Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow

by Jane Harbour

Titled with a line from Keats’ “A Song of Opposites”, this tune is from Spiro’s album “Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow'”. The track rides the line between those extremes, like sunlight striking the surface of a deep body of water.

Jane Harbour is a composer and musician living in Bristol, England. She is the driving force and main composer with Spiro, who she formed in 1993, playing violin and viola. She was classically trained in the Suzuki method and studied with Shinichi Suzuki in Japan, and became inspired by Bach, Bartok, Britten and Stravinsky. Her composition later became influenced by electronica, American minimalism and systems music. Spiro sprang from the folk session scene, its members sharing a love of traditional music. Jane quickly developed her trademark intricacy and interplay, featured on the Spiro’s seven releases on Real World Records, which Spiro have toured internationally. In 2017, her piece Kynde, a BBC Radio 3 commission for six voices, orchestra and archive recording, was performed live on Radio 3 by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC singers. Jane has also written for theatre, TV, and live film and for other ensembles, including her leftfield pop 9-piece, The Small Mammal Mirror. Her latest composition is for Spiro and Synergy Vocals, due to record and tour soon.