SKY-STAINED WAVES (2023) written for Debbie Brady’s 60th Birthday

(flute and piano)

Watercolour is an often-translucent artform, which allows light to pass through layers of suspended pigment or colourants when staining. When commissioned by Debbie to compose a new flute work for her 60th Birthday, I wanted to blend something so innately her with my own compositional aesthetic. Debbie’s watercolour paintings immediately came to mind, particularly her colloquially referenced artwork ‘Rainy day in Queenscliff’.

SKY-STAINED WAVES encapsulates the beautifully nuanced blurred reflection that Debbie’s watercolour portrays, tapping into its shades, textures, bleeding, and brushstrokes. The work’s structure and substance take inspiration horizontally from left to right, where I constantly referred to the painting during the compositional process. This influenced a layering and blurring of notes, distinct use of pedalling, and the use of extended colour techniques on the flute.

As a close friend and colleague of Debbie, this commission is particularly meaningful to me. It is my hope that she can enter this soundworld and contemplatively get lost in the beautiful colours that she brings to those in her life. Dedicated to Christine & Sam.

TIMING: ~4.5 minutes

This work was generously commissioned by and written for Debbie Brady in honour of her 60th Birthday.
It is dedicated to her and composed in recognition of the impact she has and continues to make as a flautist, flute teacher and avid supporter of and worker within the Arts.

This work received its world premiere performance by Nathalie Resciniti (fl.) and Coady Green (pn.), two former flute students of Debbie who are dear to her heart, at 13 Melrose Avenue, Malvern East, VIC.

PERFORMANCES TO DATE