On Tuesday 7th August, Judith Weir held a concert at the main auditorium at the Purcell School of Music as part of the Sound and Music Summer School. She started by showing a piece that she wrote called ‘Sundew’ which was written for a duet for the cello and the violin. The piece was inspired by the sundew plant which grows in Scotland which has globules that look like dew to attract prey. Then she moved on to talking about the importance of repetition and ‘graphic notation’. She used examples such as ‘Storm Music’ and ‘Paper Wings’ to express this.

The event was eye opening as I had never heard of graphic notation before, and I enjoyed learning how music can be written in so many different ways, not only the standard notation for instruments. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the performance as a whole, I would have liked it if we heard more of Judith Weir’s own compositions, and if she talked about her thought process whilst writing a piece. This would have been useful as it would have given me some ideas on what to think whilst writing my piece during the summer school.