Composer, Writer & Broadcaster
These works include the Lowin Prize-winning Learning to Howl, and the Lowin Prize finalists Willow Songs and Last Words. They set to music words by Shakespeare and Sappho, Anne Stevenson and Robert Louis Stevenson, Judith Wright and Craig Raine.
Please click work titles for more information and resources (audio, sheet music, program note etc.) about individual works in this category.
Text: Judith Nangala Crispin
mezzo-soprano, narrator, clarinet in A (= bass clarinet), oboe (= cor anglais), percussion (ratchet, sistrum, 3 cowbells, stones, tambourine, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel), harmonium, harp, viola and laptop
Commissioned by Music Viva Australia
Each of these twenty songs has words by a different Australian poet. Individual songs have different and variable instrumentation.
* Commissioned by Kim Williams AM + Commissioned by Opera Queensland for its Young Artists Program # Commissioned by Evergreen Ensemble ## Commissioned by Luminescence Chamber Singers
Individual songs have been sung by the likes of Gian Slater, Robyn Archer, Lotte Betts-Dean with Sean Shibe and Joseph Havlat, Jess Hitchcock, Jenny Duck-Chong with Halcyon, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, Michelle Nicolle, Jenny M. Thomas with Bush Gothic, Thursday's Child with Evergreen Ensemble, the Chapel Choir of Glasgow University, the Young Artists of Opera Queensland, jazz students of Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, and Luminescence Chamber Singers
First performance of Red Dirt Hymns en masse by Luminescence Chamber Singers, Hilary Geddes (electric guitar), Freya Schack-Arnott (cello), directed by Roland Peelman, Canberra International Music Festival, Gandel Atrium, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2 May 2024
First complete performance of Red Dirt Hymns by Opera Queensland with vocal and instrumental students of the Jazz Program, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, music director Steve Newcomb, director Patrick Nolan, Opera Queensland Studio, Brisbane, 2 May 2026
Text: poems by Jen Hadfield, R.S. Thomas, Robert Adamson, Maria Takolander, Tomas Tranströmer, Robin Robertson, Maija Konttinen, Edward Thomas and W.B. Yeats
flute (= piccolo), percussion (tabla, crotales, wind chimes and temple block), guitar and cello
N.B. the percussion part is written for an improvising tabla player, though it can be played on other hand drums
Commissioned for Halcyon (Sydney), Haga Duo with Karin Lovelius and Suranjana Ghosh (Stockholm), Lina Andonovska and Crash Ensemble (Dublin) and Elisabeth Holmertz and Poul Høxbro (Oslo), with financial assistance from the Australia Council of the Arts, the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body.
First performance by Karin Lovelius (mezzo-soprano), Sareidah Hildebrand (flute), Suranjana Ghosh (percussion), Joakim Lundström (guitar), Mattias Rodrick (cello), Norrtullskyrkan, Söderhamn, Sweden, 5 September 2019
Text: poems by Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough
flute (= piccolo), clarinet in B flat, bass clarinet, alto sax, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, vibes, drum kit, piano, electric guitar, violin, double bass
Commissioned by the Monash Art Ensemble
First performance by Gian Slater, Monash Art Ensemble directed by Paul Grabowsky (piano), Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, Melbourne, 13 October 2017
Text:
poem by Judith Wright
Commissioned by Katie Noonan with financial assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Katie Noonan and the Brodsky Quartet, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, 28 April 2016
Text: Arthur Taylor, from his Gallipoli diary
First performance by David Greco (baritone), David Shaw (piccolo), Leanne Sullivan (trumpet), James Huntingford (piano), conducted by Roland Peelman, Canberra International Music Festival, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 8 May 2015
Text:
poem by Katherine Philips
First performance by Halcyon (Alison Morgan, Jenny Duck Chong, Diana Springford, Joshua Hill), Sculpture Garden, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 23 October 2013
Text: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henry Ward Beecher, Alban Berg, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Falcon Scott, Adelaide Crapsey, Chidiock Tichborne, Sappho, Dorothy Porter, Maurice Chevalier, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Sullivan Balou, Florenz Ziegfeld, Tim Winton (from Cloudstreet), Virginia Woolf and Noël Coward.
Commissioned by Jane Sheldon with financial assistance from the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Jane Sheldon (soprano), Helen Ayres (violin), Zoe Knighton (cello) and Anna Goldsworthy (piano), Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, Lecture Hall, Port Fairy, Victoria, 12 October 2013
1. Bonny at Morn
2. Maa Bonny Lad
3. Dance to Thi Daddy
Commissioned by Jane Sheldon
First complete performance by Fiona Campbell (mezzo-soprano), Australia Ensemble, Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of NSW, Sydney, 8 June 2019
Text:
poems by Anne Stevenson
Commissioned by Halcyon with the generous financial support of Barbara Blackman
First performance by Halcyon (Alison Morgan, Jenny Duck-Chong , Sally Walker, Jason Noble, John Douglas, Sally Whitwell), Trackdown Scoring Stage, Fox Studios, Sydney, 26 September 2009