composers

Top Composers Endorse Music Proposal

Three of Australia’s most distinguished composers, Michael Atherton, Peter Sculthorpe and Ross Edwards, have each endorsed the model proposed by Doug Kirkpatrick for adapting Marie Cowan’s melody for Waltzing Matilda.

Excerpted below are their comments.

Peter Sculthorpe

“…What attracted me to the concept, in the first place, is the way music and sound effects are woven into the whole…After reading the Model (outlining the symphonic approach), I’m even more convinced that Michael Atherton is the composer for you.”

(Source: letter dated 4 February 1998) (bio)

Michael Atherton

“…Thinking about the emotional build of the music, I hear a Koori woman singing a short song about the rainbow serpent as we track the alligator river [sic] in Kakadu, followed by Mark Atkins with a powerful tribal/urban digj virtuoso piece….they are joined by a symphony orchestra (50-60 [instruments]) evoking a Beethovian/Brahmsian variation on the chorus of Waltzing Matilda, the July Bailey Ensemble and Sandy Evans (4 [performers]), the Song Company (6)…and members of the RAAF brass band and percussion (12), the Xylouris Ensemble (7), a Greek/Australian group from Melbourne incorporating violin and cello along with Aegean fiddle, laouto and dunbek, and Anthony Walker or David Stanhope conducting. All musicians (are) together in the concert hall or the Sydney Opera House recording the music – the complete score with pick-ups and stings.”

(Source: letter dated 11 June 1998) (bio)

Ross Edwards

“A series of variations on Waltzing Matilda, constantly changing, coloured in various ways and incorporating sounds of real or imitated instruments from a variety of sources (e.g. didgeridoo, shakukachi, mandolin, etc.): this would reflect the kaleidoscopic nature of the Australian (experience)…You could use fabulous real music: the sort of thing you’d hear at a traditional Latvian wedding, a Vietnamese funeral, a Greek Orthodox Church service, a night at home with an Italian family, a country and western festival at Tamworth, an urban Aboriginal band in a pub, a performance of Waltzing Matilda using bush instruments by a band like Sirocco, a string quartet at the Opera House…all authentically Australian…and relevant to the real Australia. If [Michael Atherton] can be persuaded to have a hand in the music for a film like this, it would be a real coup.”

(Source: letter dated 29/12/99) (bio)