Shadow of Mill
On this page you will find the score materials, previous recordings, reviews, program notes and performance instruction for the music composition entitled
The Shadow of Mill
This is a music composition for cello and subtone in three movements, composed between 2017 and 2018.
It is dedicated to Tristen Parr, who played the premiere.
You will need the Decibel ScorePlayer app on iPad to perform this piece (see below).
"Shadow of Mill presents audiences with an open-ended reflection on the issue of settlement and racism in Australia." Eduardo Cossio, Cool Perth Nights.
PROGRAM NOTE
This work is a reflection on the white Australia policy enacted in 1901. The title is taken from Phil Griffith’s paper “Towards White Australia: The Shadow of Mill and the spectre of slavery in the 1802 debates on Chinese Immigration” published in 2002. The piece explores the idea of this Policy, printed on paper of today, interacting with the cello: sensuously rubbed and grated against the body and strings of the instrument as a representative of the European Culture imported into Australia. But this instrument is not played as originally intended. It is detuned, struck and played with two bows, all the time underpinned by subtle 'undertones'.
The second movement was commissioned by Gabriella Smart for the APRA|AMC Art Awards in Sydney, 2017. The first and third movements were written for the Summers Night Project in 2018.
NOTE FOR PERFORMERS
You will also need to print a copy of the White Australia Policy to use in performance, you can find it on the Internet.
The majority of my compositions use scores that are read on an iPad tablet computer, using the Decibel ScorePlayer, an application available on the App Store . Any fixed media is embedded in the score, and some feature automated functions. In the case of ensemble works, multiple iPads can be networked on a LAN or over the Internet so parts can be read in a synchronised way. You should upload the score file (ending with.dsz) to your iPad from your computer via AirDrop on an Apple, or cable from a PC. Instructions on how to do this and using the Decibel ScorePlayer, more generally are included in the Application, which ships with five other scores.
Thus my works have different versions of the score, as you may see above. A PDF/PNG file of the score ‘image’, a DSZ file to upload onto the iPad for performance, and for some less complex scores, a video version. Hardcopies are also available from my publisher. You can find out more about the Decibel ScorePlayer, and how to make your own scores for it, here.
PERFORMANCES
2nd movement premiered APRA AMC Art Music Awards, 2017, by Tristen Parr.
Full three movements premiered as part of Summers Nights, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, July 2018 by Tristen Parr.
