There was something so innately constant about the expansive surroundings of the Denali National Park & Preserve, despite it being unique from every angle. The distance between the beginning and end of a hike in the Denali's mist meshed into a sublime yet hazy memory, as if we almost can't, even to this day, truly comprehend what we witnessed. 

~ Dedicated to Katy Abbott, who continually inspires me in learning and in life ~

This work was written for Corvus Ensemble and the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival as part of Composing in the Wilderness 2022.

This work received its joint-world premiere performances by Corvus Ensemble on the 30th and 31st of July 2022 at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival and Denali National Park and Preserve Visitor Centre respectively.

Composed in Denali and Fairbanks, Alaska, USA.

***This work was awarded the 2022 David Henkels Composition Award by the Musical Society of Victoria.

© Robert McIntyre 2022 roberttmcintyre.com

the distance between (LIVE)(flute/alto flute, alto sax, cello & vibes)(2022)(Corvus Ensemble @FSAF)

Far from Shore

Blunt Loop 2

Gaugant

Squeaky Clean

Scott Curry - Piano
Dimitry Tomasov - Violin
Thilo Krigar - Cello

Premiere: 2002, Rheinsberg, Pfingstwerkstatt Neue Musik of the State Music Academy, Castle Theater
In combination with further electroacoustic movements for 8 loudspeakers, video installation and light installation
(Live recording)

Mo(u)vements 2nd movement

https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/product/our-duty-to-care-song-cycle-for-soprano-piano-trio

Our Duty to Care is a cross-disciplinary music composition based on the legal case Sharma v Minister for the Environment [2021] FCA 560, where eight Australian teenagers (namely Anjali Sharma and Isolde Raj-Seppings, Ambrose Hayes, Tomas Arbizu, Bella Burgemeister, Laura Kirwan, Ava Princi & Luca Saunders) represented by an octogenarian nun (Sister Marie Brigid Arthur) as their litigation guardian, sued the Minister for the Environment (Cth) and Vickery Coal Pty Ltd.
They successfully argued that the Minister owed them and other Australian children a duty of care, which was supposedly breached when the Minister approved the extraction of coal from a coal mine.

Whilst this decision was later successfully appealed by the Minister, this case monumentally established that climate change is legally real – with all submitted scientific evidence un-refuted. This denotes a significant shift, as we are no longer fighting to prove our climate crisis, but rather urging all to fight the crisis itself.

This work sets newly commissioned text by poet, close friend & regular collaborator Savanna Wegman, who has re-interpreted my own legal research about the case into a 3-part poem, which has in turn structured the song cycle. It embodies climate anxiety, the nervous excitement of the trial and its success, and the melancholic yet hopeful transference of ideology: how far we’ve come & how far we still have left to go.
Composed as part of and made possible by a 2022/23 University of Melbourne Wattle Fellowship.

Timing: ~ 18 minutes 
1: Robed in Apocalypse (~6min)
2: they will rise, as birds fall (~5min)
3: The Changing Wilds (~7min)

Written for Bridgette Kelsey and Solstice Trio. Dedicated to all current and future generations of Australians who inherit a climate crisis. 

Bridgette Kelsey, soprano
SOLSTICE
Isabel Hede, violin (guest)
Stephanie Arnold, cello 
Georgina Lewis, piano

Commissioned Cover Art Illustration © by Lucinda McIntyre.

Commissioned Sext Text: ‘Prophecy, as a fire comes’ by Savanna Wegman © 2022 
Text used for 1: Robed in Apocalypse:
No more prophecy 
until the sky begets a softer 
Everlasting sun 
or
the youth unravel 
braided darkness
rushing innocence
all over Earth 

Shadows designed 
for our tired birth places
ghosting the new life 
upon babbling breaths  
 
And so the young are born 
New guardians 
Robed in 
Apocalypse

Text used for 2: they will rise, as birds fall:
Know they will rise
As disappearance is written  
on ancient weather 
become beast
She watches above 
as birds fall 
out of the mother sky 

March into the high courts 
of creators and destroyers
Anjali Sharma and the army 
                  Future keepers
Enter this laced arena 
burning horizons in their bellies 

The Minister surveys the gravity
how deep we may breathe
how quickly we will fall
when the Earth veins split 
and the sanctuary howls 
at its open flesh  

The weather sounds like a whisper 
in these walls that stand for justice 
Lay down a pocketful 
of bird bones
of poison oceans

Text used for 3: The Changing Wilds
They speak for the
forgotten
Their ancestral home-body
Their drowning, burning worlds
for their lands that have lost hope 
together their voices are louder
Becoming suns
Becoming rains 
Becoming rivers multiplied 
Becoming the skyward call 
of protection 

this call
Is honoured
the duty of care rewritten
A first for acknowledging
the changing wilds

