- Thousand Year Dreaming (1990)
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Annea Lockwood
for oboe/english horn, A clarinet/contrabass clarinet, two tenor trombones, percussion, four didjeridu, voice, and slide projections
To me the didjeridu is the sound of the earth’s core, pulsing serenely - an expression of the life force. When I started working on the score images from the Lascaux cave paintings came to mind as in some way connected with that resonating pulsing. Dated to the Aurignacian Paleolithic period (ca 17,000 BC), they contain recurring symbols such as checkerboards and tridents which are not yet well understood. However, the intense awe and love with which the animal images have been created are vividly clear. Like sound, they also manifest the life force.
From discussions of Korean musical traditions with composer Jin Hi Kim came ideas about cyclically unfolding structures which helped greatly as I tried to work out a natural shape for these sounds and images - four sections with the following subtitles: breathing and dreaming; the Chi stirs; floating in mid-air; in full bloom.
- Luminescence (2004)
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Annea Lockwood
for baritone voice, flute, trumpet, viola, cello, piano, percussion, and speaking voice
Luminescence was commissioned by Thomas Buckner, and is based on poems from Etel Adnan's SEA, which evoke the Lebanese coast of the Mediterranean, her birthplace. The Pacific Ocean is also a strong presence in her life as in Thomas Buckner's and mine, and so the piece celebrates our three-way friendship and our shared love of that ocean, which influenced the first song: here, the phrase lengths match the timing of long Pacific waves which I recorded in New Zealand, some years ago.
Click here to listen on Annea Lockwood's website.