsymphony
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/london-symphony-orchestra
Website: lso.co.uk
Apple Music: geni.us/yH0sXY
Spotify: spoti.fi/291cCk0
LSO Live: lsolive.lso.co.uk
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biographies
Anselm McDonnell is an Irish/Welsh composer who has composed over 90 for orchestra, chamber groups, choirs, soloists, and electronics. His music has been performed in fourteen countries and includes commissions by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Crash Ensemble, Hard Rain Solosit Ensemble, the BBC Singers, BBC Radio 3, British Council, and NCH Dublin. His music features on fifteen CDs, including three self-released albums, the third, Politics of the Imagination, an upcoming CD with the LSO, Crash Ensemble, and a trio of rap artists from Birmingham. He is one of 25 composers commissioned for BBC Radio 3’s quarter-century celebration in 2025, a broadcast series leading up to BBC Proms 2025.
In 2023 he had portrait concerts dedicated to his music in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand, by the TACETi Ensemble. His music has been played at NCH Dublin, LSO St. Luke’s (six performances), Wigmore Hall, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Hugh Lane Gallery (four performances), and New Music Dublin Festival (ten performances). He is a LSO Jerwood Composer+ for 2023/24 and has held residencies at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (Oct/Nov 23) and Belfast City Council (2021-2022). His recent interview with the BBC Music Magazine features in their March 2024 issue. His compositions have been described as 'abrasive and compelling' (Irish Times), 'bright as fluorescent light’ (Journal of Music), ‘a wide musical imagination with a vision to match’ (Morning Star), and 'perhaps the contrasts and complexities that it contains are a musical reflection of the multi-layered nature of what it means to be a composer in a community as complex as Northern Ireland.' (Robert Hugill)
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Mira Benjamin is a Canadian violinist, researcher and new-music instigator. She performs new and old music with an experimental outlook, and is interested in how the human body holds and experiences knowledge. After growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Mira spent ten years in Montréal, where she was a member of the Bozzini Quartet. Since 2014 she has resided in the UK, where she performs regularly as a violinist with Apartment House and Plus Minus Ensemble, and is Lecturer in Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.
