She Speaks Program

We acknowledge that the land we make music on is the traditional country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay respect to Elders past and present and recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that this is of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today. We extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are with us for this performance today.

She Speaks is presented by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in partnership with the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide.

Jump to
She Speaks 1 – Unearth | Fri 31 May, 1.10pm
She Speaks 2 – Spirit | Fri 31 May, 7pm
She Speaks 3 – Dynamic | Sat 1 Jun, 4pm
She Speaks 4 – Discover | Sat 1 Jun, 7pm

Welcome from Curators Anne Cawrse & Belinda Gehlert

“The impulse to create begins –  often terribly and fearfully – in a tunnel of silence.” Adrienne Rich

Welcome to She Speaks, a festival celebrating diversity, inclusion, and the bravery required to forge a career as a female composer.

We are not far removed from a time when seeing a female composer’s name in an orchestral or chamber music program was exceedingly rare. Much work has been done to address this imbalance, but it takes time and commitment to introduce new repertoire into the canon. We need opportunities to discover new favourites, to become familiar with unfamiliar voices, and to spark our musical curiosity. 

In She Speak’s third iteration, we revisit composers featured in previous seasons (Shaw, Mazzoli, Higdon, and Hensel), introduce some new favourites (Maconchy, Auerbach, Wolfe, and Tower), and once again celebrate homegrown Australian music (Chance, Finsterer, Harrison, Greenaway, and Cawrse).

The heart of our program lies with contemporary composition. We are thrilled to present four concerts showcasing primarily living female composers. For the first time, She Speaks presents a world premiere: Belinda Gehlert’s Diving into the Wreck, commissioned for the festival by the ASO. While premieres offer the thrill of the new, equally significant is the reprogramming of modern classics. To this end, we are delighted to feature soloists Julian Justin (viola) and Celia Craig (cor anglais), presenting the South Australian premieres of 21^st-Century concerti by Holly Harrison and Anne Cawrse.

In our chamber concerts, the world-renowned Australian String Quartet performs with Noriko Tadano, exploring the ethereal melodies of the shamisen. ASO strings players and Elder Conservatorium of Music staff showcase rarely heard delights, and emerging talents from the Elder Conservatorium push boundaries with unique scores and unconventional instruments, including garden pottery!

Each note resonates with the limitless creativity and groundbreaking innovation of some remarkable compositional voices. We are confident you will be enthralled, moved, delighted, entertained, and surprised by it all – everything, that is, other than the fact all this was created by women.

About the music

Words and music share an intimate relationship – one integral to the opening work of She Speaks, an Adelaide Symphony Orchestra series giving voice to lesser-heard composers. This afternoon’s program Unearth begins with a musical essay from Caroline Shaw, an American composer who uses the language of music to reflect upon the function of words, which can unite and divide us in equal measure.

In 2016, Shaw started working on Three Essays through which she pondered how a body of writing may introduce and disseminate groundbreaking ideas. At the forefront of her mind during the composition of her First Essay (Nimrod) was the writer Marilynne Robinson, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning novels and essays contemplate daily life and religion in America. Further to this inspiration is the story of Nimrod, which Shaw embeds into the title of her work. In the biblical tale, Nimrod is a warrior who plays a role in building the Tower of Babel – a mighty structure designed to reach up to Heaven. As the story goes, God punishes the people who work on this tower by polluting their language, making it impossible for them to understand each other. These concepts may be heard in the musical themes of Nimrod, which begin in synchronicity, each line cohesive and complementary before growing fragmented. This Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s work Boris Kerner will feature in the third She Speaks event.

While She Speaks highlights the music of women from our generation, this program also pays homage to one of the talents who paved the way during the Romantic era: German composer-pianist Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Mendelssohn wrote hundreds of works, but unlike those of her younger brother Felix, few of hers were formally published, and some were shared with the world under her sibling’s name. Here, the Australian String Quartet showcases her String Quartet in E-flat: III. Romanze. A sober pulse introduces this movement from Mendelssohn’s magnificent 1834 chamber piece – one of the oldest surviving examples of a woman’s writing in this musical form.

Returning to modern-day Australia, you will hear a musical interpretation of a striking natural phenomenon. Noriko Tadano’s Staircase to the Moon paints a picture of a rare occurrence in Broome, Western Australia. The full moon glistens over dark water; its reflection looks like a stairway that climbs up to meet its light – an impression that Tadano once saw on a visit to the region. Her music is written for a shamisen, a traditional Japanese instrument with three strings. It begins slowly, with a spaciousness reminiscent of the wide evening sky. This version was arranged by Australian composer-violinist Emily Tulloch, and Tadano gives its performance.

