Atlas of the Sky: for soprano, 3 percussion & crowd, duration 65 minutes

'Atlas of the Sky' tells stories about the stars, the power of crowds and changing constellations of memory. The ‘crowd’ of performers consists of a group twenty trained and untrained musicians who together with a singer and 3 percussionists create large-scale patterns that counterpoint the turbulent rhythms of our contemporary world. Using purpose-built instruments, the work demonstrates the expressive elemental power of string drums, stones, wood blocks made of Australian timber and the semantron — a resonant plank of wood that is used like a bell in Greek and Eastern European Christian Orthodox ritual. Drawing upon Elias Canetti's book 'Crowds and Power', and setting poetry by Eliot Weinberger and by exiled contemporary Chinese poet Bei Dao that describe and invoke the stars, 'Atlas of the Sky' is a ritual journey across a range of emotions and states connected to crowds, mobs, protest and communion.

Commissioned by Speak Percussion with the generous assistance of the Australia Council for the Arts and Creative Victoria.
Premiere: 18 June 2018, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne
2nd performance: 19 July 2018, Darmstadt IMD