Where Song Began
February 2020
← Back to Artist-in-Residence page
“Where Song Began” is a musical celebration of Australia's birds and how they shaped the world.
Inspired by leading ornithologist Tim Low's award-winning book, this 50-minute performance explores the Australian origins of song, the birds that can sing. Such is their evolutionary significance, one may ask whether human music would have reached the heights it has, had the first songbird not sung in an Australian rainforest.
Accessible for all ages, this work encourages the audience to contemplate the origin of song and the importance of Australia's rich and colorful bird history, as well as their evolutionary and cultural influences in Europe and North America. The program includes music spanning 300 years, from Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and J.S. Bach to Arvo Pärt and new Australian works, enhanced by a film of evocative visual projections, and an immersive soundscape.
Where Song Began has been performed over 60 times across Australia, as well as in New York and London. It has been hailed in the press as “...a work of art; a transfixing soundscape that embraces cultures and ages, the composed and the improvised, the indigenous and the stylised and which highlights the utterly unique birdsongs of Australia.”
About the performers: Simone Slattery was a 2018 Churchill Fellow, received a Ph.D. in Music Performance from the University of Adelaide and performs regularly with Australia's finest ensembles. Anthony Albrecht is an Australian graduate of The Juilliard School's Historical Performance program and enjoys an international career.
Performance length: 60 minutes without interval, including a Q&A
Program
Arvo Pärt - Fratres for solo violin, 1977
Sarah Hopkins - Reclaiming the Spirit, 1993
Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending, 1917
Chris Williams - bird, songs, seas, 2017
Ross Edwards - Ecstatic Dance No.2, 1990
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer - Cucu Sonata, 1664
J.S. Bach - Prelude from Cello Suite No.1, c.1720
David Lang - Anthochaera carunculata (Red Wattle Bird), New Commission, 2017
Ngarra Burra Ferra - Traditional Indigenous hymn
For more information, visit wheresongbegan.com.
