Program note:

“PINE TREES” was written as the finale to the
oratorio “A CELEBRATION OF TREES”, a collaboration between Scottish author and poet Alexander McCall Smith and composers at Lilla Akademien, a music school I attended at the time.

The purpose of the project was to create a musical response to the issue of deforestation and the preservation of trees; the fourteen poems that Sandy produced all reflected this in their varied celebrations of the natural world; they highlight the importance of trees to our climate, community and humanity.

Upon reading “PINE TREES”, I was struck by the feeling of natural romanticism that the text evoked; a (perhaps idealised) view of a northern landscape dominated by ancient trees, their "hold upon the land" as firm as their foundations.

-Oskar Österling, 2023