Sinfonia No1 Embracing Duarte
Q: When did you first come into contact with Duarte’s work?
A: Sophie Rowell introduced me to Duarte when she approached me about the commission for MCO in 2022. I absolutely love the early styles so from the moment Sophie played me the recording, I was completely enamoured with Duarte’s work. The elegance of the material and her exquisite use of brevity is deeply engaging but leaves me with terrible heartache, as they are here and gone so soon.
Q: How does your work engage with Duarte’s Sinfonias?
A:My work intuitively borrows compositional techniques and ideas from Duarte’s works, without direct quotation. I say intuitively because the material I used was written through improvisatory practices and draws heavily on dreams, and my memories of sleeping by on the floor by the fire while my mother played violin in community country orchestras.
Q:What’s it been like working with MCO? In a word; incredible.
A:Workshopping the first rough draft of ideas with Sophie Rowell was dream, playing through the score switching parts to try out the polyphony and various harmonies. But working on the cadenza was my absolute favourite experience! Two women working together without worry for what might happen; just loving the process of creating music together. Honestly; bliss.
Q:How have you approached this first Sinfonia?
A:What were the goals of your musical approach? when my work is heard alongside Leanora Duarte’s, my hope is that it will somehow create a conversation across the centuries between us.
Q: How have you found the process of writing a Sinfonia, compared to the other groups you’ve written for? Does anything stand out?
A: I found it joyful and liberating to have full permission to write intuitively, using the treasured and somewhat stylistically protected early classical idioms. I felt I was finally allowed to write in a style I have always loved instead of what is widely expected from contemporary composers. This is not to say I don’t love writing experimental contemporary(!), I just felt I was letting out a long-held secret that I am, behind all the skin art, rather conservative, and that’s ok!