Tulloch has arranged another of Tadano’s works featuring in this event – the vigorously rhythmic Vertigo, from the Staircase to the Moon album. Tadano, who was born in Japan, started learning shamisen at 6 years old, and after a lengthy time away from the instrument, she returned to it as an adult. Her career has taken her from busking in Melbourne to touring Australia and the world as a virtuosic soloist, composer, and collaborator.

Vertigo is energetic and catchy – the type of music that might have you closing your eyes and scrunch up your nose in satisfaction. This is also the intended effect of Nose Scrunch Reel – Alice Chance’s string quartet composed in 2020. It was inspired by the contagious energy of Irish folk music and the composer’s appreciation for the fiddle in this traditional medium. This Australian String Quartet commission forms part of the group’s anthology of Australian compositions, which also features music by Holly Harrison and Anne Cawrse – composers whose works will appear in the She Speaks programs to come.

Program note by Stephanie Eslake, 2024

Back to top

About the music

Elizabeth Maconchy was an English-born Irish composer who lived through every decade of the 20^th Century. She once stated how important it is for the “composer to keep his head and allow nothing to distract him” – her language a telling reminder of the values of her time, inescapable and internalised. And still she excelled: Maconchy became the head of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain – the first woman in the post – and was made a Dame of the British Empire. She was famously rejected for the Mendelssohn Scholarship because she was expected to marry instead of compose, but nevertheless went on to win all manner of awards and scholarships throughout her career. Despite her success against the odds, you won’t find many of her works on today’s concert programs – at least, not compared to the regularly performed music of her colleagues and friends Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten. In this She Speaks event, Maconchy’s String Quartet No.6 is at last brought to the fore for Australian listeners – and her music is just as engrossing as that of any composer who had kept his head; ignored his distractions.

Maconchy’s string quartets are among the most celebrated of her works and span about 50 years of her compositional career. The sixth was performed at an Oxford Ladies’ Music Society concert in 1952, in the presence of the composer. There, Maconchy spoke about the relevance of passion in music – and the restraint with which composers must funnel that enthusiasm into one clear idea. Her philosophy can be heard as early as the first few bars: cello presents an ominous idea, after which the first violin echoes its notes and character. Then the ensemble unravels the opening statement with striking intensity. The second movement carries her ideas with force (impetuoso), while the third gives Maconchy’s warmer melody to viola before the players work together to create a feeling of lightness and hope. The final movement is a thrill.

Mary Finsterer’s Julian Suite III: Angelus for clarinet, piano, and cello projects an entirely different sound world, bringing stunning variety into this She Speaks program. Ensemble Liaison commissioned, premiered, and recorded this music, which is named after Australian human rights advocate and arts patron Julian Burnside AO. Angelus refers to a 19^th-Century French oil painting by Jean-François Millet. It shows a couple standing in a barren-looking field, a church’s steeple almost imperceptibly far in the distance. The man holds his hat by his chest while the woman clasps her hands in front of her: together they pray. Finsterer chose to reflect upon the Angelus devotion with music inspired by Roman Catholic Gregorian chant. Her piece is soft (pianissimo) and soothing, beginning “like a prayer”, as she instructs in her score. At first, it carries six beats to a bar, and close to halfway into this cinematic music, the piano burbles beneath soaring melodies from the clarinet and cello.

Jennifer Higdon is a New York-born composer whose work Dash shares similar instrumentation – it features clarinet, piano, and violin. But each bar of Dash is jam-packed with action as it speeds along at 152 beats per minute – about twice as fast as our resting hearts. The composer has likened its chaos to an athletic sprint in which the talent hurtles along at full force. Players don’t pause to catch their breath before a satisfying conclusion, piano descending through a series of glissandi, music finally toppling after the exertion. The Grammy Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s Dash premiered in 2020, and has since been arranged for other instruments up for this fast-paced challenge.

Program note by Stephanie Eslake, 2024

Back to top

About the music

American composer Caroline Shaw finds inspiration in the most unusual places. In Valencia – performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra earlier this year – Shaw wrote about a piece of fruit. Plan & Elevation is a representation of the gardens surrounding a research library. Her work Boris Kerner stems from equally odd source material: it’s named after the German engineer who wrote a book about traffic flow.

The cello’s opening line is as tightly cornered as a city intersection. After sinking into its hypnotic but angular solo, percussion enters in the form of a flowerpot. Could its tapping signal the pitter-patter of pedestrians, rushing at the chance to cross at the lights? Instruments fall in and out of sync until the work concludes gently; peak hour is over.

Sally Greenaway’s transportive Poems I, II, and III also feature cello in a leading role. This soothingly beautiful music is inspired by the mélodies of French composer Reynaldo Hahn, and by the work of Belgian poet Pierre Louÿs. Louÿs wrote about a magical stroll through a forest at night, finding a cluster of roses and indulging in their scent. Greenaway’s 2013 composition is equally luscious, and while the Australian composer intended to hint at Philip Glass in this piano part, her dreamy work also feels reminiscent of the otherworldly scores that may be heard in a Studio Ghibli film.

