Composer, Writer & Broadcaster
These pieces set to music poems by Anne Carson, Elizabeth Smart, Christina Rossetti and Shakespeare, together with words from the Book of Proverbs and the Girls’ Own Annual of 1919
Please click work titles for more information and resources (audio, sheet music, program note etc.) about individual works in this category.
1.The Land of Nod (Robert Louis Stevenson)
2. All the Pretty Little Horses (Anon.)
3. John Mouldy (Walter de la Mare)
4. White Seal Lullaby (Rudyard Kipling)
5. Owls: an Elegy (Edward Elgar)
6. Baby, Baby, Naughty Baby (Anon.)
7. Caliban's Dream (William Shakespeare)
8. Golden Slumbers (Thomas Dekker)
Text: 'Fern' by Eileen Chong
First performance by Rachel Mink (soprano), Callum Tolhurst-Close (piano), Wesley Music Centre, Canberra, 8 October 2025
Text: J.M Coetzee, based on an episode from his novel Elizabeth Costello
Commissioned by the McLaren Vale Music Festival Association for the Coriole Music Festival
First performance by Elizabeth Campbell (mezzo-soprano) and Celia Craig (oboe), directed by Mitchell Butel, Coriole Music Festival, Coriole Vineyards, McLaren Vale, South Australia, 21 May 2022
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
A song from the cycle Nature
Text: R.S. Thomas
A song from the cycle Nature
Text: Jen Hadfield
First performance by Anna Dowsley (mezzo-soprano), Eliza Shephard (flute), Youth Music Foundation Australia, Toorak, Melbourne, 15 September 2024
Text: Anne Carson
soprano, metal percussion
Commissioned by Julian Burnside AO QC for Jane Sheldon and Claire Edwardes
First performance by Jane Sheldon and Claire Edwardes, Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, Reardon Theatre, Port Fairy, 13 October 2018
Text: Andrew Ford
Commissioned by Ian Munro, Roy Howat, Joel Sachs and Aura Go, with the support of a project grant from the Music Funds of the Australia Council for the Arts
First performance by Ian Munro (piano), Andrew Ford (speaker), Arts in the Valley Festival, Kangaroo Valley, NSW, 6 May 2017
1. The Owl and the Pussy-cat 2. The Quangle Wangle's Hat 3. The Jumblies
Text: Edward Lear
First performance by Michael Lampard (baritone), Shirley Trembath (piano), St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, 30 October 2013
Text: poem by Jane Taylor
First performance by Tobias Cole (countertenor) and Meriel Owen (harp), Canberra International Music Festival, Fitters' Workshop, Canberra, 30 April 2017
Published by Wise Music G. Schirmer Australia