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Work Overview
There is something very human about the need to understand the world through cycles. Some cycles are natural, like the change in seasons or the circadian rhythms that govern our sleep patterns. Others are imposed by people, like musical patterns, social cycles or the growth and harvest of crops. Cycles explain birth, life and death, giving order to what otherwise might seem like chaos, through comforting inevitability.
Lake examines life cycles and their role in human connection. Inspired by loss, connection and departure, the text draws extracts from Claire Nashar's 2016 anthology of the same name. Nashar's original text is a twofold elegy: for her grandmother, learning geology academic Beryl Nashar, and also for Lake Tuggerah, an estuary on the Central Coast of NSW. Navigating human loss and family history through a lens of biodegradation, it is a contrast of macro and micro worlds: of biospheres in one moment, and of organisms and an individual's relationship to people and place in the next.
My work with this text has been to extract universal themes to create something that is my own. By extracting these broader themes in Nashar's world, whilst honoring the elements that make it so striking, Lake becomes its own force rooted in rich source material: the next chapter in an evolutionary life cycle. I'm grateful to Claire for trusting me with this text, to the ABC for their faith in my writing, and to AJ and Luminescence Chamber Singers for their exceptional ability as artistic collaborators and peers.
Work Details
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: Soprano, Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, Bass.
Duration: 10 min.
Difficulty: Advanced
Contents note: I. I held you I'm hold -- II. Erasure -- III. The Northerly Blew -- IV. To reed you as my inside.
Commission note: Commissioned by ABC Composer Commissioning Fund.. Written and recorded for ABC Classic as part of the 2022 Composer Commissioning Fund.
Contribute submitted styles, genres, influences, etc:
Chamber music, a Capella, solo voices, choral, nature, ecosystems, water
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