Howard, Emily - Voluntary

Voluntary by Emily Howard is an 8-minute work for solo cello which takes a tiny fragment of the first movement of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata as its focal point. The fragment is repeated over and over again in myriad different ways, in an immersive exploration of the expected unexpectedly. Seeking this boundary and discovering where the threshold may lie is behind the thinking in Voluntary.

Commissioned as part of the 200 series for the 200th Anniversary of the Royal Academy of Music, London, the work was first performed there by Theo Bently Curtin on 19 October 2021.