Movement One - Leviathan

for four baritone soloists, male voice choir and percussion. Premiere On The Terrace Festival 2025 SA Museum (with funding from CreateSA and Chamber Music Adelaide)

This movement will explore the ravenous hunger of nineteenth century industry for whale oil that drove men across the oceans to hunt and slaughter whales. The sound is masculine and muscular, with male voices and percussion centered around an orchestral bass drum. The performers sing, shout, chant and create vocal sound effects and body percussion. I was inspired by the all-in theatricality of heavy metal band Manowar’s album Gods Of War, Orff’s Catulli Carmina and the full rich sound of Russian male voice choirs to create the story. Leviathan begins with the call of the sea, then a jingoistic hymn for the industrial age, a frenzied and bloody hunt as the singers hunt the leviathan until finally the men and their whaling boat smash and sink forever. For the libretto I created a montage with fragments of nineteenth century poems to create the world of men and ocean, of misguided adventure, naive optimism and the final grief of despair, with words from John Philip Sousa, Thomas Carlyle, Charlotte Smith, Vincent Van Gogh, Lord Tennyson, A E Housman and Rudyard Kipling.

Movement Two - Elegy For A Grieving Ocean

for wind quintet, baritone soloist and percussion. Premiere On The Terrace Festival 2024 SA Museum

For one hundred years the ocean grieved. This movement was commissioned by Linda Pirie for her ensemble Windsong Quintet, and workshopped with funding from Chamber Music Adelaide. The concert version of this movement was premiered in November 2024. In this movement small microphones will pick up the sounds from the instruments, converting them to lights, which will be projected into the space.

Movement Three - Cana Cludhmor

for soprano and extended technique piano. Premiere Adelaide Town Hall. 2024

A mediaeval Irish story of how the first Irish harp was invented, inspired by the sound of wind through the bones of a whale skeleton. Death, music, invention, new beginnings. This movement was commissioned by Chamber Music Adelaide. In Night Whales this movement will express how human imagination and invention can create something as beautiful as a harp, or as fragile as the possibility of hope. More here… In later productions this movement will incorporate sculptural elements with animated fabric.

Movement Four - Sanctuary

featuring mezzo-soprano, and incorporating all the forces in the work.

This will express the experience of watching whales return to the Bay. The music will begin with a solo flute and mezzo-soprano, singing out in the darkness, and slowly build, adding an instrument at a time, as the sun rises, and whales and hope return. In later productions, we will add individual sound shells for each musician.