This Haitian Lullaby with Variants for Flute and Guitar was written in response to an invitation issued to members of the Delian Society to contribute a variation to the forthcoming Delian Suite No. 6—a project to be undertaken by this international group of composers in aid of Haitian disaster appeal funds and realised for the combination of flute and guitar. Given an original form of the melody, I produced two contrasting variations: one a slow, sad "Lamento" expressing something of the helplessness of those caught up in such a natural disaster, the other a fast and swirling "Tarentelle" expressing something of the dramatic upheaval of the earthquake which played such havoc with the people of this already impoverished nation. It seemed a necessary consequence to seek to surround these two variations with an initial statement of the 'theme' and some form of musical resolution of the tension being expressed in the variations. Hence the theme stated at first by the flute and then, with decorations, by the guitar, and the final two statements of resignation and repose. The progress of the whole work can also be read as following the storyline of the lullaby in which promises of the dreadful visitation of a crab upon a child who will not go to sleep become transmuted into reassurances when the child goes to sleep happy in the thought of the crab having been turned into the main ingredient of a tasty soup!