#sallywhitwell

[sillywhatwell-blog]

Yellow music by Sally Whitwell text by Monique Duval This piece was commissioned by my lovely friend and supremely gifted music educator/musician Annie Kwok, for a choir at the school where she used to teach, Brighton Secondary in Adelaide. The choristers chose the text and I felt very lucky to have been introduced to Monique Duval’s work by them. What a lovely gift. I prefer a wintery, stormy beach to a calm summery one any day. This text really spoke to me. “That’s when the rain came down And we ran, laughing hard, sides hurting. And there was no shelter for miles So we just sat down on the sand And watched the ocean swallow the sky”

[sillywhatwell-blog]

Collaborative compositions. These are a few songs that I've composed with young 'uns... it's a singularly inspiring thing to do. And plain old good fun!

[sillywhatwell-blog]

Recorded in my front room, complete with traffic and kitty noises... a composition I entered in this Southbank thingo "Love Songs You Compose". Text by Ella from Brixton. http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/love-songs-you-compose-84606

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Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Live loop arrangement and performance by Sally Whitwell.

My eclectic life.  So yesterday, I was playing a proper classical concert with a proper classical pianist Simon Tedeschi.  And today I'm working on a cappella live looped Nirvana.

I really love that my life has this kind of variety.

[sillywhatwell-blog]

So it's Australia Day, a holiday about which, let's be honest, I have mixed feelings... But in the spirit of being proud of this beautiful land of Oz, here's a song I composed. It's about Sydney, kind of. The text reads as follows;

"I was flying over sydney in a giant dog. things looked bad."

Flying. Music by Sally Whitwell. Text by Michael Dransfield. Performed by Kompactus - Canberra's Compact Chorus, conducted by Daniel Brinsmead with pianist Sally Whitwell. Recorded live at All Saints Anglican Church, 27 October 2013.

[sillywhatwell-blog]

In the Deep Heart's Core. Music by Sally Whitwell, text by William Butler Yeats. Performed by Nadia Piave, soprano and Sally Whitwell, piano. Recorded live at All Saints Anglican Church, Ainslie, ACT, 27 October 2013.

In the Deep Heart's Core is a very special composition of mine.  I dedicated it to my beautiful partner Glennda.  We have long dreamt of escaping to a little paradise of our own, far away from here… One day. One day.

[sillywhatwell-blog]

Echo. Music by Sally Whitwell. Text by Christina Rossetti. Performed by Kompactus - Canberra's Compact Chorus, conducted by Daniel Brinsmead with pianist Sally Whitwell. Recorded live on 27 October 2013 for the concert "In Her Shoes - music by Women Composer" at All Saints Anglican Church, Ainslie, ACT.

[sillywhatwell-blog]

I wrote this piece about the Voyager Space Probe a while back, called Ad Astra Per Aspera. Performed here by Nicole Thompson, soprano and Rachel Scott, cello.  Some of the text is by me, and some is adapted from the writings of Carl Sagan.

Sagan is one of my heroes.  Like Sir David Attenborough, he brought science into my life in a way that I could understand (not an easy thing as I'm not a terribly scientifically minded person!).  These guys seem much more like artists to me.  I think I might set some more of Sagan's text to music today...