Lera Auerbach’s Lonely Suite is anything but lonely. On YouTube, you will find myriad recordings of its six movements, owing to the composer’s decision to make her sheet music available for free. Such a generous act was spurred on by the isolation that musicians experienced during the pandemic. To help violinists feel less alone, Auerbach offered her music and united a community of soloists in the process. Pizzicato effects open the first movement Dancing with Oneself; in Boredom, Auerbach insists the melody should be performed “sadly”. No Escape uses compound melody to induce anxiety, while the work eventually wraps up with an open-ended Question on which the player can ad lib. Russian-born Auerbach is a creative polymath, and beyond this solo suite, she is a prolific conductor, pianist, poet, and artist. 

Equally impressive is Julia Wolfe, an American composer who won a Pulitzer Prize in Music and co-founded Bang on a Can. Her composition East Broadway is for a playful combination of instruments – toy piano and toy boombox. If you can spot earbuds or headphones on the soloist, you will know they are listening to a click track, which will help them keep in time with Wolfe’s elaborate rhythms. Margaret Leng Tan commissioned this music and premiered it in France in 1997. She is the world’s foremost toy pianist.

Anna Clyne’s Hopscotch for solo flute takes another step into the world of play. The virtuoso skips between high and low notes, never finding a steady place to land before being propelled along their scale yet again. This British composer’s music – which premiered in America in 2019 – shows the awe-inspiring skill of the soloist. Some moments are dedicated to extended techniques, others to passion and expression – all within the spirit of a child’s outdoor game.

Holly Harrison’s Bend/Boogie/Break is another playful piece, which was composed for a concoction of instruments – bass clarinet, percussion, and keyboard among them – and premiered in 2018 by the popular Ensemble Offspring. The title captures the intentions of this Australian composer, who guides the stringed instruments to bend their pitch, boogie through a “funk bass” section and break through “unravelling & deflating”, as marked in her score. It brings today’s She Speaks program to a dynamic and exciting close.

Program note by Stephanie Eslake, 2024

Back to top

About the music

In 1942, American composer Aaron Copland wrote Fanfare for the Common Man, paying homage to the men who dedicated themselves to their country during World War II. Decades later, Joan Tower would enter the American musical landscape to proclaim that her half of the population deserved an equally rousing anthem. This was the setting for Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, No.1 in which she chose to adopt Copland’s brass-heavy sound palette, then reimagine it as a celebration of courageous women. The new fanfare premiered in 1987 with a special dedication to conductor Marin Alsop. Tower’s use of brass and percussion provides an arresting introduction to her proudly feminist piece, and to this concert program.

For She Speaks, co-curator Belinda Gehlert has written an Adelaide Symphony Orchestra commission, which is also inspired by American source material. Diving into the Wreck takes its name from a ‘70s poem by Adrienne Rich, which uses the metaphor of a shipwreck to convey an emotional journey. Composer-violinist Gehlert has bookended her piece with a double violin solo, evoking the sensation of diving into the sea. Another string solo is heard in the centre, representing resilience, while brief woodwind solos provide bursts of colour and emotion.

Holly Harrison’s Bend/Boogie/Break featured in the third She Speaks concert, and her 2019 Hotwire is another lively offering. The Australian composer positions solo viola as a thief who ‘hotwires’ the orchestra for an adrenaline-inducing drive. The soloist plays contemporary styles and complicated techniques you’d rarely hear in an orchestral setting, turning this work into one wild ride. 

We return to Tower in Chamber Dance, which shares similarities with Diving into the Wreck: it gives short solos to various instruments, which sing above the silence or overlap with each other. Towers’ 2006 composition was commissioned by the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and is dedicated to the players’ ability to communicate through the dancelike movement of music.

She Speaks co-curator Anne Cawrse places cor anglais in the spotlight in The Rest is Silence. Her concerto responds to English writer Aldous Huxley who, in his essay of the same name, stated: “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” Beyond its literary inspiration, Cawrse’s work is an ode to music itself, and its ability to move us as it bridges silence and sound. Like Gehlert’s composition, it exposes fleeting emotions that are best shared not through words, but music. It was shortlisted for the APRA AMCOS 2022 Art Music Awards; Cawrse won two such awards in 2021.

This program closes with another work inspired by literature, Missy Mazzoli’s 2006 These Worlds In Us, named after a line from The Lost Pilot by American poet James Tate. Mazzoli draws parallels between the poem – a dedication to Tate’s father who died in World War II – and her own father who fought in Vietnam. Her award-winning piece contemplates grief and memory through patterns of sinking strings, warlike drums, and rich orchestration.

Program note by Stephanie Eslake, 2024

Back to top

Proudly supported by