Dare to Declare
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (2023)
25 minutes
for solo marimba and orchestra
Instrumentation: Solo marimba (5 octave), 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in Bb, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, 1 percussion, harp, strings.
Commissioned by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Premiered by Claire Edwardes (marimba), with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Elena Schwarz, on July 7th, 2023, Adelaide Town Hall, South Australia.
'Dare to Declare' was a finalist in the 2024 Art Music Awards 'Performance of the Year' category.
Archival recording and/or perusal score available upon request.
Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra (2023)
25 minutes
for solo marimba and orchestra
Instrumentation: Solo marimba (5 octave), 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in Bb, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, 1 percussion, harp, strings.
Commissioned by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Premiered by Claire Edwardes (marimba), with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Elena Schwarz, on July 7th, 2023, Adelaide Town Hall, South Australia.
'Dare to Declare' was a finalist in the 2024 Art Music Awards 'Performance of the Year' category.
Archival recording and/or perusal score available upon request.
Soloist Claire Edwardes, Conductor Elena Schwart, and Composer Anne Cawrse
Dare to Declare aims to be a celebration and affirmation of Australian artistic and creative prowess. Cast in three movements, the musical inspiration for each movement comes from three important artistic voices from Australia’s history – poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, visual artist Clarice Beckett, and composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks. The work is dedicated to Claire Edwardes, without whom I would not have had this opportunity to compose such a substantial work for marimba. Much of the work was composed in 2022 while I was a recipient of a Prelude Composer’s Residency, administered by the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer’s House Trust.
The opening and closing melodies in the first movement Oodgeroo are a wordles setting of parts of her poem ‘The Past’. This poem explores the author’s deep-felt connection to culture and the ancient wisdom of the land. The central section of the movement takes on a nostalgic, dreamscape quality, exploiting the darkly resonant lower register of the marimba. While not a traditional ‘fast’ movement (as would often be the case in a three-movement form), the music here contains an earthy and strong character, with a proud tutti-orchestral chorale featured at the climax.
In the second movement, the delicately blurred twilight aesthetic of Clarice Beckett’s paintings is reflected in the harmonic choices and textural painting of sound. Here the music embraces stillness and the interplay between softness and structure, displaying the gentle humanity present in Clarice’s paintings. By omitting all brass (except horns) the music explores a delicate sound palette of winds and strings, often utilising the soloist in complex accompanying roles. There are musical evocations of sunsets, the colours of dusk, and gently rolling waves caressing wides expanses of sand.
The final movement is a celebration of the life and music of Peggy Glanville-Hicks - an extravagant, effervescent, and feisty journey through the major modes, motoric and irregular rhythms, and percussive vitality that Peggy’s music is remembered for. Structured in an arch form, the opening section states three interconnected themes before leading us into slightly slower and more sombre territory. We then wheel our way back through the faster themes in reverse order, hearing the same music presented in different and increasingly brash and audacious ways.
The title ‘Dare to Declare’ is the opening line of a poem by UK poet and theologian Nicola Slee, ‘Conversations with Muse’. Slee writes:
Dare to declare who you are.
It isn’t far from the shores of silence
to the boundaries of speech.
The road is not long but the way is deep.
And you must not only walk there,
you must be prepared to leap.
Oodgeroo, Clarice and Peggy each wrote, painted, and spoke their truth through their representative art forms, regardless of setbacks, challenges, and the indifference of others. In doing so, they dared to declare who they were as artists and lived with a fearless commitment to their art. This concerto celebrates their lives, their artistic voices, and the importance of their art; my prayer is that as an artist, I may grow to be as brave and as daring as they were.
© Anne Cawrse 2023
The opening and closing melodies in the first movement Oodgeroo are a wordles setting of parts of her poem ‘The Past’. This poem explores the author’s deep-felt connection to culture and the ancient wisdom of the land. The central section of the movement takes on a nostalgic, dreamscape quality, exploiting the darkly resonant lower register of the marimba. While not a traditional ‘fast’ movement (as would often be the case in a three-movement form), the music here contains an earthy and strong character, with a proud tutti-orchestral chorale featured at the climax.
In the second movement, the delicately blurred twilight aesthetic of Clarice Beckett’s paintings is reflected in the harmonic choices and textural painting of sound. Here the music embraces stillness and the interplay between softness and structure, displaying the gentle humanity present in Clarice’s paintings. By omitting all brass (except horns) the music explores a delicate sound palette of winds and strings, often utilising the soloist in complex accompanying roles. There are musical evocations of sunsets, the colours of dusk, and gently rolling waves caressing wides expanses of sand.
The final movement is a celebration of the life and music of Peggy Glanville-Hicks - an extravagant, effervescent, and feisty journey through the major modes, motoric and irregular rhythms, and percussive vitality that Peggy’s music is remembered for. Structured in an arch form, the opening section states three interconnected themes before leading us into slightly slower and more sombre territory. We then wheel our way back through the faster themes in reverse order, hearing the same music presented in different and increasingly brash and audacious ways.
The title ‘Dare to Declare’ is the opening line of a poem by UK poet and theologian Nicola Slee, ‘Conversations with Muse’. Slee writes:
Dare to declare who you are.
It isn’t far from the shores of silence
to the boundaries of speech.
The road is not long but the way is deep.
And you must not only walk there,
you must be prepared to leap.
Oodgeroo, Clarice and Peggy each wrote, painted, and spoke their truth through their representative art forms, regardless of setbacks, challenges, and the indifference of others. In doing so, they dared to declare who they were as artists and lived with a fearless commitment to their art. This concerto celebrates their lives, their artistic voices, and the importance of their art; my prayer is that as an artist, I may grow to be as brave and as daring as they were.
© Anne Cawrse 2023
REVIEWS
"Dare to Declare is a conspicuously successful...skilfully conceived and undeniably beautiful work. In the outer movements, Cawrse creates joyfully animated rhythms and gorgeous harmonies for the marimba that fall easily on the ear and distantly remind one of Ross Edwards. During the soloist’s rest periods, glowing harmonies rise up in the accompanying strings in almost cinematic grandeur, but just briefly, so as to not steal the attention. The middle movement, reflective in mood, consists of gently tapered slivers of sound in which soloist and orchestra move together exquisitely in tandem.
One had a sneaking feeling while enjoying this wistful work that here might be the definitive marimba concerto, and this its definitive performance. Cawrse and Edwardes have truly given us something special."
- Graham Strahle, InReview
One had a sneaking feeling while enjoying this wistful work that here might be the definitive marimba concerto, and this its definitive performance. Cawrse and Edwardes have truly given us something special."
- Graham Strahle, InReview
"A marimba concerto involves a very different musical language from that which might be found in a violin, cello or clarinet concerto, or even a piano concerto. Melodic lines might be carried by the orchestra, with the marimba used to create complementary or contrasting patterns of notes or chords to highlight musical expression. Or the orchestration might sometimes be quite spare, with the marimba establishing the thematic development through progressions of notes and chords. This form of music calls to mind the pointillist paintings of French post-impressionist Georges Seurat, in which dots of bright colour appear to blend to create an image....With the ASO under guest Swiss-Australian conductor, Elena Schwarz, Edwardes gave a fine performance of this delightful new work, and there are solos throughout the concerto enabling Edwardes to showcase her mastery. Commissioned by the ASO, Cawrse’s marimba concerto is a significant addition to the repertoire."
- Chris Reid, Limelight
- Chris Reid, Limelight