jamie sims

pipesmoke & rain - musical reflections of wainwright

There have been so many books and articles written about the great fellwanderer, Alfred Wainwright, that it is almost too scary to try and write or create something new and different in expressing my gratitude for this man and his amazing legacy. I have always understood the emotional connection that 'AW' had with the landscape of Cumbria and the Lake District. His need to try and capture the beauty, the magic and the myth, into something more consise and compact. His books were his way of trying to turn the incredible and beautiful into the everlasting and precious. For several years I have tried to do a similar thing, capturing fells, tarns, lakes and valleys and transforming my own vision of those places into a musical form. I will continue to do so, but not with the unbelievable precision that 'AW' did when planning his seven pictorial guides to the Lake District. He had fallen head over heals in love with this land when he first set eyes on it from Orrest Head, and never wanted to lose that first feeling ever again.

So it makes perfect sense to take a welcome diversion from my usual projects, and concentrate my composing abilities to commemorate, in my own small way, some moments in AWs incredible journey through his life.