In 2023, Sally-Anne Russell was touring through the Mid North when she dropped into the studio for a pot of green tea. I had a mezzo song in my collection, a setting of Emily Dickinson’s Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, so I gave her a copy.

The song fitted her voice beautifully. Sally-Anne took Hope to concerts around Australia — from the Sydney Opera House to St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne — and then twice on tour through Europe: Paris, Venice, Turin, Lago di Garda and St Tropez.

Can you imagine?

A song I’d handed to Sally-Anne over green tea in Burra, sung by her at the Australian Embassy in Paris.

It was on my mind that I hadn’t written Hope for Sally-Anne. I wanted to write “for Sally-Anne Russell” on a score.

We talked extensively about options and eventually settled on expanding this song she loved into a whole cycle.

We chose her favourite poems on the themes of birds, water and hope, by Hone Tūwhare, Sara Teasdale, Christina Rossetti and Frances Frost.

Now Sally-Anne is bringing Hope home to South Australia for the world premiere of the complete cycle.

On 23 October, Sally-Anne will sing the complete cycle at UKARIA.

For this performance I’m writing a new scoring for Sally-Anne, soprano Clara Cutri, flautist Linda Pirie, cellist Joseph Freer and harpist Suneetha Carter.

The concert will be recorded live, and before the performance Sally-Anne and I will share the story of Hope’s journey from Burra to UKARIA.