Instrumentaiton: Medium-Voice & String Quintet or Orchestra. Includes piano score for rehearsal.

Downloadable sample pages found at the link here.

These song settings of poems from the volume, My island's the house I sleep in at night, were considered carefully before seeking permission from the poet to use them. They stand up so well on their own that I had to be quite sure I felt I could add something. That can only be judged when performed.

The poems all present delightful imageries that I've attempted to explore with my own personal music language. The final song, So it begins at Hastings Bay, I found the most challenging. The poem itself accurately describes, as well as how I came to compose Hastings Bay, for flute and piano, the poet's response to that piece when she visited me and my wife, Frances, in Hobart while researching island cultures for her PhD studies. Her response to the work itself was expressed very beautifully in poetic form. I therefore had set myself the strange task of responding to her response - a unique experience for me.