we could be diving for pearls

'we could be diving for pearls' is a hymn to the worker, scored for vocal ensemble and
live electronics, with text by Declan Synnott. The piece was developed taking the
hymn ‘Gresford’, (often referred to as ‘The Miners Hymn’) by Robert Saint as a
starting point. This hymn was written in 1936 to commemorate the Gresford miners
of North Wales, following a fatal mining disaster in 1934.
Whilst ‘Gresford’ is a workers memorial for an historical event, the idea of worker
precarity, breaches of safety, and the feeling of being locked into an economic
system of supply and demand is just as relevant in the present day. we could be
diving for pearls explores these issues from the perspective and desires of the
worker.