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Work

Black Summer : An Homage to Australia's Bushfire History

by Natalie Williams (2021)

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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

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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