Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Olegas Truchanas was a pioneering photographer whose images of the Tasmanian wilderness are legendary. Olegas was closely associated with the struggle to save Lake Pedder from being flooded by the Hydro-Electric Commission in 1972, and he remains a hero of the environmental movement.

Olegas and his friends embark on a breathtaking project, staging exhibitions of Olegas' photographs in the Hobart Town Hall that show Lake Pedder and the surrounding environments in all their splendor. The public flocks to see and a determined resistance against the Commission's plans begins to take root.

However, despite all of Olegas' efforts, the plan to inundate the lake is given the all-clear and Lake Pedder is lost. But Olegas will not give up the fight. Knowing more of the wilderness is under threat he embarks on another river trip to take photographs to replace those burnt in the 1967 bush fires. Musically, I have quoted fragments from the works of Sibelius and Delius that Olegas Truchanas loved so much.

Work Details

Year: 2007

Instrumentation: High baritone, flute, clarinet in B flat, English horn, soprano saxophone, bassoon, 2 horns in F, strings, percussion (2 players).

Duration: 6 min.

Difficulty: Medium

Commission note: Commissioned by IHOS Music Theatre & Opera

Concert aria from the opera 'Olegas'.