Last night was the premiere of my new piece Dreaming of Trees, for chamber ensemble [alto recorder, clarinet, harp, violin, ‘cello, soprano voice, tenor voice] and (for pragmatism’s sake) optional choir. Composed for Forest Collective/Exaudi Youth Choir’s ‘Bois’ concert and launching from the given theme…trees.

My chosen tree, the Moreton Bay Fig. The musical and text materials that went into the piece were mostly drawn from bits of information I gathered about the Moreton Bay Fig, pitch material extrapolated from the structure of cellulose and metacellulose (the major building blocks of wood), formal scheme derived from information about the growth cycle of the plant, semi-poetic text taken from the blog of a person claiming to have received a spiritual ‘tranmission’ from a Moreton Bay Fig tree.

Last night’s concert was also my public debut as a conductor, quite an experience.

Many thanks are due to all the musicians involved for their effort, and to the audience for their welcoming response.

I’ll post a recording as it becomes available.