Listen & tracks

Come sleep (Peggy Glanville-Hicks)
Lullaby for Jessica Alice (Colin Brumby)
Lullaby from ‘Nelson’ (Stuart Greenbaum)
Distant Lullaby (Linda Kouvaras)
Lullaby (Miriam Hyde)
Lullaby (John Tallis)
Cradle song (Phyllis Batchelor)
Lullaby from ‘The Ugly Duckling’ (Eric Gross)
Sleep, pretty babe (May Brahe)
Lullaby (Wendy Morrissey)
Little Babe of Arnhem Land (Mirrie Hill)
An Australian Lullaby (Edith Harrhy)
Bush Night Song (W.G. James)
An Australian Cradle Song (Florence Ewart)
Cradle Song (Linda Phillips)
Sweet and Low (May Brahe)
A Lullaby (Dulcie Holland)
Oriori (A Maori Slumber Song) (Alfred Hill)
Berceuse (Elsa Marshall-Hall)

Based on the artists’ own painstaking manuscript research, this recording juxtaposes rarely heard historical works by Elsa Marshall-Hall, Florence Ewart and Dulcie Holland with more recent pieces by Linda Kouvaras and Stuart Greenbaum.

Artists

Linda Thompson

soprano

Linda Thompson won many prestigious competitions including the Herald Sun Aria in 1990, and subsequently studied in London, Germany, Italy and Holland. She was a member of the Young Artists Programs of both the Victoria State Opera and The Australian Opera and has performed many major roles.

Deviani Segal

piano

Melbourne-based pianist and teacher, Deviani Segal has performed a wide range of music as both soloist and accompanist.

Phyllis Batchelor

composer

Phyllis Batchelor (1915–1999) was an Australian composer, pianist and teacher whose own works featured regularly in her ABC broadcasts from the 1930s onward.

May Brahe

composer

May Brahe acheived remarkable success in that more than 290 of her 500 or so songs were published. She was the only Australian woman composer to win both local and international recognition before WW2.

Colin Brumby

composer

Colin Brumby (1933–2018) was an Australian composer and conductor whose prolific catalogue ranges across opera, concertos, chamber music, choral works and songs.

Florence Ewart

composer

Florence Ewart composed over 60 works in many genres including 5 operas. She saw to it that most of her smaller works were performed, although she received very little professional encouragement and found it more difficult to get performances of her larger works.

Peggy Glanville-Hicks

composer

Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912–1990) was an Australian composer, born in Melbourne, whose career carried her through London, New York and Greece. She wrote operas, chamber music, song cycles and a concise Sonata for Harp that remains widely played.

Stuart Greenbaum

composer

Stuart Greenbaum’s sound has overt connections to jazz, pop and minimalism, yet is equally grounded in the Western art music tradition, across a large body of orchestral, chamber, choral and stage works.

Eric Gross

composer

Eric Gross (1926–2011) was an Austrian-born Australian composer, pianist and teacher. After settling in Sydney in 1958 he wrote concert, film and broadcast music marked by a cosmopolitan ear and a lasting fondness for jazz.

Edith Harrhy

composer

Edith Harrhy composed under a number of pseudonyms, and although renowned in her lifetime, was not recognised accordingly in historic records.

Alfred Hill

composer

Alfred Hill spent most of his early life in New Zealand and made a significant contribution to the study of the indiginous musics of the Maoris and Australian Aborigines.

Mirrie Hill

composer

Mirrie Hill composed in many genres, her favourite being orchestral music. Several works took their inspiration from Aboriginal themes and rhythms including Little Babe of Arnhem Land.

Dulcie Holland

composer

Dulcie Holland (1913–2000) was an Australian composer and music educator, known both for a wide body of concert works and for theory textbooks that shaped generations of students.

Miriam Hyde

composer

Miriam Hyde (1913–2005) was an Australian composer, pianist and teacher whose lyrical, post-romantic voice is especially known through her piano music and works for students.

William Garnet James

composer

William Garnet James (1892–1977) was an Australian pianist and composer who became a pioneer of music broadcasting as the ABC’s first Director of Music.

Linda Kouvaras

composer

Linda Kouvaras is a pianist, composer and musicologist with a particular focus on contemporary Australian music. She has recorded, commissioned and premiered numerous new works for piano, and performs widely in city and regional centres.

Wendy Morrissey

composer

Wendy Morrissey was involved in the musical life of various Victorian schools after gaining Bachelor of Music (Melb) in violin.

Linda Phillips

composer

Linda Phillips has concentrated on writing music for small forces with song-writing her main focus. Her commitment to music through journalism, adjudicating, teaching, performing and composing was recognised with the OBE in 1975.

John Tallis

composer

John Tallis studied in Paris with Marcel Dupre and Madame Bascouret in the late 20s and early 30s, and subsequently at the Royal College of Music in London.