Composer, Writer & Broadcaster
Andrew Ford’s vocal works are among his best known, and several of them have won awards, notably Learning to Howl, which won the prestigious Paul Lowin Prize in 2004.
Please click work titles for more information and resources (audio, sheet music, program note etc.) about individual works in this category.
Text: from the Book of Proverbs, Kanteletar and the Girl's Own Annual (1919)
Commissioned by Jane Edwards with funds provided by a composer fellowship from the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Jane Edwards (soprano) and David Miller (piano), Manly Council Chambers, Sydney, 14 September 2008
1. Orpheus with his Lute (Henry VIII)
2. Chimney-sweepers (Cymbeline)
3. Winter Song (Love's Labours Lost)
Text: William Shakespeare
Nos 1 and 3 commissioned by the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. No 2 commissioned by the Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival (Arts in the Valley) with funds from the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.
First performance by Margaret Schindler and Kevin Power Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Ballroom, Jupiter's Casino, Townsville, Queensland, 7 August 2009.
Also available as part of Three Shakespeare Songs and as a SATB choir version.
Text: from Act IV of Shakespeare's Cymbeline
Commissioned by the Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival (Arts in the Valley) with funds from the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Yvonne Kenny (soprano), Andrea Katz (piano), Arts in the Valley, Kangaroo Valley, NSW, 21 April 2007.
oboe (= cor anglais), clarinet (= bass clarinet), bassoon, horn and piano
Commissioned by Southern Cross Soloists with funding from a composer fellowship from the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Warren Fahey and Dave de Hugard (singers), the Southern Cross Soloists, Queensland Music Festival, Bangalow St Park, Brisbane, 15 July 2006
1. Niin mina neitonen -- 2. The great silkie of Sules Skerry -- 3. Den fortrollade barnafoderskan -- 4. The Bay of Biscay -- 5. The house carpenter -- 6. The unquiet grave -- 7. Niin minä neitonen.
Commissioned by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust
First performance by Jane Edwards and the Australian String Quartet, Elder Hall, University of Adelaide, 5 March 2004
Text:
Lorrie Moore, Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, The Kanteletar, Ian Munro, Ann Timoney Jenkin, Queen Elizabeth I, Emily Brontë, Wang Wei and Elizabeth Smart
Commissioned with funds from the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Belinda Montgomery (soprano), Margery Smith (soprano sax, clarinet, bass clarinet), Daryl Pratt (percussion) and Marshall McGuire (harp); Eugene Goossens Hall, Sydney, 9 March 2003
Text: Christina Rossetti
First performance by Jane Edwards (soprano), Marshall McGuire (harp), Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, 18 March 2005
A song from Learning to Howl
Text: poem by Ian Munro
First performance by Justine Anderson (soprano) and Peter Neville (vibraphone), Toorak Uniting Church, Melbourne, 25 September 2005
From Learning to Howl
Text: Wang Wei (English translation by G.W. Robertson)
First performance by Belinda Montgomery (soprano) and Margery Smith (soprano saxophone), Government House, Sydney, 3 November 2004
Text: Cathryn Strickland
First performance by Merlyn Quaife (soprano) and Stephen Delaney (piano), Neuer Konzertsaal, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vienna, Austria, 12 January 2007