Women of Note: A Century of Australian Composers Vol. 2 [2CD]

• ABC Classics
• 4819111
• 2CD set

Following the success of the first volume, ABC Classics now release a second volume of works written by Australian women composers.

This 2CD album, released in time for International Women’s Day (8 March), begins with music from pioneers of Australia’s musical heritage: Margaret Sutherland, Miriam Hyde, Dulcie Holland, and introducing Linda Phillips, whose work as a critic and as chief adjudicator of the prestigious Sun Aria competition across three decades helped to shape this country’s musical landscape, but whose compositions – prized by such artists as Dame Joan Sutherland – have been unjustly neglected in Australia’s recorded music catalogue. Her quartet Exaltation, a swirling mixture of melancholy and exuberance, shows the composer exploring the musical legacy of her family’s Jewish background.

Five other world premiere recordings feature on the album. Multiple award-winning composer Mary Finsterer is represented by a live concert recording of her double bass concerto Lake Ice, an exploration of music as storytelling and as journey, guided by the beautiful yet rarely heard sonorities of the bass as solo instrument. From Miriama Young we have a re-imagination of the historical soundworld of Sydney Harbour in Time and Tide, blending field recordings ancient and modern with brass and percussion instruments. We are also delighted to be presenting the first commercial recording of music by rising star Ella Macens: her soaring orchestral work The Space Between Stars.

The other two world premiere recordings are by Indigenous Australian composers. From Yorta Yorta woman, opera singer, composer and educator Deborah Cheetham comes Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace: a powerful and poignant response to the resistance war fought by the Gunditjmara people in southwest Victoria and to the troubled spirits of all who fell in those battles, on both sides. And Yuwaalaraay composer Nardi Simpson gives us Wilga’s Last Dance, honouring the only traditional melody from her people that was ever recorded.

Moya Henderson takes us to the Tasmanian wilderness with her transcendent string quartet Kudikynah Cave, evoking moments of ecstatic stillness during the raft journey to the cave’s entrance, along the Franklin River. Katia Tiutiunnik draws inspiration from the moment a mother first feels her baby move inside her womb for her flute and piano duet The Quickening. Katy Abbott, always alert to the quirks and foibles of human existence, applies wit and humour to the multiple meanings of the word Punch in a work for brass ensemble. Amanda Cole marries marimba and cowbells in her energetic percussion solo Glocken Blocken. Rachel Bruerville (Dancing on Tiptoes) and Natalie Nicolas (We Won’t Let You Down) worked with teenagers in hospital mental health wards to create music of joy and profound optimism. And Elena Kats-Chernin’s beloved Eliza Aria is presented in its original version for quizzical soprano solo over delicately plucked strings.