Contents: The Child, The Maker, Woman to Child, Seasonal Flocking, Lament for Passenger Pigeons
This suite comes from a piece written in 2005 for the Festival of Arts and Activism in Braidwood (near Canberra). The festival honoured the work of Judith Wright, a poet and enviromental activist. The original performance was semi-staged and included many more of Wright’s poems. I worked with storyteller Jane Ahlquist, alternating readings of the poems with solo flute. Later I reworked the music into a suite of five pieces.
Contents: Evening Romance, Aerobics, The Flingamango Tango, Isla’s Blues, Jim’s Song, Lament
Composer notes
Burwood Park for solo flute was composed in 2008 for Brisbane-based flautist, Janet McKay, for a concert at the Queensland Art Gallery in South Bank.
This piece is named after a park situated in a Western Sydney suburb. Programmatically, Burwood Park consists of five sections depicting the sounds of nature and people we come across as we walk through the park: birds and the wind in the trees, children singing and playing, chess players getting stressed and agitated, screaming and shouting at each other and Tai Chi dancing.
Burwood Park begins in a slow, mysterious and improvisatory style. A quirky, rhythmic, birdcall motif emerges, gradually transforming into a scene of angry chess players. This is a very loud, fast, exciting and virtuosic passage which showcases the technical ability of the flautist. The final section is based on a pentatonic scale to imitate the Asian music typical of Tai Chi. A tranquil and meditative atmosphere should be conveyed to represent the Tai Chi dancers in the park; their slow dance movements moving along to the peaceful music. Whistle tone and singing techniques produce a range of soft harmonic effects to end the work.
Burwood Park features a range of extended techniques including bend, vibrato, flutter- tonguing, tongue-ram, air and key click articulation, jet whistle, whistle tone, singing, colour trill and multiphonic effects. All fingerings for the multiphonics and colour trills and other contemporary playing techniques are clearly shown on the score.
The duration of Burwood Park is 6 minutes.
Contents: Leaping Turtles, Toy Waltz, Crunchy Footsteps, Butterflies Dancing, Figurine, Through My Window, First Climb, Cool Shoes, Clock And Tickle, Proof, Juggling Popcorn, Two Faces, Daisy Chain, Dragon-fly, Only One Cloud in the Sky, Summertime in Venice
The Australian recorder player Jo Dudley commissioned this brief, virtuosic solo.
Ulpirra is an Aboriginal word meaning pipe or flute. It has been performed and recorded on many different treble instruments apart from the recorder: piccolo, flute, oboe, B-flat and E-flat clarinets, a special version for bass clarinet with handclapping accompaniment in Enyato IV, and soprano or alto saxophone.
Being short and snappy it is especially useful as an encore piece for recitals.
