Sarah Hopkins
Sarah Hopkins writes Reclaiming the Spirit as pure sonority: didgeridoo colour under the cello, open harmonic space, and a sound-piece that hums, drones and breathes rather than argues. The music answers landscape and ceremony with atmosphere first.
The same score also lives in chamber form for clarinet, viola, piano and cello, written into programmes of new Australian work. Hopkins trusts colour and resonance over busy argument. Wide intervals, an almost improvised calm, and the cello made to speak like country itself give the music its pull. It is less about display than about letting the instrument hold air and ground at once.
Compositions by Sarah Hopkins appear on
Uluru: New Solo Cello Works for David Pereira
Twelve new Australian solo cello works written for David Pereira, celebrating the handing back of Uluru to its traditional Indigenous owners. Responses range from didgeridoo-like sonorities in Hopkins to the modernism of Dean.
Points of Departure
Perihelion, the Brisbane chamber group of clarinet, viola, piano and cello, built its repertoire largely through commissions. This disc gathers some of the ensemble’s most successful new Australian works.
