How do you commemorate something without celebrating it?
It’s a question I found myself asking when faced with a recent commission, a request for a composition to mark the 250th anniversary of the sermon that became known as Amazing Grace. On the face of it, the task looked fairly simple; I was being invited to write a choral piece for a concert that would be the summation of a year-long round of events, lectures, displays and discussions, with one of the world’s most iconic hymns at its centre.
