Behind Lisa O’Neill's 'Symphony for the Cold Moon'

The first time I heard the sounds of a symphony was while watching the film E.T.  I was an infant.  My eyes were young, my ears were young and my imagination was getting born.  As far as I was concerned, there was no separation between the picture, the music and the feelings that this story evoked in me.  It was all one.  Like many children in the 1980's, I had fallen in love with this extra-terrestrial and this music was the language of the heart taking flight.  It conjured in me feelings of adoration for one who is different, a taste of love, of letting go and of hope all rolled into one symphony,  John Williams' sublime Flying theme.

In my innocence, I had no knowledge of strings and horns, of keys and drums.  I didn't know composers or conductors existed. I didn't know that John Williams or Steven Spielberg existed, but E.T. did exist.  Thinking back on it now, how and why as children we were all so immensely moved and impacted by this Alien's flight via the moon?  I am convinced it was the music, it was the vibrations of the symphony that pulled at our heartstrings and gave us wings and left an imprint of awe in us. It was not digital. It was the real thing. Real things have lasting affects.  Music is after all a universal language, with or without words it has the power to transport us on a cellular level to the celestial heavens and the underworlds. 

I never dreamed then, that I would someday become a songwriter.  Nor did I think that I would ever have the chance to bring my own ideas to a symphony orchestra, or that someone would someday write a score for songs that began as tiny seeds in my human heart.

At Shane MacGowans 60th birthday in the NCH in 2018, I met and worked with multi instrumentalist Terry Edwards.  He was the musical director for that extraordinary one off concert in celebration of Shane and his song writing.  Later that year we worked together again, revisiting Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones album.  Certain seeds fell onto fertile ground and the winds have taken us to an exciting moment, where in recent months, Terry Edwards has been writing an orchestral score for a collection of my original songs.  I am sincerely over the moon to be working with him. 

December 11th falls around the Cold Moon which is final full moon of the calendar year.   It is symbolic of a death and rebirth cycle and is otherwise known as the long night moon.  My only gig in London this year brings me back to the Barbican where on this night with the Britten Sinfonia, we will visit songs from my studio albums, Same Cloth or Not, Pothole in the Sky, Heard A Long Gone Song, All of This Is Chance and maybe even introduce the beginning of something new as we reach the end of another year.