Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

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Work Overview

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra asks you to write a celebratory piece. Soon after, COVID hits, and the world starts shutting down. What's there to celebrate?

It wasn't a great year, but something wonderful did happen to me in 2020: I proposed to my boyfriend of eight years. It was about time. And I reflected then that only a few years ago, equal marriage wasn't legal in Australia, and I couldn't marry the man I love.

We can all be proud of how far we've come since, accepting LGBTQIA+ people as equal. But there's still work to do, ensuring further marginalised members of the queer community are recognised and supported: particularly the trans community. We ALL deserve dignity, justice, and respect.

This fanfare touches on some of my feelings about being a gay man. It's a piece that celebrates the joy and the preciousness of being out as your true self. And the happiness you can find in being free to love, without boundaries and without fear.

The music starts as an inner glow of personal acceptance, and gradually unfolds like a pride flag. After struggle comes a proverbial shout from the rooftops to all members and allies of the LGBTQIA+ community: whoever and wherever you are, you belong. In the world, at work, at school, and here in the concert hall.

Work Details

Year: 2021

Instrumentation: 4 Horns in F, 2 trumpets in C, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba.

Duration: 5 min.

Commission note: Commissioned by Sydney Symphony Orchestra.. commissioned through the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's 50 Fanfares Project by the New South Wales Government through Create NSW