Cello Dreaming

Pereira has inspired more new works for his instrument than any other Australian musician. This is his first solo CD of works mostly written for him, and the first of three such discs then planned. His performances are powerful and persuasive.

David Pereira cello

Don Banks composer
David Lumsdaine composer
Peter Sculthorpe composer
Ross Edwards composer
Michael Hannan composer
Larry Sitsky composer
Nigel Butterley composer
Mary Finsterer composer

The programme presents eight Australian works for solo cello, most of them written for Pereira. It moves from Don Banks’s Sequence and Lumsdaine’s Blue Upon Blue through Sculthorpe’s title piece and Hannan’s four-movement Rajas to later scores by Sitsky, Butterley and Finsterer.

Artist

David Pereira

David Pereira is an Australian classical cellist, teacher and composer, born in Macksville, New South Wales, in 1953. He has premiered many concertos and solo works written for him by Australian composers, and served as principal cellist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Tracks

Sequence Don Banks 13:19
Blue Upon Blue David Lumsdaine 7:02
'Cello Dreaming Peter Sculthorpe 3:22
Monos I Ross Edwards 7:32

Rajas Michael Hannan

i. Lento 3:44
ii. Energetico 1:43
iii. Fantastico 2:29
iv. Agitato 3:06
Improvisation & Cadenza Larry Sitsky 9:49
Of Wood Nigel Butterley 8:48
Tract Mary Finsterer 6:02

Performers

David Pereira · cello

Composers

Don Banks

Don Banks (1923–1980) was an Australian composer of concert, jazz and commercial music. Serial craft, electronics and a lifelong pull toward jazz shaped chamber works, concertos and scores central to mid-century Australian modernism.

Nigel Butterley

Nigel Butterley (1935–2022) was an Australian composer and pianist. His catalogue ranges from radiophonic and choral scores to chamber, vocal and orchestral works, and as a pianist he was closely identified with contemporary music and the prepared piano.

Ross Edwards

One of Australia's best known and most performed composers, Ross Edwards lives and works in Sydney. His commitment to music as a positive and regenerative force has led him to explore beyond the confines of Western art music.

Michael Hannan

Michael Hannan (born 1949) is an Australian composer, pianist and musicologist. His work ranges from concert music and layered piano-interior soundscapes to shorter character pieces, alongside a substantial body of writing on Australian composition.

Peter Sculthorpe

Peter Sculthorpe (1929–2014) was a Tasmanian-born composer whose orchestral and chamber music drew the Australian landscape, neighbouring Asian traditions and Indigenous materials into a clear, personal language. He wrote extensively for strings, piano and voice.

Larry Sitsky

Larry Sitsky's activities as a composer, pianist, writer, broadcaster and teacher place him among the foremost ambassadors of contemporary Australian piano music. His work has made a lasting contribution to the Australian musical tradition.

Mary Finsterer

Mary Finsterer's chamber scores favour ethereal, carefully spun textures. Spherica I sets two violins in a web of glistening harmonics, an otherworldly landscape shaped by ideas of spheres and the astronomical universe; Tract is among her solo cello writing for Australian players.

David Lumsdaine

David Lumsdaine’s music binds serial craft to Australian landscape and birdsong, from the Bach-haunted piano meditation Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh’ to the dense cello concerto A Garden of Earthly Delights and pure field recordings of bush dawn choruses.

Where to listen

Cello Dreaming is available for streaming through Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.

Cello Dreaming is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.