Andrew Ford

Composer, Writer & Broadcaster

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Scenes from Streeton (2019)

26 minutes
for wind quintet and recorded voices

1. Golden Summer 2. Near Heidelberg 3. The Selector's Hut (Whelan on the Log) 4. The Spirit of the Drought 5. After Streeton

Text: interviews with Eda Ritchie, Bruce Pascoe, Vivienne Ritchie, Ian Langford and Gwenda Langford. Editing and sound engineering by Russell Stapleton.

Commissioned in celebration of the Melbourne Recital Centre's 10th anniversary.

First performance by Arcadia Winds, Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne, 9 October 2019.

Reviews

Ford’s new work, Scenes from Streeton – commissioned in celebration of the Recital Centre’s 10th Anniversary – was the highlight of the night: an articulate, thoughtful meditation on our changing landscape.

The five artists on stage were joined by recorded voices speaking about several Arthur Streeton paintings of Australian scenes, made between 1889 and 1896, and highlighting the extreme droughts of the period. One voice [Bruce Pascoe] described the works as warscapes and as the land became drier in the paintings, Ford matched this urgency in the music, turning the wind quintet into an instrument for change, a battle cry.

This was an artful, provocative work that deserves to be heard again and again.

Megan Steller, The Age