Composing Australia Night Two

Squids, spiders and an orchestra in full flight

Liza Lim’s Sappho/bioluminescence makes expressive bedfellows of a squid that camouflages itself by glowing like the night sky, Sappho’s poetry and luminous instruments.

Peggy Polias’ Arachne references the Greek myth of a weaver woman turned into a spider and there are pages of her score where the music is literally represented by knotted strings.

William Barton and Matthew Hindson’s Kalkadunga has become a modern classic melding the propulsive energies of Barton’s yidaki (didgeridoo) with an orchestra in full flight.