Samantha Fernando, British Composer

Why do I write? What makes me start? Sometimes it’s a book, sometimes a painting, a poem, or a place. Reflecting on my practice, I see there is always the impulse to respond to something or somewhere. It is an emotive impulse before it is a musical utterance.

For this first foray into writing about my process, it makes sense to consider the book Wintering by Katherine May, since the piece it inspired will be premiered in a matter of days by the Manchester Collective and the Marian Consort at the Wigmore Hall.

Like many, I have always found winter difficult—something to endure. Its approach fills me with foreboding. The lack of sunlight, the cold seeping into my bones, and the threat of illness all contribute to the struggle. I used to try to keep busy in the hope that the weeks would pass more quickly.

Reading May’s book was something of a revelation; it offered a way of accepting, even embracing, winter. It suggested that constant busyness might not be the answer—that there might be value in stepping back.

The notion of “wintering” applies not only to the season but to any period in life when rest, repair, and nourishment are needed: grief, illness, or times of transition. May uses examples from nature, how animals hibernate as well as telling her own story of how she wintered through a difficult period of her life. She also references winter rituals and the power they have to provide solidarity and comfort.

The book is very evocative; the descriptive writing conjures up both external wintery landscapes as well as the complex internal landscapes we create in our minds. It is this sense of landscape that resonated with me on a musical level. I could hear these landscapes.

It has taken some time to get to this point, but I am finally finding a sense of my creative voice. What it is that I want to explore through sound. I’ve found this through reflecting on my recent work and the patterns that have begun to emerge. Landscape, a sense of place, architecture, these things all feed into my impulse to compose. I am trying to create a place in sound. One that I can invite an audience into.

This necessitates a musical language that is not overly-complicated but has a certain directness. I try to create space and time to breathe within the music I write. In pursuit of this, I have found the need to strip things back, take things out, linger for longer. My music isn’t minimalist with a capital M but minimal in material, yes. Stripping back has meant that the material I do use is very deliberate and carries more weight. Detail matters enormously and gestures are intentional.

I’ve realised that uncovering my musical voice requires attentiveness to what I want to hear—not what I think others want to hear. It means letting go of the fear of judgement.

Most recently I have found inspiration in composers like Jurg Frey, John Luther Adams and Hildegard Von Bingen. Looking far back and not so far back. Wintering is a piece that culminates some of these influences, impulses and my sense of purpose. It isn’t supposed to be a piece that acts as some sort of musical balm but an evocation of both external Winter landscape and the internal psychological landscape that necessitates the need to winter.

I’m still uncovering, still trying to get closer to the compositional ideals I hold in mind. Creation isn’t linear. But in articulating these thoughts now, I’m putting a pin on the map—in the hope that this moment of clarity propels me forward and, more hopefully still, offers you some insight into my music.

November 2025