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Work Overview
Black Summer is a string quartet that pays homage to Australia's bushfire history. This work is for live string quartet, with an accompanyng silent film.
The five-movement work reflects upon significant bushfires from Australia's past, exploring the devastation, healing and renewal that accompanies wildfire events.
This piece combines footage, imagery, newspaper stories and contemporary poetry arising from
Australia's major bushfires, with a five-movement musical work that explores the impact of fire events upon the natural world. Each movement highlights a time and place in history, chronicling the many visages of wildfire that the Australian landscape has endured. Footage and imagery was assembled from the National Film and Sound Archives and the National Library in Canberra, newspaper articles and poetry written by bushfire survivors. The quartet movements and silent film chronicle the stories of devastation and renewal wrought by major fires.
Work Details
Year: 2021
Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, cello.
Duration: 28 min.
Difficulty: Advanced — Some aleatoric passages and graphic notation
Contents note: I. Cool Burning -- II. Ash Wednesday: Raining Fire (1983) -- III. Black Saturday: Firestorm (2009) -- IV. Coronam Ignis: Crowning Fires (2020) -- V. Landsong: Hymn of the Burning Earth.
Commission note: This work was composed as the prize-winning piece for the Albert H. Maggs Award (2018) at the University of Melbourne.
First performance: by Australian String Quartet at ASQ at The Lab: Music + Moving Image – Adelaide (The Lab) on 7 Oct 2021
Silent Film produced and created by Cinemache Studios, Adelaide, South Australia.
Awards & Prizes
Year | Award | Placing | Awarded for/to |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Art Music Awards: Work of the Year: Chamber Music | Finalist | Natalie Williams |
Subjects
- Has as subject/About: Bushfires
Performances of this work
7 Oct 2021: at ASQ at The Lab: Music + Moving Image – Adelaide (The Lab). Featuring Australian String Quartet.
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