Emmy award-winning composer Michael Price shares the beautiful new piece Sandham, taken from his forthcoming album Tender Symmetry released on August 31 with Erased Tapes. 

The ambitious musical project takes in a series of iconic National Trust locations across the UK as its inspiration, turning them into unlikely recording spaces. Michael and a host of musicians and collaborators — including soprano Grace Davidson (featured on Max Richter’s Sleep) and Shards (the choir on Nils Frahm’s All Melody) — travelled across the country in pursuit of places far removed from the traditional studio to create seven unique and moving pieces.

"Sandham Memorial Chapel, built in the 1920s, is both a place of reflection and healing, but also a timely reminder, though the extraordinary paintings of Stanley Spencer, of the horrors of war. Stepping out of the fragrant wild-flower garden and into the cool, naturally-lit interior of the chapel was a transportation to a time early in the last century where young men and women were either inflicting terrible injuries on each other, or tenderly caring for those wounds. A place that is both uniquely of the First World War, and utterly contemporary." — Michael Price 

The diversity of Michael Price’s choices ranges from the ruins of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to the Fan Bay WWII shelter, cut deep into the chalk cliffs of Dover. All owned by the National Trust save one, each venue became both the inspiration and the recording studio for Michael Price and his accompaniment of renowned musical ensembles, choirs and soloists.

"I am interested in where we build our homes in an increasingly virtual world and the spirit of place we feel as we walk our local streets, our schools, temples and public spaces. Taking inspiration from a place, and the stories it told, then going back to that place to record, sometimes in less than ideal conditions, made the two-year adventure much more like shooting a film than making a record.” — Michael Price

Michael Price will premiere Tender Symmetry live at London’s Kings Place on September 6.

· listen to Sandham

· pre-order Tender Symmetry on LP/CD/DL

· book tickets for Kings Place