When Martin Anderson's partner Yodit Tekle died, he asked his composer friends if we'd consider writing something for string orchestra in her memory, to be recorded for his label Toccata Classics. A hundred of us said yes and I'm proud that my piece, Sleep, is on Vol One
together with works by Robin Holloway, Poul Ruders, Brett Dean, and others. All the works were recorded last year in Debrecen, Hungary played by the Kodály Philharmonic under Paul Mann.
> Album information (Toccata website)
Headlong is back...
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra will be playing my piece Headlong again on March 15th and 18th (my 60th birthday) in concerts conducted by Benjamin Northey. The orchestra commissioned it for its own 75th birthday in 2007 and gave four performances that year under Jeffrey Tate. For this year's performances, the piece has been thoroughly revised and even has a new ending.
> SSO 15 and 18 March - concert details and tickets. You can also read a program note.
... and so are Barbarians, The Man in the Moon and The Unquiet Grave
The Canberra International Music Festival is making a bit of a feature of my music this year. There'll be live performances of the songs from my album There Was a Man Lived in the Moon
as part of a program of 'memories of childhood' called Dreaming Across the Horizon. Florian Peelman will play my viola concerto, The Unquiet Grave, and the Song Company, Australian Voices and Luminescence Chamber Singers will combine to perform my choral work, Waiting for the Barbarians. There's also a new piece for the National Carillon, called Lin-lan-lone, premiered on 5 May. For full performer details, see sidebar on the left.
> 30 April (There Was a Man Lived in the Moon) - details & tickets
> 6 May (Waiting for the Barbarians, The Unquiet Grave) - details & tickets.
Summer sale & sheet music
You can buy There Was a Man Lived in the Moon CD
at the unbeatable price of $11.99 from the ABC Shop's summer sale right now. I've also just finished tidying up my arrangements for the traditional nursery rhymes on the CD - the music, featuring nearly every orchestral instrument in different combinations, will all be available for purchase from the Australian Music Centre in a matter of days. All of my original tunes on the CD, including Nonsense, can already be purchased there.
Advance notices: In transit; Never and Comeclose and Sleepnow; plus a new book
At the Arts in the Valley Festival in Kangaroo Valley in May – on the same day as the viola concerto and Waiting for the Barbarians in Canberra (some fast driving will be needed) – Ian Munro and I will give the first performance of In transit, for piano and speaker. The concert will be in the Hausmusik series on 6 May at 2:30pm. More details and tickets on the festival website.
At the end of May, Plexus will give the premiere in Melbourne of my new Peter Pan-related trio, Never. And still to come in 2017, the premiere of Comeclose and Sleepnow: six Liverpool love songs for Gian Slater and the Monash Art Ensemble to words by Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough. More details on this in the next newsletter, as well as Sally Walker taking out and dusting off Once upon a time there were two brothers... for speaking flautist.
And there's a new book coming from Black Inc in July, called The Memory of Music. It is going to be quite different from my earlier books. Here's a bit published recently in Meanjin.
though we bid a fond farewell to our producer Maureen Cooney.
