In writing Music for Eight Lungs I wanted to treat the voice similarly to the instruments, so that the piece would weave all four parts into a fabric equally. But I also wanted to play with our perception of the voice as a vehicle for communication and language. So the vocal part is given various phonemes which seem quite word-like at times, and in fact are often drawn from the vowel sounds from Purcell's 'Dido's Lament.' As I played with my own musical materials, the idea of a descending lament figure kept recurring in different ways, propelling the music forward.
- Hannah Lash
