Great songs need great words.
Great songs need great words.
If you’re after a new libretto for your project, please get in touch. Maybe you’ve got some words but you want to tweak them, or you’ve got an initial idea and need to flesh it out, or you’ve got no idea at all and need some inspo. Maybe you’ve already got a melody, or some melodic snippets or maybe you need words to get started.
I’m a total song-bird word nerd and love writing words with and for interesting people and projects, so please do give me a hoy.
How I became a librettist
Libretto writing is part poetry, part playwriting and part storytelling. But more than that, beautiful libretto comes from a deep understanding of how words interact with music, how words sound when they’re sung, and how words sit in singers’ voices. I started singing 40 years ago, and have sung all sorts of songs, and taught all sorts of singers. There’s nothing like decades of singing and working with singers to learn how important different vowels and consonants are in songs.
To get to grips with how words work in live storytelling, I studied writing and acting. I’ve written poetry and plays and even briefly worked as a corporate writer in my wild youth.
My song-words include lyrics for simple songs, poems for art-songs, and libretto for opera and sacred works. I’ve adapted stories, myths and sacred text, and drawn inspiration from history and ecology. Sometimes I’ve created libretto from fragments of different writers’ texts like word mosaics.
Alongside setting my own text to music, I’ve collab’ed with singers, composers and directors. I’ve worked in beautiful community music projects, co-writing lullabies with families for their babies, and now I teach song-writing to undergrads.
If you would like to talk about all your libretto needs, please get in touch.
Soprano and harpist Emma Horwood’s beautiful recording of Swan Of Ire, the final song in the song cycle THE STORY OF BRIGID. Gorgeous video by Emlyn.
The sun calls to the birds, “leave the lake. Fly home now.”
With beating wings the swans rise up, filling the air with their sound.
Swan of Ire. Swan of fire.
“Come home now,” calls the sun.
Swan of Ire. Swan of fire.
“Come home now, exalted one.”
Brigid walks to the shore, for she has heard the sun's words.
With outstretched arms she rises up, into the sky with the birds.
Swan of Ire. Swan of fire.
“Come home now,” calls the sun.
Swan of Ire. Flame of fire. “
Come home now, exalted one.”
Brigid stands in the sky, spinning sunlight into words.
She sends them down to the poets, borne on the wings of flying birds.
Stunning South Australian soprano Sidonie Henbest and pianist Mark Sandon perform my setting of PRAYER FOR MOTHER, a meditation on psalm 23.
At dawn the last of her night stars steer my path.
Through the trees I see the way. I see the way.
When the sun is hot I rest in her green grass,
I drink from her river. I am restored.
She lifts me high in her expectation.
She holds me close when I am hurt.
She talks me through my fears.
I have heard death’s low drum,
But She knows the smallness of death in the vast universe
and is not afraid.
She feeds me, she nurtures my body, she fortifies me.
Like a child I surrender. I rest my head against her.
She will bring sanctuary to my weary, weary soul.
For all of the days of my life.
LET ME SING THE WORLD
A beautiful choral piece composed by Joe Twist. We wrote the text together. to create an anthem for choristers on why we sing together.
Poetry And Other Writing
A poetry anthology
Detailed thoughts on text-setting