Brighton to Bondi, and pen to manuscript

Composing my first work for the choir I’ve conducted for ten years… A nerve-wracking task!

When I was at school, in art class, from the start of Year 7 we were encouraged to create our own masterpieces. It is odd then, as a professional musician, that I have never written a work that has been performed in a concert setting. Last year when we were selecting the songs for our concert Brighton to Bondi, we decided we really needed a work to pull the concept of the concert together but also bring all the performing elements into one piece. Unable to find a piece about the English/Australian connection that involved piano, organ, large choir and youth chorus, I decided to write one!

In the foyer of the Sofitel Hotel in New York over quite a few cups of average coffee, I sketched the outline for my piece Brighton to Bondi, which features words from New Zealand poet Tim Jones. His poem seemed like the perfect text for my piece.

Tuesday Poem: Impertinent To Sailors

and the half of a world
it would take to say goodbye.

I knew when I was writing the outline that I wanted to suggest both the Northern and Southern hemispheres in the work as well as the space in which the piece will be performed. The Sydney Town Hall has a wonderful sense of grandeur and suggests something of “old” Sydney. It is also a wonderful space to arrange the choir in. So firstly, I knew that the structure would be a little like a da capo aria — the first part is departure, middle section journey and last section, arrival: a mirroring of the departure but with more elements. So the work starts with a plaintive melody on the piano that sort of revs itself up like an old steamer while VOX, arranged in groups of three around the hall create a soundscape defined by the low sounding pedals of the grand organ. The middle section text is largely given to the Festival Chorus who then join VOX at the end with a more fleshed out and optimistic version of the opening hemisphere — the sense of a new and better life — optimistic despite the tribulations of the journey itself.

It is quite a nerve-wracking job creating a piece for the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, who have had so many great works written for them. Putting aside my procrastination I eventually sat in the foyer with some manuscripts and started creating. The concert also features offerings from some of Australia’s best choral composers: Paul Stanhope, Stephen Adams and Ross Edwards. While I will leave you to be the judge of the work’s quality, the combination of writing for a specific occasion, venue and concept made the composition part quite easy and somewhat liberating.

As a result, I know have the composing bug and am keen to write something else! I found that the text very much suggested the music, following the rise and fall of speech both melodically and rhythmically. More importantly, I understood a concept that I once heard expressed in the play Six Degrees of Separation. A primary school art teacher has produced a class of young geniuses and when asked how she taught them, she simply replies that it is all about learning when to take the canvas away. I don’t know how composers do it as the process of fine-tuning, for me, took the longest amount of time and there is a tendency to want to keep making small corrections and adjustments. At some point you have to just make a decision that the piece is finished… Oddly enough this was on the day when the first rehearsal took place. I won’t hear the piece until rehearsal number 7 so I am scared and excited!

So there it is. If for no other reason, come to our concert Brighton to Bondi and let me know what you think about the piece. I had a great deal of pleasure writing it.