WHEATBELT
Wheatbelt is a SSAATB choral work by Iain Graindage, composed in 2007. It is the setting of a poem by Kevin Gillam, which aims to capture the spirit of the vast landscape located in Western Australia. In additional to vocals, it also features whirlies, guiro and windchimes.
Score
Recording
The wheatbelt is a vast area of land located in southern Western Australia. The estimated population in 2013 was 75 00, and the main industries that are in this area are agriculture and mining. There is a diverse landscape in this area, from beaches, to rolling rugged terrain
Notes from the Composer
wheatbelt is an a cappella vocal setting of WA poet Kevin Gillam’s poem of the same title. In it, I have attempted to stay true to his wonderful evocation of the West Australian wheatbelt and my own experiences of that strange semi-wild environment.
In addition to emulating native Australian bird calls and wind noises, the choir are required to play harmonic whirlies, wind chimes and small hand percussion instruments. These are utilized in an attempt to highlight the stillness and vastness of a countryside that dwarfs its human inhabitants while, paradoxically being utterly changed by them. Harmonically, I have emphasised modes utilising the flattened 2nd – an interval which Henry Tate in Australian Musical Possibilities (1926) suggested he heard in the call of the butcher bird and could be the basis for a characteristic “Australian scale”(Skinner, 2006).
This work was composed for the wonderful WAYM Chorale and their conductor Dr. Robert Braham, having been commissioned by the organising committee of the 2007 ASME National conference with funding assistance from ArtsWA. It is dedicated to Dr. Margaret Pride, who had a hand in the genesis of this work, and to whom I am thankful for teaching me so much about choral writing.