Joseph Lewis Derri

Something Exciting

Among the brightest of emerging creative voices in music, Derri Joseph Lewis is a composer whose work engages with contemporary subjects, notably issues of LGBTQIA+ identity. Dedicated to the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Something Exciting is a vivid autobiographical testimony to the complex experience of coming out to parents. Derri’s own words from an actual WhatsApp text to his father are set to uplifting music conveying the unique sense of affirmation and anxiety of that moment. Slow-moving iterations of the message are announced against ecstatic foreground ostinati, suggesting both the personal memory of time passing slowly and quickly simultaneously, and a universal theme, that coming out is not just a single occasion, but rather ‘a never-ending series of small - yet significant - conversations’. Thrilling to sing, challenging in its fusion of contemporary art and life, Something Exciting will resonate deeply with singers and audiences, with a lasting impact beyond the irrepressible energy and precision of the notes themselves.