This month we decided to program a playlist theme we'd been thinking about for a while. Long Waves gives the listener a chance to savour some of the broader, single-movement works that composers have put forward to Making Waves.  We really enjoy how this set of works visit contemplative or evocative themes, some via solo instrument, others for ensemble, with or without voice.  With thanks to Making Waves Intern, Angus Baxter, for his thoughtful curatorial input on the playlist.

Long Waves - August 2016

Listen back to all the Soundcloud recordings featured during 2016 on Making Waves playlists.

2016 Waves

Complete Recordings

'One Word Full of Meaning' is a composition for six voices and a percussionist composed for the Sydney based Song Company in 2007. It is a musical setting of a number of Theravada Buddhist texts in the Pali language used for daily chanting by the monks- the texts focus on themes of transience of life and beauty, reflections of death, impermanence etc. and also includes the beautiful metta sutta ('may all beings be well and happy ....').

One Word Full of Meaning

This is from 2010 - commissioned and performed by Eclectica Trio (Amanda Lovelock, Anna Coleman and Charise Altmann).
The clarinets take on the role of storyteller for this piece – they growl like a wolf, squeal like a pig, and huff-and-puff with increasing vigour to blow the house down. Unfortunately, they do it all in the wrong language (“this contemporary music just sounds like random notes to me!”). Will you still be able to follow the story? Don’t stress, it all ends happily ever after.

The Three Little Pigs

String Quartet No. 2 in E minor by Connor D'Netto
recorded live @ MICMC 2015 - 18 Jul 2015

Winner of the Australian New Works Award, presented by Chamber Music Australia

Performed by the Noga Quartet, winner of the 7th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition

String Quartet No. 2 in E minor - live @ MICMC 2015

Performed by Michael Kieran Harvey on the Stuart and Sons piano at the Conservatorium of Music November 19, 2015. Recorded by ABC Classic FM. This piece won the 2014 University of Newcastle Jean Bogan Prize

Piano Sonata No.2 (A Universal History Of Infamy)

Minimalist saxophone quartet recorded at Melba Hall at the University of Melbourne. 
The Jive is a lively piece in three sections. It employs minimalist techniques such as canon, adding rhythmic cells, cross-fading, resulting patterns and mensuration canon. Some of these techniques are used more freely than in strict minimalism. I experimented with different canonic textures and the resulting patterns created when shifting motives between the different saxophones. Motives in rhythmic unison as well as cross-rhythms are explored in the last part of the piece. Dynamic swells and funky rhythms make The Jive somewhat unpredictable…

The Jive

I. Suddenly for soprano, flute, and piano (A. Mellos 2014)
Madeline Cain, soprano; Daniel Pesca, piano; Caroline Sonett, flute
Live recording, November 12, 2014 Kilbourn Hall, The Eastman School of Music


I. Suddenly from 'Three Poems of Yannis Ritsos' - for soprano, flute, and piano


Springtime Dances, Winter Weeps


When confronted with the need for more music to fill a rapidly approaching concert program, I contacted flutist Brijette Tubb to see if she would be willing to learn something on short notice. She very kindly agreed - and I very frantically got to composing, as the music had not yet been written.

Four days later 'Springtime Dance, Winter Weeps' was affixed with a double bar line and sent to Brijette for her appraisal. Along with the music I sent her a profuse apology about the difficulty of the music, as much of my music ends up far more virtuosic in nature than I intend when starting out - and this piece was no exception.

To my great delight, excitement and amazement she was completely and utterly undeterred. The performance, just two weeks later, was a tremendous success.
 Springtime Dances, Winter Weeps is a work of contracts with two starkly different musical feels; it captures the bleakness of winter and the feverish play of spring. It is a virtuosic work that is a great contribution to the flute’s solo repertoire, and one which can be at home in a wide variety of concert programs.

Performed by Brijette Tubb (Flute)
Recorded by Chris Healey

Springtime Dances, Winter Weeps

for two flutes, percussion, piano
Music X, Blonay, Switzerland
July 2010
Timothy Munro and Pethrus Gardborn, flutes
Jeremy Malvin, percussion
Erika Dohi, piano

These dark notes drifting takes its title from a poem by 9th-century Chinese poet Li Po.  Inspired by a Chinese folk tune, the piece evokes distant flutes, coloured by the sounds that one might hear across a valley at night in the spring.

Spring Night in Lo-Yang hearing a flute
In what house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting,
scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-Yang?
Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
who could help but long for the gardens of home?

These dark notes drifting

For large chamber ensemble, NJO conducted by Hans Leenders.

Perpetual Inertia

For Alto Flute and Cello, performed by Lamorna Nightingale (Fl) and Andrew Wilson (Vc).  YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPtmaPS81I

Distorted Waters

Violin and Piano version (a cello and piano version also exists), performed by the Grevillea Ensemble.

Duo-Charged [Violin Version]

For String Quartet, performed by Alistair Duff-Forbes-Vln I, Elizabeth Gormley-Vln II, John Bennett-Vla, Heather Hinrichs-Vc.

Extraneous II

For chamber ensemble and oboe soloist, performed by Lamorna Nightingale-Fl, Roslyn Dunlop-Cl, Vov Dylan-Vln, Andrew Wilson-Vc, Evan Streater-Pno, conducted by Richard Craig, oboe soloist-Celia Craig.

Tensility-Vortex

I am a contemporary classical composer working in Sydney, Australia.  I have composed across a wide variety of areas including orchestral, chamber, electronic, film and installations.  Please visit my website or contact the Australian Music Centre or my publisher Wirripang Pty Ltd for more details.

Perpetual Inertia

petermcnamara