Like as the waves
​for SATB Choir and Soprano Saxophone

Like as the waves is a setting of the opening two lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 60, combined with several lines from the plainsong Ubi Caritas. In 2025, the saxophonist Huw Wiggin asked me whether I could write a piece for choir and saxophone based on plainsong. At the time, my father was in the final weeks of his life, and I was thinking a lot about Sonnet No. 60 by Shakespeare. This compares the movement of waves to time passing and the approach of death. It also evoked a memory of a childhood family visit to St Winwaloe Church in Gunwalloe, on the coast of Cornwall. The church sits next to the beach, close to the sea in a stunning location. I decided to set the opening two lines of Shakespeare's sonnet in combination with the Ubi Caritas plainsong, with the sea and the church coming together to represent the passing of time. Sounds of the sea and seagulls are evoked by the choir, while the saxophone 'flies' above like a bird. The piece builds to a passionate and troubled climax before coming to a peaceful rocking section, where the plainsong is introduced. In the same way that the church represents history and community, so the plainsong binds the piece together in an act of remembrance.

​Available from Aria Editions here

Listen to a live performance by the BBC Singers and Jess Gillam (saxophone) here:

​Like as the waves (7'41)

​Like as the waves was composed in February 2026 and premiered by St Martins Voices, Andrew Earis (conductor) and Huw Wiggin (saxophone) at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London on 17th March 2026.

Duration: c.7'30 mins

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
So do our minutes hasten to their end.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exsultemus et in ipson jucundemur.

(Where charity and love are, God is there.
Love of Christ has gathered us into o