Statues (5 songs)

Contents: The Statues Awake, Venus & Apollo, Flowers, The Ghosts of Flesh, Reality

“STATUES” was composed especially for soprano Wendy Dixon & pianist David Miller and takes its text from a Kenneth Slessor poem called “Realities”.  Slessor meditates on the beauty of another dimension or ‘reality’ within some of the etchings of the artist Norman Lindsay.  The ‘image’ is of statues coming to life, or maybe they have always been alive, behind our own reality.  I also took as inspiration the beautiful setting of Norman Lindsay’s own statues in the garden of his house at Springwood in the Blue Mountains.  A place where on a warm sunny afternoon, time could very well stand still, and this whole other world exist!

The cycle was premiered by Wendy & David on December 4th 2005 at the Crows Nest Performing Arts Centre in Sydney.