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7 Interesting things about 7 Last Words for the Earth

Andrew Staniland • May 9, 2023

7 last words for the earth - a concerto for percussion and women's choir

#1 This project has been three years in the making

I delivered the score just before the pandemic. The planned premiere, like so many others, was put in COVID limbo. As public health restrictions eased, we were able to get the first half recorded in October 2021, followed by the 2nd half in April 2023. A lot has happened and changed in that time, but one thing that has remained is the climate emergency.


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  • 7 pics from 7 words

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#2 - Conspiracy, misinformation, secrets and codes

Hot topics of late. The third movement "7 Secrets" explores this in an urgent, secretive and kind of paranoid manner. This movement features a section where the choir becomes a 'live looper' for a percussion solo.  Interestingly, type “Seven Secrets” in a search engine, and autocomplete gives  some ... suggestions:

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#3 - RAGE!!!


Having a moment to express rage was cathartic for everyone. Interestingly, after each ferocious  'chaos chord' , we all erupted in gregarious laughter - it was a real and much-needed release.

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#4 Rob Power.


Rob Power is extraordinary. Everything he touches sounds musical and magical, be it a gong, one of his homemade instruments, or even a thermos. New Paragraph

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#5 Also Rob Power.


Rob invented a new instrument just for this piece, for a reoccurring pattern that I originally suggested gongs and vibes for. It does not have a name yet, but it sounds gorgeous: New Paragraph

# 6 Hope


Despite the main title this piece is actually about Hope. '7 last words for the earth' is of course in line with so many other "last words" pieces, which are generally religious in nature. This work is a secular take on that idea, and is focussed on the very real climate catastrophe. 


The Hope movement is based on a set of prayer bowls assembled by Rob Power. The tuning of these instruments is of course under no obligation to make sense to tempered tuning, and the choir gets to sing in a special intonation that is not quite tempered, and a little bit microtonal.



Fun fact that Lady Cove's music director Kellie Walsh's mothers name was Hope :)

#7 - Lady Cove Rocks


This piece calls for all kinds of crazy textural, off-the-beaten-path singing, and Lady Cove was down for it all. Coached by new music expert Michael Zaugg and conductor Kellie Walsh, they were unstoppable, expressing a dazzling array of power and emotion. 7 Last Words for the Earth will drop at a secret time on a secret label, all to be revealed soon.


Fun fact: Michael Zaugg's choir warmups are better than many new pieces...just sayin'.

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All photos by Andrew Staniland


7 Last Words for the Earth is a concerto for percussion and women's choir, commissioned by Lady Cove

 Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Score available from composer

Scoring SKEET

By Andrew Staniland • February 10, 2025
Finding Billy Skinner's Sound Finding the right tone for Billy Skinner and his black and white cinematic world was key. The music needed to evoke empathy for Billy while complementing the black and white cinematography of Nigel Markham. This was achieved through careful instrumentation and the strategic use of musical motifs. The 'band' for Skeet consists of electric and acoustic guitars, synths, strings, piano, tube amps, and old school FX. The unifying musical motif is "Billy's Theme," uses a pivoting figure: a low note and a high note rocking back and forth on a middle fulcrum. This motif represents Billy's struggle to balance—he has an equal capacity to both fall back to violence and addiction, and to rise up in hope and love. Though I called it "Billy's Theme," I feel everyone's struggle in this motif as well: Mohamed, as a Syrian refugee making a life in Canada, and Leah and Mae as struggling addicts. This simple but effective motif holds the score together from beginning to end. You can hear this motif in all of the Livingston Variations, and in Billy's Theme.

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Inventions for Trumpets

By Andrew Staniland • September 22, 2020
A new piece for trumpets written during the early pandemic Inventions for Trumpets is a series of 5 movements: Sirens, Butterflies, The Secret Death Toll of American Drones, Ghosts, and Rip. The piece can be played as an acoustic duo for 2 trumpets, and as an electronic version where the 2nd trumpet part is reimagined for the electroacoustic medium.  Sirens is a study on siren-like glissandos and siren sounds on both the trumpet and in the electronics, and the internal feeling of alarm and fear that accompanied the early days of the pandemic. Butterflies – this explores flutter technique on the trumpet, while the electronics explore closely recorded insects and other freely associated sounds, as well as rustling piano sounds reminiscent of previous work electroacoustic work Orion Constellation Theory. The title The Secret Death Toll of American Drones comes from a NYTimes article of the same name that crossed my newsfeed. It is a virtuoso etude for piccolo trumpet intended to evoke a quasi-military style. The work begins in a call and response between high trumpet and low trumpet, or trumpet and electronics, then moves to unison statement by the end. The electronics and acoustic versions both use a drone pedal to anchor the virtuoso lines, while the electronics use freely associated sounds inspired by the title of the movement Ghosts is a quiet and slow exploration timbre and colour that focuses on air sounds, valve noise, and breath. The electronics feature an import voice from the past, a ghost as it were, from my early days as an electroacoustic composer. Rip is a playful virtuoso duo that is based around rips, which are quick and exciting runs up an overtone series. This movement does not have a prepared electroacoustic part, rather, the trumpeter is invited to record the 2nd trumpet part and play the first part along with it. The piece was written in the lockdown period of the COVID 19 pandemic, between March and August 2020. It was written for Alan Klaus with financial support from the SOCAN foundation. Premiere coming online in November 2020 at the Newfound Music Festival. Details coming soon!
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