Composer Malcolm Lindsay's new album, After the Snow, features a piece co-written with clarinettist Barnaby Robson called Watkins, which is inspired by the photography of Margaret Watkins. 

The gallery above features six of Watkins's photographs with descriptions by Malcolm Lindsay about how each played a role in the creative process. Lindsay explains, 'The piece began as an ambient soundtrack which through collaboration with Barnaby Robson developed into a multi-layered work. The creative process involved constructing a sound landscape from sampled and manipulated audio to reflect Margaret's intriguing images and enigmatic life. Barnaby then responded to this with eight clarinet lines, and then we started to introduce further electronic sampling and began manipulating some of the clarinet parts. I wanted to introduce spoken word into the piece and so worked on a recording using Margaret's own poetic words. As we moved towards finalising the piece through late night exchanges of digital files between Glasgow and London, we experimented with reversing and clipping parts of the sound track. I think what we’ve created is rather filmic in nature though we didn’t set out to do that but in trying to capture something of the essence of her photography, I think we’ve produced a piece that has a sense of mystery, beauty and poignancy.'

The world premiere of Watkins takes place in the Recital Hall at the Royal College of Music on February 5. After the Snow is released on February 9 (pre-order it from Amazon).

Margaret Watkins images are owned by Joe Mulholland, Hidden Lane Gallery, Glasgow and used by kind permission.

Select an image above to open the gallery.