Ruddy Turnstone (2021)
9 minutes
for solo violin
Commissioned by the Bowerbird Collective alongside Sanctuary, a duet for Violin and Cello. Both works are presented in the show Life on Land's Edge a musical odyssey exploring the epic journey of migratory shorebirds which premiered around Australia in 2022.
‘Ruddy Turnstone’ and ‘Sanctuary’ both appear on the album Life on Land’s Edge, recorded and released by the Bowerbird Collective in 2023.
9 minutes
for solo violin
Commissioned by the Bowerbird Collective alongside Sanctuary, a duet for Violin and Cello. Both works are presented in the show Life on Land's Edge a musical odyssey exploring the epic journey of migratory shorebirds which premiered around Australia in 2022.
‘Ruddy Turnstone’ and ‘Sanctuary’ both appear on the album Life on Land’s Edge, recorded and released by the Bowerbird Collective in 2023.
As a part of my commissioning project with Bowerbird Collective, I wanted to write a solo work focussing on and championing a single species of shorebird. There were many to choose from, and good reason to want to include them all, as each and every species is remarkable due to the incredible migration they each take part in every year.
The bird I chose to represent in music was the arenaria interpres, or Ruddy Turnstone. The initial appeal came from a comment made by a bird watcher at the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary, which I visited in 2021: “Where does the name come from? Well, they’re ruddy (red) coloured, and they turn stones!” How delightfully droll, sweet and plainly beautiful, I thought- to call something exactly what it is, and yet make a kind of poetry along the way. As I explored further, I came to see this bird as representative of so much of what I found beautiful and moving about the bird sanctuary. Here is a plain, stocky, and unremarkable-looking bird, busily upturning thousands of beach pebbles as it forages along the shoreline, preparing for a 10,000 km flight home.
In the music, you will hear some aspects of the Ruddy Turnstone’s call- certain flicks, dissonances, rapid rhythmic patterns and guttural chirping sounds. Moving beyond imitation, the music unfolds in the way of an etude, creating extended musical themes from a fragmentary introduction. Throughout the entire piece is a sense of the confidence and perpetual activity these birds exhibit, be that in flight, in feeding, or in interaction with one another. My hope is that the investigative character of these small and extraordinary birds is replicated and represented by the violin, who flits and dances between ideas and motifs, metaphorically ‘turning over stones’ along the way.
Anne Cawrse © 2022
The bird I chose to represent in music was the arenaria interpres, or Ruddy Turnstone. The initial appeal came from a comment made by a bird watcher at the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary, which I visited in 2021: “Where does the name come from? Well, they’re ruddy (red) coloured, and they turn stones!” How delightfully droll, sweet and plainly beautiful, I thought- to call something exactly what it is, and yet make a kind of poetry along the way. As I explored further, I came to see this bird as representative of so much of what I found beautiful and moving about the bird sanctuary. Here is a plain, stocky, and unremarkable-looking bird, busily upturning thousands of beach pebbles as it forages along the shoreline, preparing for a 10,000 km flight home.
In the music, you will hear some aspects of the Ruddy Turnstone’s call- certain flicks, dissonances, rapid rhythmic patterns and guttural chirping sounds. Moving beyond imitation, the music unfolds in the way of an etude, creating extended musical themes from a fragmentary introduction. Throughout the entire piece is a sense of the confidence and perpetual activity these birds exhibit, be that in flight, in feeding, or in interaction with one another. My hope is that the investigative character of these small and extraordinary birds is replicated and represented by the violin, who flits and dances between ideas and motifs, metaphorically ‘turning over stones’ along the way.
Anne Cawrse © 2022
