No Friend But The Mountains - March Performances
This week is a busy one for my music. It will see the premiere of a major new work of mine for symphony orchestra, choir and bass-baritone soloists, as well as my first performance by Australia’s leading new music group Ensemble Offspring.
The big new piece is a song cycle, a singer inspired me to write it, Adrian Tamburini. This is often the case for composers, I think: you feel drawn to write for a specific voice. I recently wrote a song cycle on Les Murray’s poetry, called On Bunyah, for the singer Mark Padmore which was a fantastic collaboration and led to well received performances in the UK and Australia.
I met Adrian in February 2019. He was singing the role of Joe Byrne in my opera Ned Kelly for the Perth Festival and his clarity of text, musicality and engaging performance qualities started to sow the musical seeds of a new work.
A text. What words would be right for a new work for Adrian. Something which could give significant scale and scope for his voice and my music. Ideally the text would be Australian. Being steeped in Ned Kelly and notions of Australian identity I wanted to keep questioning what this might be, through music.
No Friend But The Mountains had just won a slew of awards and was very much in the Australian zeitgeist. I read it, on Adrian’s suggestion. There it was. A text that was contemporary, that felt right for Adrian’s bass- baritone voice, that had a vast scale to it and most importantly, that told an Australian story.
Migration and incarceration. Isolation and beauty. These are aspects of Australian identity that shone out at me from Behrouz Boochani’s words. Without ever having stepped foot on Australian soil (apart from Christmas Island) he told his story with resonances for every story (real or imagined) of coming, or attempting to come to Australia.
I was excited by the connections I was seeing to convict poetry right through to the writings of Christos Tsiolkas. I could see how Behrouz’s story could exist in music as the latest iteration of a reoccurring Australian story. I didn’t hesitate to start sharing this idea with potential partners to make this song cycle a reality.
Everyone I spoke to loved the idea. But not everyone was prepared to take the associated risks of commissioning a large-scale new work. Fortunately, I found a previous collaborator of Adrian’s, the Zelman Symphony Orchestra, who brought an enthusiastic and can-do attitude to the whole project.
Together; the orchestra, Adrian and I began the process of fund raising and bringing partners on board. This process was surprisingly easy. Everyone we approached was sympathetic to the themes of the work and believed that the project had an important message about who we are as Australians to communicate. We now find ourselves with a significant launch pad to present the work and reach a wide audience. I am thrilled, nervous and excited.
A large work such as this changes a composer. It is 60 minutes in length and written for a large symphony orchestra, a choir (the Melbourne Bach Choir) and of course the bass-baritone soloist, Adrian. There are a lot of notes and a lot of hours poured into those pages of music. Plus, as I write, there are many hours of dedicated practice and rehearsal by musicians to learn and premiere the work.
I wanted this work to possess a range of colours. Not just the darkness of incarceration, but also the lightness and joy of seeing a child playing, carefree on a beach. The wonder at the flora and fauna of this new, pacific environment Behrouz was encountering. The similar sights, sounds and heat that hit you the moment you step off a long-haul flight in Australia.
Lyrical singing, that an audience can connect to and feel moved by and engaged with, has always been a priority in my vocal music. I hope I’ve managed it.
As a contrast to all that singing I wanted the orchestra to have a prominent role as well. So there are two orchestral interlude. Music which charts an ocean-going journey. And music which transitions us as listeners into the final third of the piece, where the work takes on it’s most epic proportions and charts it’s most extreme emotional range.
Throughout the songs of the cycle instruments and instrumental sections come to the fore. I’m particularly fond of the timpani and the tuba, and you’ll hear them at key points in the work. Bird call transposed to wind instruments are present. The brass (possibly my favourite section) are real drivers of the music, with horns (my wife’s instrument) providing the harmonic centre of the piece.
This will always stand as a milestone work for me. It is my largest concert work to date. It is a work where I have – once again - sought to express Australian identity in music. To do this I need to listen to my inner compositional voice, which is heavily formed by my childhood in Australia. Have I listened well enough? I hope so.
The piece will premiere on Sunday the 21st of March, at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne.
To learn more about the piece there is a range of media to dip into:
The day before the big piece, Ensemble Offspring will give the first LIVE performance of a short double bass work I wrote last year for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. The piece is called Trussed and it explores the idea of being constrained, musically and by the strings on the bass. I see the work as the seed of a bass concerto and a companion to another short solo work, Bound for violin. BUY the SCORE/PART
I was most impressed by Luke Styles’ work “Trussed”. He named it after the captive state of the heavy strings of the Double Bass, often dubbed the “Ugly Duckling” of the orchestra. The work is a revelation with David Flynn emphasising the versatility of the instrument with alternating pizzicato and legato and frequent use of the lowest note of the orchestra. Exhilarating and definitely my favourite of a superb octet. - Tony Burke, ClassikON
I have admired the work of Ensemble Offpsring for about as long as I have been composing, so I am really thrilled to have a work programmed and performed by them. It will be performed in an intimate setting, the best way to experience double bass music, up close and personal so your hear all the grit and resonances of this beast of an instrument.
Trussed will be performed on Saturday the 20th of March in Sydney.