song cycle for tenor, strings and tubular bell
Words by Margaret Morgan
Music by Andrew Ford
"A love's embrace.
Inverted grin with gunboat teeth,
A waving, white-nailed hand,
A velvet bed for comfort,
Sliced with opal.
Harbour.
Harbour me.
Harbour."
"Harbour" was written especially for tenor, Gerald English and commissioned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in March 1993, and has subsequently been performed at the Huntington and Adelaide Festivals. It deals with issues of conception, birth and growth, and on another level with leaving home and returning... to Sydney Harbour.
"Outstanding in the originality of its concept and the force of its realisation... By turns gritty, stringent, reassuring and threatening in words and music, "Harbour", like home, is both sanctuary and grave."Adelaide Advertiser
A CD recording of "Harbour" now on sale online from Tall Poppies Records (search for
TP128), and at classical music record stores, in Australia, UK and USA.
It is performed by Gerald English and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and
conducted by David Stanhope. [Tall Poppies TP128]