WINDSONGS

Six songs for soprano, clarinet and piano

a song cycle of Heather Webster’s poetry

On a perfect autumn evening in 2022, as the sun set over the vineyard, Karina’s beautiful soprano voice sang out. She’d flown back to South Australia for the weekend with a few days off her schedule at Opera Australia. Joined by amazing musicians Yundi Yuan on piano and Amanda Home on clarinet for the world premiere of the song cycle I’d written setting Heather Webster’s poetry.

Duration: 25 minutes
Instrumentation: soprano, clarinet & piano
Text: Heather Webster
Premiere: Windsong Wines, Langhorne Creek, 2022

The Story

When we moved to the Fleurieu Peninsula in 2020, I met writer and winemaker Heather Webster. Heather lives and writes at Windsong Wines in Langhorne Creek.

Heather was launching a collection of wines and had written a series of poems to accompany them. She paired each poem with artwork by Cathy Portas and published them as a series of postcard miniatures. Her words were filled with Australian sunshine, gum trees and birdsongs and were love songs to her beautiful home.

Soprano Karina Bailey and I had been talking about collaborating. I discovered that she had grown up around wine and loved nothing more than sitting in a winery with a book and a glass of the house special.

Well!

I set Heather’s poems for soprano, piano and clarinet. Karina Bailey, Yundi Yuan and Amanda Home gave the world premiere in the vineyard.

Listen

Here’s a live recording from the rehearsal, in Bishop Hall, Adelaide.

In these videos I added photos from Heather’s beautiful vineyard and home.

From My Notebook

The Fleurieu is a glorious part of the world. After the uncertainty of moving to the US and then back home for Covid and finding myself on the south coast, Heather’s poetry spoke to me of something I longed for - a connection to home, built over days, seasons and years.

Home, like poetry, wine and music, is something we make.

I added clarinet because there's something in its sound that feels both empty and full, as though it longs for itself, which expressed the sunlight, the vineyards, and the feelings Heather’s words stirred up inside me. I hadn’t written for clarinet before, and Amanda kindly popped over with her clarinet to talk me through what clarinets and clarinetists need.

THANK YOU to South Australia’s regional arts body Country Arts SA for providing funding towards this outdoor concert in Heather’s vineyard at a time when indoor concerts were still considered risky.

As a lovely little postscript I was thrilled to learn Heather printed a run of wine, with an excerpt of my music on the wine bottles.

As a second postscript…

In November 2024, Karina, who had moved to Europe, performed the first two songs at the Australian Embassy in Malta, at a concert celebrating relationships between the two countries.

Performance History

  • November 2024 — “Making Wine” and “Blanc Dos” Australian High Commission Malta, Karina Bailey (soprano) and David Barnard (piano)

  • December 2022 — “Making Wine” performed by Alex Fowles (soprano), Lauren Borgin (flute), Penelope Cashman (piano) her final recital at the Elder Conservatorium Adelaide

  • 30 April 2022 — Windsong Wines Song Cycle, Langhorne Creek. Karina Bailey (soprano), Yundi Yuan (piano), Amanda Home (clarinet)

  • 13 September 2021 — “Making Wine” and “Blanc Dos” Elder Hall, Adelaide. Karina Bailey (soprano) and Yundi Yuan (piano)

Perform The Cycle

The score is available for performance.

I'd be delighted to hear from you if you'd like to perform the cycle or discuss an arrangement for different instrumentation.