Thomas Hewitt Jones: The Same Flame
The composer and author took it upon themselves to celebrate these seven values, Respect, Excellence, Friendship, Courage, Equality, Determination and Inspiration in five movements, so four of them had to double up – Friendship with Equality and Courage with Determination.
All five movements of The Same Flame are published as individual octavos. A complete vocal score is available on request.
You left your mark on me
This piece is essentially a surge of enthusiasm, an outpouring of grateful hyperbole from one who’s inspired towards one who inspires. Hopefully we will all find someone who inspires us in this way. Who knows, some of us may even become one who inspires…
Respectfully Yours
The piece takes the form of a letter from those who have long been disenfranchised and excluded – they could be one of a number of groups! – and who, though now welcomed into the fold, cannot take acceptance for granted. The memory of rejection is raw and recent. With polite reserve underwritten by passion, they respectfully reaffirm their claim to be ‘of the same flame’.
Guts and Grace
A friend passed on the quote, “Courage doesn’t always roar” (later discovered to be the title of a book by Mary Ann Radmacher) and Guts and Grace considers courage and determination as essentially private qualities, mothered by dark necessity, but on occasion needing to step up publicly, especially in the sporting arena, and ‘roar’.
All-weather friends
A composition about friendship, and we really hope it's self-explanatory! All the words you don't recognise mean 'friend' (we hope) in various languages, Japanese, Georgian, Turkish, Swahili etc. The song makes bold assertions about friendship that we hope you agree with. But if you don't, we can still be friends.
Excellence
Conveniently named after the aspiration that inspired it, Excellence makes the not always popular point that excellence is not achieved overnight, nor by accident. While spelling out, rather relentlessly, the 'doggedness, diligence, discipline, [and] drudgery, that go into achieving 'poetry in motion', the song also celebrates the attainment of those who achieve excellence and comes to the inescapable conclusion that the 'unbegrudged dudgery' is worth it!
About the composer
Thomas Hewitt Jones is an award-winning composer of concert and commercial music. Winner of the BBC Young Composer competition in 2003, he has since had a number of pieces performed, broadcast and published. His ballet, vocal and instrumental music, in particular, is highly acclaimed. His carol ‘Child of the Stable’s Secret Birth’ was premiered by John Rutter and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2010, and he has had pieces published by Faber Music, ABRSM, Novello & Co, Universal Music and Oxford University Press as well as Boosey & Hawkes. Thomas has also worked in Hollywood, and composed the music for the 2012 Olympics Mascots animated films.
