Yomaku

Eight composers, working in pairs were each assigned one of the four main themes (which became scenes). Within this project I collaborated with Brisbane based composer Christian Panjaitan (https://www.youtube.com/@CPanjaitanComposer) to work on the ‘Spirit-Maku’ which we entitled ‘Come back now my dear, be brave!’. The libretto for this scene comes from Japanese poet Suhama Shozo.
Christian and myself worked together closely in developing the work. We prioritised allowing our individual compositional voices to shine through, while drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese harmonic language. Each section of the work represents a different stanza of the poem that forms the libretto, supporting the vocalists as they weave their way through the text. While composing we focused on the inherently dual nature of the text itself, as some passages take on completely different meaning when considered from the first- or third-person perspective. For both the recording and premiere I had the privilege of joining the orchestra as a part of the cello section