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Spotty Quoll

Spotty quoll you crazy thing
Pointy stumpy furry... fling
Yourself into the air
Gay abandon snapping where
Moths a flutter Dive and sputter
Whiskers twitching. Heart rate pounding
Now you’re sated. Dusk descended
All goes quiet as nature intended

Whales lamenting

Whales lamenting souls long lost
Soulful rendering intolerable cost
The selfish cruel and ignorant
So short sighted and ambivalent
Bruny so majestic towering
Nature can be so empowering
Times have changed and now returns
Those peaceful tones nature yearns

— Lee Eggleston b. 1958

WAYNE NEILSON b. 1966  

Two movements from String Quartet ‘Anima’ (composed 2022)

i. Chasing Moths (Spotted Tail Quoll - Dasyurus maculatus)
iii. Whales Lament (Southern right whale - Eubalaena australis)

“The String Quartet ‘Anima’ takes its title from life force, breath, soul and spirit. Started in late 2021, the first and third movements were completed recently in 2022. 

The Quartet in its final form will consist of five movements in arch form. Each movement represents a Tasmanian/Southern Australian animal. Apart from the Southern Right Whale, these animals frequent the farm property where I live. The first and third movements are complete and represent this submission. Movements two, four and five are in the process of being completed this year. 

Whilst each movement represents the animal in its title, it is not a programmatic representation but rather a composer response to the behaviours and personalities of these animals. 

First movement - Chasing Moths (Spotted tail Quoll - Dasyurus maculatus)

My attempt to capture the essence of the Quolls personality and feeding behaviours in early summer. Watching the Quoll run through the hay grass, jumping up trying to catch newly hatched moths. As the Quoll runs into new areas, the moths are disturbed and fly above in a flurry as the Quoll dines on the unlucky ones. The opening Quoll theme is lively and animated, and the snapping sound of the Quoll trying to eat a moth in mid air is captured using a combination of pizzicato and Bartok pizzicato. The second theme captures the quoll wandering through the hay grass attempting to disturb more moths to eat, represented by measured tremolo repeated notes in changing octaves featuring a slickly but confident new quoll theme.

Second movement - Platypus Play (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) 

Third movement - Whales Lament (Southern right whale - Eubalaena australis)

My attempt to create an atmospheric scene on the Southern Ocean. Represented in this slow movement is the extrapolation of sonic recording of the Eubalaena australis. One of the whale calls is a descending perfect fifth and another a descending augmented fourth. I have captured the change in pitches by what sounds like a fast portamento on the sonic recordings. Violin’s I and II play semitone harmonics as the sun’s rays glisten through the water’s surface from the perspective of the whale. The lamenting melody is stepwise, taken from the opening accompaniment figure of two tones, representing the gentle undulation of the water surface.

Fourth movement - Digging Holes (Short Beaked Echidna - Tachyglossus aculeatus) 

Fifth movement - Daring Devils (Tasmanian devil - Sarcophilus harrisii)” 

Wayne Neilson is a Tasmanian based freelance Composer, Orchestrator, Arranger and Music Educator. He studied Composition, at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, under the direction of Nigel Butterley. In 1988 Wayne worked with Nigel, preparing the conductors score and parts for Nigel's Opera 'Lawrence Hargrave Flying Alone'. In 1989, he composed ‘NEXUS 1’ for the Seymour Group 2MBS FM / Seymour Ensemble Young Composers workshop. His first song cycle ‘Of Fire and Ice’ was premiered in 1990 by Sarah Louise Owens and Nigel Butterley at the Canberra School of Music. His orchestral work ‘From Valley to Summit’ won the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (TSO) 2019 Heyward Prize for Orchestral Composition, given its world premiere in Launceston at Symphony Under the Stars in February 2020 and recorded by the TSO/ABC in 2021. His most recent works include a Wind Quintet ‘Pandemos’, a choral work for SSAATTBB 'Listen to the Wind’ and his String Quartet ‘Anima’.

ANNE CAWRSE  b. 1981
in spaces between  (composed 2019) 

“'in spaces between' is a meditation upon the struggle of finding inspiration to compose within the small spaces in one's life. This is an experience all composers must deal with at one time or another, yet it seems especially pertinent to the life of the working mother, who also happens to be a composer. Where is the space to allow thoughts and ideas to flow freely? What happens to one's voice when their ideas are squeezed into such narrow, tight spaces? 

The work's opening chorale - naive, simplistic, hopeful - is interrupted again and again as it attempts to 'become' something. A series of episodes or variations, built upon an often disguised ground bass, explore alternate states of confinement, monotony and uncertainty, eventually giving way to inspiration. 

This piece was hard work. Be it life imitating art, or vice versa, I often felt I was wrenching the notes into existence, despite my clarity of concept. Whether or not the sound world here speaks of the issue it seeks to reflect, the process of writing it certainly did. 

Finally, in celebration of a 20 year association with the wonderful Zephyr Quartet, the theme for this work is borrowed from the first piece I ever composed for them, Repetito, it too a passacaglia.” 

Anne Cawrse is an Adelaide based composer of acoustic orchestral, chamber and vocal music. 

She completed her PhD in Composition in 2008 at the University of Adelaide, having studied primarily with Graeme Koehne. Anne’s penchant for text setting has made her the most commissioned composer of the award-winning Adelaide Chamber Singers (five commissions since 2005) and a highly revered art song composer. Recent commissions include works for the Australian String Quartet, the Benaud Trio, Sharon and Slava Grigoryan, Claire Edwardes, the Australian Vocal Ensemble, Bowerbird Collective, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, who premiered her Cor Anglais Concerto The Rest Is Silence in June 2021. 

Recent awards include the 2021 APRA/AMC Art Music Award for Chamber Work of the Year for A Room of Her Own (Australian String Quartet), the South Australian Luminary Award for sustained contributions to composition and education, the 2021 Albert H Maggs Award for composition, and a 2022 Prelude Composer Residency. 

Anne lectures in composition at the Elder Conservatorium. Her debut album ‘Advice to a Girl’ was released through ABC Classic in February 2022. 

CHRISTOPHER HEALEY b. 1990
Circe  (composed 2021)

“Circe is based on the book of the same name by author, Madeline Miller, which reimagines this Greek heroine through a new lens. The work conjures the awakening of Circe's strange powers and her continued fight to control her own destiny.” 

Melbourne-based composer, Christopher Healey, holds a PhD in Music Composition from the University of Queensland. He has studied with renowned Australian composers, Gerard Brophy and Robert Davidson. From 2018-2019, he also undertook further composition studies with the eminent American composer, Daron Hagen. Christopher Healey's music is eclectic in style, atmospheric and evocative, from the transfixingly tender to the disturbingly macabre. He weaves fantastical tapestries of enchanting textures and combines lyrical melodies with extended harmonies. Chris’s works span the complete range from solo and chamber works through to full-bodied orchestral scores, song cycles and an 80-minute chamber-opera. 

He has received commissions and performances in Australia, China, France, Holland, and the USA, including Camerata - Queensland's Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Cybec), Omega Ensemble (CoLab), Bendigo Symphony Orchestra, Rockhampton Symphony Orchestra, the BRON Saxophone Quartet, BoB-Best of Brass, Ensemble Francaix, the Nickson Quartet and others.