Sonic Sites Program

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Ensemble Offspring & Bundanon

WP = World Premiere

Brenda Gifford – Djingiyaa Dew (choir, ensemble) (2021) WP
Amanda Cole – Flowers, Birds (choir, SYO) (2020) WP
Nardi Simpson – Of Stars and Birds (flute, clarinet & vibraphone) (2020)
Tristan Coelho – The Waterfall Speaks to Us (choir, SYO, ensemble) (2020) WP
Damian Barbeler – Calling Up the Trees (SYO, ensemble, video) (2020) WP

Claire Edwardes (percussion)
Lamorna Nightingale (flutes)
Jason Noble (clarinets)
Alice Chance (conductor)
Samuel James (visuals)
Jacob Morris (language custodian)

Shoalhaven Youth Orchestra
Nowra East Primary School Choir
Katandra Choir

Program Notes

Brenda Gifford – Djingiyaa Dew (choir, ensemble) (2021) WP

Text: Dhurga Language
Sourced in consultation with Uncle Jacob

Djingiyaa gabun bana

Amanda Cole – Flowers, Birds (choir, ensemble) (2021) WP

Text: Flowers, Birds
By Nicole (Y6, North Nowra Public School, 2018)

green, peaceful, beautiful

the grass and leaves are so green and the sound is beautiful and peaceful
the budjanlali yanggum is as peaceful as meditation music.

gambalali run away from danger

green, peaceful, beautiful

the grass and leaves are so green and the sound is beautiful and peaceful
the birds singing is as peaceful as meditation music.

flowers run away from danger.

Bree van Reyk – dream, amazing, peaceful dream (choir, ensemble, video) (2020) WP

Text 1: Dream, Amazing, Peaceful
By Lilly (Y3, North Nowra Public School, 2018)

dream, amazing, peaceful
peaceful is a quiet moment with colours like a galaxy
dream is where your body shuts down and relaxes like you are floating
amazing is where you see something like lights and it is amazing
The garaban grow white patches like naandtha grow hair

Text 2: Bundanon Trip
By Tahlia (Y3, North Nowra Public School, 2018)

peaceful, colourful, relaxing
beautiful like my mina
the bawa makes you feel happy
the mossy garaban are a map, they show us where to go
~
peaceful, colourful, relaxing
beautiful like my mother
the bush makes you feel happy
the mossy rocks are a map, they show us where to go

Nardi Simpson – Of Stars and Birds (flute, clarinet & vibraphone) (2020)

Program note by the composer:

Of Stars and Birds was written after an invitation to contribute to Ensemble Offspring’s birdsong collection. As a new composer in the earliest development stages of my craft, I worried how my work would stand alongside the pieces of experienced, accomplished composers who had already contributed to this series. As an Aboriginal musician with limited music theory, I also worried if I could create something of a standard suitable for the ensemble and its project partners. In times like this I look to culture to provide guidance. I quickly realised Yuwaalaraay knowledge, connection and relationship to birds equalled the complexity and detail of advanced musical theory, compositional practice and creative conception.
So I worked hard to imbue this piece with the things I know well, cultural concepts and knowledge, enabling a transformation away from a commissioned composition and into an extension of my own lived and practiced cultural experience.

Of Stars and Birds developed then from a significant Yuwaalaraay story ending in the creation of the southern cross but traversing the enormity of land, lore, death and rebirth. Birds weave this story into our dreaming cosmos, the conventional limitations of earth, sky, death, day, life and night dissolving and creating its own universe of existence- a bit like my compositional craft, a mixture of traditions and teachings, an extension of the storytelling and songmaking of Australia’s First People’s and the explorations and expressions of a new composer at the beginning of an exciting musical journey.

Tristan Coelho – The Waterfall Speaks to Us (choir, SYO, ensemble) (2020) WP

Text 1: My Calm Journey
By Tayha (Y6, North Nowra Public School, 2018)

peaceful, green, grateful

it’s so peaceful and quiet you can only hear the animals
the breeze does not roar
it’s calm.
you feel so grateful to be there
it’s so green there’s so much life.

the bunya is so spikey just like a pineapple, they are like armour
for their bunbal when the bunbal starts to shake, fall down to attack,
the budjan yangum ngubudli lullabies,
nyulaan yangum sorrows to their lost ones and
gum to each other

peaceful, green, grateful

it’s so peaceful and quiet you can only hear the animals
the breeze does not roar
it’s calm.
you feel so grateful to be there
it’s so green there’s so much life.

the fruit is so spikey just like a pineapple, they are like armour
for their tree when the tree starts to shake, fall down to attack,
the birds sing loving lullabies,
they sing sorrows to their lost ones and
talk to each other

Text 2: Bush
By Nate (Y5, North Nowra Public School, 2018)

beautiful, calming, colourful

there was bawa surrounding yindi and the calming
gurgama blowing the leaves around
the garaban were hard like concrete and cold
as snow, the budjanlali were like mediation music
the waterfall gum to nyulaan

beautiful, calming, colourful

there was bush surrounding you and the calming
wind blowing the leaves around
the rocks were hard like concrete and cold
as snow, the birds were like mediation music
the waterfall speaks to us

Damian Barbeler – Calling Up the Trees (SYO, ensemble, video) (2020) WP

Program note by the composer:

This work was originally commissioned for an outdoor event at night amongst trees. The idea then was to “call up” the ghosts of trees that had been cut down in the past. If this were actually possible it would be a terrifying thing to see. And so the work is extremely loud, aggressive and at time tortured in its character. In this semi-theatrical context the Trio of flute, contrabass clarinet and vibraphone are the summoners. The orchestra who are scattered around spacially in the bush or across an empty paddock are the sounds of the wakening voices of the dead trees.

Image: Damian Barbeler, Circling Graphic 4, (from score Calling up the Trees), 2020 (detail)