Stevens & Pound collaborate with writer Robert Macfarlane (The Lost Words, Is A River Alive?, Underland) presenting
"Earth: The Silent Planet" as a concerto for percussion, melodeon/harmonica and live speaker. 
Together they compose new words and music for the planet Holst omitted from his suite as "astrologically insignificant" presenting an additional movement to their recomposed version of Holst's iconic Planets Suite.






 

"Stevens flying like a dragonfly above her battery of percussion instruments, Pound sitting almost motionless, wrangling grunts and runs from mouth organ and melodeon at astonishing velocity. Holst considered Earth ‘astrologically insignificant’, so didn’t include our home in The Planets. Pound and Stevens put this to rights with new music, and Macfarlane with profound new words: ‘hope is a discipline, despair a luxury’."

Songlines Magazine

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“Delia Stevens and Will Pound are musician-composers of dazzling skill and craft, and the work of both updating and completing Holst’s Planets suite feels both urgent and exciting. Earth’s vast, miraculous sound-world mustn’t dim to become a silent — or silenced — planet. In music, word and performance, we want to communicate the wonder, awe and fragility of the planet we inhabit.”
Robert Macfarlane
 

Neither of us ever imagined the sheer ambition of this genre-bending piece existing in our lives until we got in the rehearsal room and sparks started flying as folk and classical traditions collided! Then along came Robert Macfarlane who turned our world upside down again. His words have brought our planets even more life with his inimitable ability to convey a message about the possible futures of our planet in such a characterful and evocatively musical tone. It is thrillingly joyful and a huge honour to be performing this new work with him live.” 

Stevens & Pound