1 Wave
2 Breath-Cloud
3 Sand
4 Silence
5 All Whiteness

What is the story?

In 2019, Laura Bowler came across Korean writer Han Kang’s The White Book (2016) and was reading it while her mother was in hospital in Manchester being treated for acute myeloid leukaemia. ‘The book reflected a lot of what I was feeling at the time’, says Bowler, ‘and it was a great comfort in some ways. I didn’t feel as lonely when I was reading it’. Bowler’s mother was given the all-clear in 2022 but, tragically, died in an accident two months later. Kang’s book takes the form of 65 short prose reflections on the death of an older sister who had died two hours after being born, each one seen through the prism of a white-coloured object – salt, snow, sugar cubes, breast milk – which together, the author has said, ‘can be read as a narrative poem’. It’s an exploration of loss, memory and survival.

Bowler selected five fragments from the book – ‘Wave’, ‘BreathCloud’, ‘Sand’, ‘Silence’ and ‘All Whiteness’ – to set to music in a work for amplified soprano, orchestra and live electronics. ‘These were the texts that, for me personally, most captured the complexities of grief. They were also the ones whose imagery I most associated with thinking about life and breath and the loss of life’. Bowler has been delighted by soprano Barbara Hannigan’s penetrating interpretative abilities. ‘It’s thrilling. It’s like she read my mind. She completely understood the piece, beyond what’s written on the page, and the range of expressions of grief that I tried to portray in the vocal line’.

The White Book received its world premiere only seven weeks ago, in Sweden. Tonight’s Half Six Fix allows us, for the first time in the UK, to hear this deeply personal work – part meditation, part memorial, part ritual. ‘The grief’, says Bowler, ‘isn’t operatic, it’s not explosive or wailing. It’s very 'internal'. I think anyone who has grieved will understand it’.

The London Symphony Orchestra

At the London Symphony Orchestra, we believe that extraordinary music should be available to everyone, everywhere – from orchestral fans in the concert hall to first-time listeners all over the world.

The LSO was established in 1904 as one of the first orchestras shaped by its musicians. Since then, generations of remarkable talents have built our reputation for quality, ambition and a commitment to sharing the joy of music with everyone. We perform some 70 concerts every year as Resident Orchestra at the Barbican, with our family of artists: Chief Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano, Conductor Emeritus Sir Simon Rattle, Principal Guest Conductors Gianandrea Noseda and François-Xavier Roth, Conductor Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas, and Associate Artists Barbara Hannigan and André J Thomas. We have major artistic residencies in Paris, Tokyo and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and tour regularly in Asia and the US.

Through LSO Discovery, our education and community programme, 60,000 people each year experience the transformative power of music. Our musicians are at the heart of this unique programme, leading workshops, mentoring bright young talent, and visiting schools, hospitals and community spaces. The home of much of this work is LSO St Luke’s, our venue on Old Street. Last year, following a programme of works, the LSO opened up the venue’s facilities to more people than ever before, with new state-of-theart recording facilities and dedicated spaces for LSO Discovery.

Our record label, LSO Live, is a leader among orchestra-owned labels, bringing to life the excitement of a live performance. The catalogue of over 200 acclaimed recordings reflects the artistic priorities of the Orchestra – from popular new releases, such as Janáček’s Katya Kabanova with Sir Simon Rattle, to favourites like Vaughan Williams’ symphonies with Sir Antonio Pappano and Verdi’s Requiem with Gianandrea Noseda.