It began with four words. In 2026, with the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s New Testament, my mind kept coming back to his simple, yet powerful phrase: “Let there be light.”

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The first piece, I. Let there be Light, is about that moment of light at it's beginning. I imagined something cosmic and weightless, with small musical motifs behaving like elements: drifting, finding one another, and settling into place. While these pieces have no words, you may notice the rising melodic phrase behind Let there be Light.

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I’ve loosely shaped the whole cycle as a chiasmus, an ancient Hebrew literary technique and way of telling a story in which ideas move inward to a focal point and then return in mirror image: A, B, C, D, C, B, A. Whatever sits at the centre is what matters most. Here, the centre is light itself.

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So the music searches for light in four stages: its ordering, its patterns, a single moment, and finally space and light. Then it turns and retraces its steps, changed by what it found.

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For now, Songs of Light is three pieces for solo piano, exploring light’s order, its patterns and the space it fills. One day, in a not too distant future, I plan to re-arrange and compose them for choir and carried by an orchestra. I would love for you to follow along as the process develops.

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— Jack Tyndale-Biscoe