Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

This song cycle was written specifically for the instruments and skill-sets found in MARA!, a cross-cultural band which hybridises elements of Anglo-Celtic folk music, folk music styles from the Balkans, Türkiye and Persia, jazz improvisation, and rock. The five poems reflect some of the languages which have helped shape MARA!'s cross-cultural journey. 'When Music Plays...' traces a narrative of love, the emotive potency of music, fallibility, and the healing power of reflection. The language of each poem offers a different lens through which to appreciate life and the world-each offering its own imagery and 'music'. The addition of the string quartet further hybridises the performance practice of this music to include art-music.

Hearing poetry in an unfamiliar language can present barriers, or it can open up new ways to hear human expression. The metre and intonation of each language carries its own emotional affect in its tone and rhythm, before we even consider its intended meaning. Once we delve into the potential translations (and there can often be more than one), we can encounter unexpected perspectives on familiar human themes. While a translation may be an imperfect rendering of the original idea, it can still offer a window to a different way to express the human condition. Once an unfamiliar language is set to music, the abstraction of that language's sounds become part of the music, unmediated by the barrier of specificity.

Mara Kiek has made a career from singing songs in ancient and modern languages of the Balkans, Western Europe, Türkiye and Persia. Kiek's expressive and compelling voice evolved in tandem with the discovery and inspiration offered by the many cross-cultural connections and collaborations in her career. For over 40 years, Kiek's ARIA winning band MARA! has been a platform for presenting music of many cultures-particularly those of the Balkans-layered with its members' international credentials in the worlds of jazz, classical, improvised and original music.

In selecting poetry for her to sing in this current song-cycle, I consulted closely with Kiek, casting the linguistic net wide, to eventually select five poems: one Australian, two Serbian and two Greek. These have been arranged to form a loose narrative, starting with the ephemeral nature of love, progressing through themes of passion, fallibility, remembrance, and reflection.

Work Details

Year: 2025

Instrumentation: Voice (doubling tapan and Turkish spoons), soprano saxophone in B flat, tenor saxophone in B flat, alto flute in G, clarinet and bass clarinet in B flat, guitar (DADGAD tuning), bouzouki, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass.

Duration: 32 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Stylistic hybridisation; Voice range uses the Balkan teshka (heavy voice) style. Band parts require modal, harmonic, and textural improvisation skills.

Contents note: 1. Love's Calling (John Shaw Neilson) 2. Opomena (Desanka Maksimović) 3. Ohola Greška  (Vasko Popa) 4. Fonés  (C.F. Kavafy) 5.Thálassas Tou Proióu (C.F. Kavafy).

Commission note: It has been my privilege to make this hybridity and collaboration the focus of my PhD study. The song cycle we are performing is the final part of my creative practice portfolio.