Evidence now held
in palms that believe in
collapse
and might begin to
listen
Blessing the horror 
with a soft breath of courage 

Remember how
young sacred tears 
are greeting Earth 
like miracle seeds

Our Duty to Care (LIVE)(song cycle for soprano & piano trio)(2023)(Bridgette Kelsey & Solstice Trio)

This track was created for the Naviar Haiku group.
501
https://www.naviarrecords.com/2023/08/09/naviarhaiku501-lull-in-the-rain/

2023-08-10

NLS - 2023 - 08 - 10 Lull In The Rain…  (Naviarhaiku 501)

Recent discourse and research have and continue to examine how the loss of sonic diversity in wild sounds, due to species extinctions and industrial noise pollution, are cutting off human connection to the Earth in a slow, solemn and unconscious process. Remnants of a Resonance explores this concept through the unique duo pairing of the flute and bassoon, playing with registral, timbral and articulative nuances across a narrative of initial explorative unity, flowing urgency of reality, and fragmentation of what once was. While sound is innately and importantly ephemeral, an extinction-induced silence is not – the more we continue to abuse our Earth’s resources, the greater the [sonic] loss.

Dedicated to Christine & Sam.

TIMING: ~4.5-5 minutes

This work was specially composed for flute and bassoon duo of Simone Maurer and Lyndon Watts.

World premiere performance by Simone Maurer and Lyndon Watts on 21/05/2024 in ‘Contrasts: Music for Flute and Bassoon’ at Hanson Dyer Hall, as part of the 2024 Hanson Dyer Hall Series presented by the Faculty of Fine Arts & Music, University of Melbourne.

Remnants of a Resonance (2024)(duo for flute and bassoon)(LIVE)(Simone Maurer & Lyndon Watts)

Compositional Insight per s(1)(a)-(d)
1 Purposes
The main purposes of this Composition are––
(a) to unveil unconscious bias within our legal system relating to our construction of Victorian legislation and how our laws are often created in a non-inclusive way through referencing the gender binary, instead of utilising gender-neutral language; and
(b) to highlight this issue of bias through the particular irony of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic) and how it defines discrimination with using ‘he or she’ in its definition, as well as the use of ‘he or she’ in the Constitution Act 1975 (Vic) when appointing judges;
(c) to utilise additional pieces of Victorian legislation where applicable; and
(d) to harness cross-disciplinary measures of music and law to create a new ~5min composition.

World Premiere per s(2)(1)
2 Commencement
(1) This Composition comes into official operation on the day on which it receives Royal Assent, being its world premiere date. This date is the 29th of June 2024, with the work performed for the first time at ‘Aether Duo – New Dawn’ by Robert McIntyre, Tempo Rubato, 34 Breese Street, Brunswick VIC 3056.

Aim per s(3)(a)-(f)
3 Objectives
The main purposes of this Composition are––
(a) to create a legal and musical composition that acts as a commentary on our current non-inclusive law-making tendencies, to be submitted for Future Lawyer (LAWS90243) as a project and concurrently owned (with all rights reserved) to the Composer for all current and future use;
(b) to raise awareness about unconscious bias through creative use of the law and contemporary-classical composition, employing electro-acoustic backing track (tape) and an acoustic instrument for performance (flute);
(c) to encourage the identification and elimination of systematic causes of discrimination such as the use of the gender binary within existing and new legislation;
(d) to promote and facilitate the progressive realisation of equality and inclusive gender equity through newly accessible musical means;
(e) to use my time interning at the Commission of Gender Equality in the Public Sector in 2023 as a legal research intern investigating LGBTQIA+ perspectives, coupled with my experience in legal compliance training creating Unconscious Bias, Diversity and Inclusion, and Discrimination module courses, in a newfound, reflective way;
(f) to engage Future Lawyer course materials, seminar discussions, additional research and select excerpts from pieces of legislation as the legal and academic backbone of the musical composition and its purpose.

...

Structure per s(6)(1)
6 Structural Reasoning
(1) I have constructed this Composition’s programme/insight note and score as if it is its own piece of legislation, in the effort to not only mirror the composition’s subject matter, but also to expose future musicians who will perform the work to what a statute generally looks like. This way, I can equally draw legal minds into a directly relevant space, while also broadening potential lay-person flautists who may rarely interact with the law and legislation.

Codifying Neutralities (LIVE)(2024)(solo flute & tape)(performed by Robert McIntyre @ Tempo Rubato)

Composer & Flautist | Juris Doctor Graduate | Aether Duo | Wattle Fellowship
www.roberttmcintyre.com

Robert McIntyre is an Australian composer keen to consider commissions, collaborations, and more - please enquire and email at: rtm.composition@gmail.com

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__________________________________________________________________

Codifying Neutralities (LIVE)(2024)(solo flute & tape)(performed by Robert McIntyre @ Tempo Rubato)

Robert McIntyre – Composer

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