Loom

Director and composer Jack McNeill is a clarinet soloist and chamber musician working with a number of classical ensembles, many of whose members have been brought into this 12-piece ensemble to create Loom – an immersive audio-visual experience that brings in elements of found sounds, interviews with audience members and poetry.

Loom is the culmination of McNeill's residency at Open Space, a programme run by Snape Maltings music venue on the River Alde in Suffolk. It will tour the UK until summer 2020, allowing audiences to be a part of this developing musical journey. As such, it's a piece of music perpetually in the making. Rather appropriate, considering that its inspiration lies in the cycle of water from the sky via rivers to the sea.

The main body of music runs to nearly an hour, followed by a series of smaller studies. While the word loom is a Cumbrian dialect term for the movement of water in a deep pool, the name Propellor suggests the propulsion of human craft on these waters and the ways we interact with the deep. The result is a sweeping piece of modern classical music tapping into the zeitgeist for tuning into our natural history.