Talk Valentina: ALLY for SATB Choir & Piano (2024) was written at the invitation of pianist Coady Green, the Divisi Chamber Singers, and singer/poet Alexandra Amerides, whose poem forms the text for the song. The piece (05:30) falls within the genre of neo-tonal contemporary art music. It is an elaboration of my song for solo high female voice and piano, II, “The Nurse’s Curse,” from my song cycle, She, Who Should Have Been a Queen (2024).
NTRO Output Category
- Original Creative Work : Other
Place
Melbourne, AustraliaNTRO Publisher
Australian Music CentreMedium
published musical scoreResearch Statement
Talk Valentina: ALLY falls within the discipline of contemporary art music. It adds to the genre of Australian works for choir that centre the Queer community at their core. This is only a recent initiative – but it is a vital highlighting within the field.
Talk Valentina: ALLY for SATB Choir & Piano adds to the new, burgeoning canon of works for choir by Australian composers that explore various aspects of Queer identity. The challenging text explores the confronting complexities of allyship within the trans community; I wanted my musical setting to denote a sense of warm envelopment mixed with slight discomfiture.
The composition explores self-referential intertextuality in an elaborated quote from my song cycle, She, Who Should Have Been a Queen (2024).
It is an enormous honour to have been invited to compose a work for this award-winning and unique professional choir, the first non-heteronormative choir in the country. The work is published by the Australian Music Centre, a peer-reviewed publishing body, Australia’s leading publishing house for music composition, and recording is in-progress towards inclusion in the Toccata Classics multi-album project of recording my complete chamber works.Size or Duration of Work
5min 30secAffiliation
Linda Kouvaras, University of Melbourne
