Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

The Ediacaran fossil world reveals the perfect symmetry of these once soft bodied creatures. In a sense, they could be understood as a peaceful co-existence of cells that assemble to become a larger organism. They are preserved in layers and folds of sandstone rock, the layers revealing fields of Ediacarans caught in a momentary immortalised event. Excavations at the Ediacaran fossil site in South Australia show these layers resembling pressed flowers between the tiered paper leaves of a book.

Enter the Cambrians into this peaceful world with their mineralised skeletons and sharp militaristic protrusions. It is debated whether their seemingly militaristic intervention brought about the demise of the Ediacarans as un-weaponised as they were. Coexistence seems a fragile affair.

The composition "Ediacaran Fields" looks to a canonic overlay of musical material as well as interventions which foreshadow the destruction of these musical overlays. The work begins seven times over, referencing the biblical beginning of life, preceding the burgeoning forth of complex life revealed as small musical cells in playful and idyllic coexistence. A sombre theme accompanies the piece reappearing as a coda and disappearing into the sound of stones hitting together in a field of silence.

The piece is also the fifth part of Cathy Milliken's orchestral cycle EARTH PLAYS.

Work Details

Year: 2022

Instrumentation: 3 Flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets in B flat, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, 2 percussion, vibraphone, harp, strings.

Duration: 15 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Commission note: Commissioned by Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.. Commissioned by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and supported by Mary Louise Simpson in honour of her mother, Grace Margaret McArthur.