Nature-inspired Music
Notes: Full title is The Pobblebonks Next Door, and it describes the characteristic double and triple “bonk” sounds of some Eastern Banjo Frogs (hence the nickname “Pobblebonk frogs”) in a pond next door on a warm summer’s evening.
Composed: 2022.
Instruments: String trio - violin, viola and violincello.
Notes: Reminiscent of travelling down an unknown country road wandering over hills, through valleys and across streams on a bright spring day.
Composed: 2024.
Instruments: String orchestra with piano and SATB choir.
Notes: The sun's gone down, the temperature is mid-80s, a warm breeze is blowing. In a creek a brave frog starts croaking tentatively, then all the other frogs and insects quickly gain courage and soon there's a cacophony of night sounds. Sometimes the disparate sounds synchronize for a couple seconds before they separate again into their individual noises. And sometimes they all just stop. Then after a couple seconds a brave frog starts croaking tentatively, etc.
Composed: 2017.
Instruments: Clarinet quintet.
Notes: Man’s rapacious greed and government shortsightedness and unwillingness to acknowledge the evidence have all but destroyed Nature - the heart, lungs and lifeblood of the planet.
Composed: 2019.
Instruments: String orchestra.
Notes: Some industrious ants scurrying around looking for food. They find some grains of sugar, which they start taking to their nest until it’s all gone. Then back to scurrying around looking for food. The piano part carries a single short theme which gets shorter and shorter until the theme is only a hint.
Composed: 2021.
Instruments: Piano concerto - string orchestra with piano.
Notes: Watching some tiny Silvereye birds (sometimes called Yellow White Eyes) playing in a bird bath with a sprinkler, occasionally interrupted by other larger birds who want to play too.
Composed: 2022.
Instruments: String quartet - two violins, viola and violincello.
Notes: Three themes: (1) Subtitles “World's View," a track down to a lookout, vast, spacious views over the countryside far below; (2) subtitled "The Waterfall” is the river as it flows towards the escarpment, quickening its flow and taking on eddies, whirlpools and rapids, and finally tumbling over the cliff edge in a spray of almost silent water and mist; (3) subtitled "Mountain Lake," a deep, dark brooding lake reflecting clouds, mountains and pine forests.
Composed: 2018.
Instruments: Symphony orchestra.
Notes: A walk in the countryside at dawn. The walk starts off slowly before settling into a steady pace and finally ends with some tiredness at the end of the walk.
Composed: 2019.
Instruments: Strings with solo flute, oboe, orchestral bells, harp and piano.
Notes: A sunset cruise at the end of a long day’s fishing on Lake Kariba on the Zambezi River in Africa. The boat drifts on a warm, gentle wind. The only sounds are soft lapping of wavelets against the hull and occasional sounds of Africa.
Nyami Nyami is the local River God, who symbolizes the life force of the River and who is said to be sleeping - until he wakes and destroys the dam wall that is choking his river.
Composed: 2022.
Instruments: String orchestra with solo alto flute, timpani, four types of African drums, wind chimes, synthesiser, harp, glass harmonica and animal sound effects from the area.