In 2010 I was invited to be composer-in-residence at the Exon Singers Festival. As part of my residency I was commissioned by the festival's director Matthew Owens to compose a new setting of the “Salve Regina” (a Marian hymn popular with composers from Vittoria to Schubert and beyond) for Radio 3's broadcast of Choral Evensong from Buckfast Abbey. The resulting piece takes the opening four notes of the original plainchant (solemn tone) as its starting point, these then being elaborated through ...