2024 'Dear Wife'
Baritone singer & Cello
12/05/24 Leif Tse & Wallis Power
The Robert Anderson Trust House
London, UK.
Dear Wife is the first song of an upcoming song cycle where I intend to use authentic letters and messages discovered inside bottles in the sea as sung text, aiming to transform these unconventional sources into a compelling musical narrative. The intention is to research and gather these letters from various websites dedicated to collecting such material.
I’m interested in this concept because, in contrast to the immediacy of modern communication, these messages in bottles carry a timeless and contemplative quality and were written by a real person. They represent a true ‘poetic’ outreach in hopes of making a meaningful human connection transcending time and distance.
The text used in this song corresponds to a letter sent by Private Thomas Hughes, a 26 year old soldier, who sent this message into the English Channel, on his way to fight the Great War on September 9th, 1914.
The bottle drifted in the sea for 85 years when caught in a net by the fisherman Steve Gowan on the Essex coast, in England, 1999.
Tragically, just two days after tossing the bottle into the sea, Private Thomas Hughes was killed in combat. He left behind his wife Elizabeth and two-year-old daughter, Emily.