Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Śūnyatā  
© Fiona Hill

"In this work I seek to capture a moment of timelessness where we are able to transcend human form and commune with all that is, a feeling I am often able to capture when solitary in nature. The work is centred on the concept of a deep spiral which connects us to the earth and all that is, Mother Earth, Goddess. In this composition I view the orchestra as one giant mass, a sleeping giant, which gradually wakes and comes to life in two overarching gestures."

- Fiona Hill - Score programme note, Śūnyatā, 2021

Walking down the rough stone stairs and across two wooden bridges I contemplate how close the hum of the highway sounds, despite being in the bush. Part of me feels irritated by the intrusion of sound into this beautiful gully and I despair at the water that runs off the tarmac, collecting rubbish, and down into the creeks where the yabbies and turtles swim. I wonder if I'll see my favourite birds nest again, I think a Brown Gerygone, which amazingly hangs from a branch above the creek. I'm looking for a quiet place to write as I explore the gully. I find a track over the creek crossing which I haven't been down before and start following it. It leads me up a steep hillside and I find a small foot track off to the left. I follow it finding a rough cleared patch which seems a little exposed for my liking, too close to the track. I explore a bit further and find a rock outcrop behind some dense shrubs, perfect! I look around, I'm part way up the hillside with views of rolling hills and a vista of wide blue open sky. I wonder how welcome I am in this place, is it ok for me to spend the afternoon here? Maybe even a few days? I sense that it's ok but first I want to offer something back, an exchange of energy. I notice some broken glass and start collecting it, soon I have a large pile of broken glass which had been scattered throughout the bush here, obviously people had camped in the clearing area previously and thrown their empty bottles. It felt like I'd paid respect now to the place I wanted to sit and I contemplated how lovely it would be to use the broken shards as an instrument in the music I planned to conceive and write here.

I reflected on some recent reading I'd been doing, the book 'Song Spirals'^[1] by the Gay'wu group of women in Arnhem Land and the concept of 'country'.

How everything is interconnected. I tried to just observe the sounds without judgement now, the motorbike noise as at home in this place as the sound of the wind, the air brakes on the trucks on the highway as much a part of the landscape as the cockatoos. What did it mean to listen without judgement, to be open to the sounds that exist here and just be. Now I felt like the beginning of a concept for the music was talking shape, layers and textures that co-exist, an energetic deep spiral which connects and anchors us to the earth, feeling so very small in the world but at the same time connected to every part of it.

From the outset I knew I wanted this work to somehow reference Goddess Mythology. The book 'The Myth of the Goddess' by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford^[2] was fertile grounds on which to start exploring. Early musings for me were transcribing sections of particular interest in the Cashford text as well as copying hand drawn images, those from the Neolithic period particularly capturing my attention.

Surrounding myself with text and images I sketched an overarching structure for the work, filling in details gradually often as text, sometimes as musical sketches. Deciding on the harmonic language of the piece I used a moon numerology chart which I mapped to a series of pitches, then chose pitch sets which I liked the sound of, playing them mapped across the full register of the piano and making decisions from there. As this work was to be purely acoustic orchestra I chose to compose the entire work with pencil and paper, initially starting with an overall textural/gestural mapping then moving on to the more detailed work of notes on staves. I've observed in my compositional practice a striking difference between working with purely pencil and paper and working on the computer, seemingly confining both elements of compositional development to different styles of music making. The pencil and paper approach I always use when writing for acoustic instruments as I find it allows a freedom of imagination not possible when staring at a computer screen. My electroacoustic works of course employ the computer, morphing and melding audio to generate a sound world which influences the way I meld the acoustic instruments together with the electronics.

Śūnyatā was originally written for workshops with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra as part of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's Composing Women Program led by Professor Liza Lim. The schedule was for a workshop of a new orchestral piece in 2020 and a second workshop, performance and archival recording in 2021. As we too well know by now nothing went to plan in 2020 and 2021! Fortunately, due to the tenacity of the TSO the 2020 workshop was still able to go ahead via Zoom and a live video stream on YouTube, with archival recordings and fabulous feedback from conductor Simon Reade, orchestral librarian David Harvey, composer on the ground Maria Grenfell and Jenny Compton. David was kind enough to scan and send us all of the players' parts for reference and reflection post workshop, which alongside the recording and feedback from Simon, was invaluable material for reflection.

After listening to the recording of my piece I decided I was happy with the first third of the work and the unfolding deep spiral which occurs, but I wanted to completely re-write the final two thirds of the work. The ability to reflect on my work and re-work it was such a valuable process and having the luxury of doing that with an orchestral work even more so! The archival recording was key in this, allowing time for deep reflection, critique, and analysis of my own work in a way which really isn't possible with just a one-off hearing. There's just too much to take in for deep learning to take place. I also find that I'm much more able to reflect and analyse when I'm alone and not pushed for time, peeling off the layers of pressure and listening in a more considered way. Sessions with the incredible and insightful Liza Lim as part of the Composing Women program and my PhD candidature was integral for pushing me past the limits of my usual compositional repertoire, helping me to re-envisage what the work could be with practical guidance on achieving what it was I was chasing sonically. The presence and role of a mentor on a composer can't be overstated, helping to extend and discover musical language, release blockages and extend processes beyond the boundaries of a singular imagination. This would usually lead me further along this thought process to the importance of collaboration and community on compositional practice but I will leave that to another article.

When rewriting the second two thirds of Śūnyatā I decided to compose a melodic cello solo, sometimes revealed, and sometimes shrouded, by a harmonic cloud in the winds and brass. This eventually gives way to a building texture and the second climactic moment of the piece. Extending the composition in this way was an incorporation of disparate aspects of my compositional voice; melding expressive melodic writing, an early influence of minimalism and rhythmic devices with the world I find so fascinating, textural layers. Fortunately, the workshop and performance in 2021 was still able to go ahead, with the Melbourne contingent of the Composing Women Program able to travel to Tasmania while the rest of us were stuck in Sydney on Zoom (boo, COVID). Once again, the TSO were incredible in the way they facilitated the online streaming of the workshops and performance, making the experience for us Sydney-siders as rewarding as possible.

This orchestral work is an important moment in my compositional journey and after such an extended process of workshopping and development I felt very strongly that I wanted a recording of the work that I could own, with the ability to publish it and share it with the world. For this reason I applied for, and was successful in receiving, a Create NSW grant. This allowed me to record the work with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Miriam Němcová and producer Joe Benjamin. I then had the recording mixed by Sean Carey and mastered by William Bowden, bringing the sonic quality of the recording to another level entirely.

I offer up for your listening and contemplation this work Śūnyatā and hope that it finds some resonance with you, the listener, as it has for me in the process of discovering and composing the music.

"Everything is woven together in one cosmic web. The cosmic egg of the universe was laid by the cosmic Mother Bird, and it's cracking open was the beginning of time and space."

- Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess.

Fiona Hill's Śūnyatā is a finalist in the Work of the Year - Large Ensemble category for the 2022 Art Music Awards.

Śūnyatā is available in the AMC catalogue.

Footnotes

¹ (Gay'Wu Group of Women, et al., 2019)

² (Baring & Cashford, 1991)