« Hear my prayer (After Purcell) » was commissioned by Canzona and Artistic Director Kathleen Allan as a companion piece to Purcell’s « Hear my prayer, O Lord ». It is fascinating and humbling to work with musical material surviving from 1682, and even more so the text from Psalm 102, originally written and sung almost three millennia ago. My approach to this piece was to present fragments of Purcell’s composition as if looking through the distorted lens of time; bits of original material are warped, stretched out or sliced into small fleeting moments, and woven together with new material. The use of audible breath in my work alludes to its significance in prayer and meditation, and its ability to help steady and calm oneself in moments of affliction. In this piece, I reflect on the inhale and the prayer itself as part of a timeless ritual of sorts, one that has been passed down over thousands of years, a collective breath uniting countless individuals across time, space and circumstance.