Listen & tracks

2 of 20 tracks have a preview · 8 works

1 Goldfish Through Summer Rain Anne Boyd
FantasyHelen Gifford 3 movements
1. 2 Liberamente
2. 3 Lento
3. 4 Vivo
5 Nocturne Miriam Hyde
SonataPhyllis Batchelor 3 movements
1. 6 Molto Allegro
2. 7 Adagio
3. 8 Vivace
9 Blow Flute: Answer Echoes in Antique Lands Dying Jennifer Fowler
HaikuMeta Overman 6 movements
1. 10 Molto lento
2. 11 Allegro energico
3. 12 Moderato
4. 13 Allegretto leggiero
5. 14 Allegro con moto
6. 15 Tranquillo sonoro
ExhibitsMay Howlett 4 movements
1. 16 Mobiles
2. 17 Veil VII
3. 18 Electric Mouse
4. 19 Streeton’s Noon
20 Cloudy Mountain Anne Boyd

Kathryn Moorhead (flute) and Claire Cooper (piano) present works by Anne Boyd, Helen Gifford, Miriam Hyde, Phyllis Batchelor, Jennifer Fowler, Meta Overman and May Howlett.

The programme ranges from Boyd’s atmospheric Goldfish Through Summer Rain and Cloudy Mountain through Gifford’s three-movement Fantasy, Hyde’s Nocturne and Batchelor’s Sonata, to Fowler’s extended solo meditation, Overman’s six Haiku and Howlett’s four Exhibits.

In the artist’s words

This project began when I started to search through scores at the Australian Music Centre in an attempt to assemble a programme of music for flute and piano by Australian composers. In the process I noticed a significant amount of music by female composers including some music that is not well known by audiences and musicians.

I decided to perform and record this music, as it seems to me that women’s involvement with musical activity has not always received acknowledgement in the past. A considerable amount of the music on this CD has not been recorded before and I believe that any music of this quality by Australian composers should be available to be enjoyed by Australian and international listeners.

— Kathryn Moorhead

Reviews

Stuck for a last-minute gift? You could do little better than this recent product of the adventurous Move company, which makes a point of fostering Australian musical talent. The CD comprises music for flute and piano written by women composers, many of whom will be familiar to music-lovers without much knowledge of Australian chamber music or local composition. Phyllis Batchelor and Miriam Hyde wrote for younger players, while Anne Boyd, Jennifer Fowler and Helen Gifford all formed part of the sudden flowering in Australian art music from the 1960s onwards. Actor-musician May Howlett features on the disc, as does Dutch-born Meta Overman, who spent 12 years in Melbourne but was based in Perth for much of her career.

The performers of the eight works are flautist Kathryn Moorhead, familiar from appearances in the ranks of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of Melbourne. Her expert accompanist, Claire Cooper, makes an ideal foil for Moorhead’s unflustered, limpid flute line.

— Clive O’Connell, The Age

attractive, well played and well worth having

— Peter Larsen, 3MBS FM Libretto

a rich sensitive performance … an impressive recording … highly recommended

— Rita Crews, THE STUDIO magazine

Artists

Kathryn Moorhead

flute

Kathryn Moorhead is an Australian flautist based in Adelaide, where she teaches flute at the University of Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium of Music and the Open Music Academy, and freelances as an orchestral and chamber musician.

Claire Cooper

piano

Claire Cooper studied with John Winther at the Canberra School of Music and later at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She spent five years as répétiteur and accompanist at the Victorian College of the Arts and joined the Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne as an 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.

Anne Boyd

composer

Anne Boyd enjoys a distinguished career as a composer and music educator. A graduate of the University of Sydney (BA Hons in Music, 1967) and the University of York (PhD in composition, 1972), she has shaped Australian musical life through both her writing and her teaching.

Helen Gifford

composer

Helen Gifford OAM is an Australian composer whose music often draws on Balinese and Javanese elements. She writes for stage, orchestra, chamber ensemble and solo instruments.

May Howlett

composer

May Howlett, born in Subiaco, WA, in 1931, won various scholarships, including a secondary studentship to study Music at Melbourne University Conservatorium (majoring in Pianoforte and Singing), graduating in 1954 with a Bachelor of Music, and obtaining a Diploma of Education the following year.

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.

Meta Overman

composer

The output of Meta Overman is significant for she utilised 20th century European musical trends which many other Australian composers of her generation did not adopt. Overman's passion was music for the theatre for which she composed about eleven one-act operas and four ballets.

Jennifer Fowler

composer

Jennifer Fowler’s Threaded Stars for solo harp treats tempo and rhythm as star patterns. Quiet reflectiveness alternates with glassy swirls and trills, motifs that stream outward and pull the surrounding notes into their field.