Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

I have dedicated Ozzie Bush Birds to the brilliant flautist Julia Fekete-Berky. Julia's vision and insight into this programmatic and atmospheric work of mine is astonishing, as is her impeccable technique.
This work was inspired by the many native Australian birds that inhabit my Arcadian rural property in NSW. The music is episodic in concept and in structure . It is an evocative work with many different moods.
The flute represents the birds - their flight movements, their birdcalls, their song patterns, and even angry birds in the cadenza.
The piano represents the earth, the trees, the bush, the scrub, and the undergrowth as found in the Australian bush. The concept of these features is portrayed in the pianistic pedal points
and in the arpeggo figures.
The harmonic resources I have used stabilises yet generates the overall atmosphere of this work. At times the harmony can be modal.
From the outset the piano establishes an E centred atmospheric sound before the cantabile flute enters with the main lyrical theme.
The central section entitled "The Bird Call Episode" is the main contrasting episode. Here the piano generates an austere atmosphere with its minimalistic ostinato repetitive figures. The
flute plays many different and intricate ornamental bird call patterns.
The structure is in Rondo form with a brilliant flute cadenza. The contrasting episodes feature bird calls. The main lyrical theme is given to the solo flute in the keys of E minor and C Minor.
In contrast the piano ostinato figures and the sweeping arpeggios give a vision of the landscape I am describing.
Overall in this work, the music creates a spaciousness and a feeling of distance. This was my aim to reveal the vastness to be found in the Australian landscape, where the bush birds live.

Work Details

Year: 2014

Instrumentation: Flute, piano.

Duration: 10 min.

Dedication note: Dedicated to Julia Fekete-Berky

First performance: by Julia Fekete-Berky, Evgeny Ukhanov at Carlson Chorale (Mount St Benedict Convent) on 16 Nov 2014