for her song cycle for choir, piano and speaking voices.
The full texts are published as a collection in a separate booklet. Several musical versions will be available.
For several years I was involved intermittently in the practical side of an anti-clearfelling campaign to save old-growth forests. But eventually I felt that the best contribution I could make to conservation and social issues was to compose music on such themes.
An opportunity arose when I was asked to deputise for the conductor of the Perth Discovery Choir for a few weeks, and to write something for the choir's tenth anniversary concert. Around the same time I saw a colour photograph of a yellow tingle tree on the front page of a major newspaper. The felled tree was being taken out of the forest on a logging truck, a scene the story had likened to a funeral procession. Unbeknown to me, my father, the late John Joseph Jones, a well-known and prolific writer, had seen the same story. Two days later his poem, Yellow Tingle Tree, arrived unheralded in my letterbox. This poem became the final song in ...where eucalypts green-tip the sky.
I put out a call for more poems dealing with related themes. Another call for poems dealing with the difficult circumstance of the timber workers met with no response. After making a short list of twenty I chose thirteen poems by seven Western Australian poets. Six of the poems have been set to music for the choir, and the remaining seven are to be spoken---some with and some without accompaniment.
© MDJ 2004. May be used in programme notes.
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Landscape With Gum Trees |
Speaker 1 |
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(no text) |
(no text) |
Piano solo |
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Choir, piano |
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Choir, piano, speaker 2 |
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The Last Tree |
Speaker 3 |
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Green Gums and Gravel (ex. 1) |
Speaker 4 |
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Choir, piano |
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Jarrah |
Speaker 2 |
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Green Gums and Gravel (ex. 2) |
Speaker 4 |
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Choir, choral speaking, piano |
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A Remembrance of Robins |
Speaker 2 |
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Green Gums and Gravel (ex. 3) |
Speaker 4 |
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Choir, piano, speaker 2 |
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Karri Forest |
Speaker 1 |
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Choir, piano |
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Speaker 2, piano |
Note: the full text of the poem Green Gums and Gravel is printed at the end of the booklet (but not the musical score).
The musical score of ... where eucalypts green-tip the sky will be available soon in several flexible versions:
Piano and one or more speaking parts, plus choir consisting of:
The speakers may be chosen from the choir.
The form is modular. Choir directors may pick and choose a selection from sixteen pieces, including six choral sections and one piano solo. The full work takes about 20 minutes. Some items may be sold separately.
Practise tapes are available. Back to top.
