Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

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Work Overview

An excerpt from String Quartet: An AIDS Activist's Memoir in Music.

From notes to String Quartet: An AIDS Activist's Memoir in Music - "Although I mostly focused on obtaining experimental treatments, I once joined a protest in Parliament House against Member Franca Arena's campaign to give financial compensation to people she called "innocent victims of AIDS" - meaning people with medically acquired HIV - at the exclusion of everyone else, like gay men and other "guilty" victims. The heated confrontation between her and me was captured on Channel 9. Only later did I actually understand her motivations - I discovered Mrs Arena had twin gay sons, whom she loved but hated that they were gay. Having not just one but both her sons be gay is the "greatest sorrow", she said. Estranged, the boys fail to attend a family Christmas. She attempted suicide, thwarted by her husband. Her "innocent victims" campaign was her struggle to resolve a powerful conflict - to do doing something about AIDS, an issue that affected gay men like her sons, yet to maintain the 'wrongness' of homosexuality by excluding people like her sons from benefiting. Realising all this, my anger was ambushed by an unexpected feeling: compassion. I still thought what she did was wrong, but I also knew everyone does their best with the mental and emotional resources we have available. The first two sections of music are extensions of my ACT UP music. The third was written thinking I was glad the Arena twins had each other in the times they didn't have their mother; the main melody is shared between two indistinguishable violins, like twins who finish each other's sentences.

Work Details

Year: 2012

Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, cello.

Duration: 11 min.