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It is listed in our catalogue because an event featuring a performance of this work was included in our calendar of Australian music. Details of this performance are listed below.
Work Overview
Delphi Songs is a song cycle about prophecies and endings. It draws its inspiration from the last recorded words of the last-ever Oracle of Delphi: an Oracle that foresaw its own ending. With the rise of Christianity came the closure of the temples and the end of a spiritual tradition that had flourished for over a thousand years.
I wanted to think about this sense of divine authority, and to convey something of the ancient, volatile prophetic voice uttered by exclusively female priestesses, who wielded a considerable and surprising amount of power in antiquity.
In the ancient world, Plutarch called the Oracles obsolete, and today's scientists regularly speculate whether the Pythia (priestesses) were intoxicated by gas formations in the rocks, causing their visions. Both ancient and modern voices recognise this sense of the sacred becoming mortal, and this piece tries to feel through the impact of that.
Delphi Songs is a collection of four musical episodes, each exploring this through different perspectives. It uses texts from 480 BCE to 2015.
Work Details
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: Soprano, piano and two singing bowls (played by soprano and pianist)
Duration: 16 min.
Difficulty: Advanced — Some difficult sections in terms of tonality, particularly in Movement III.
Delphi Songs was originally written for soprano, harp, prepared piano and two singing bowls. It was premiered by Claire Burrell-McDonald (soprano), Rowan Phemister (harp) and Josephine Gibson (piano) in 2016.
This version for soprano and piano was premiered by Elizabeth van Os (soprano) and Coady Green (piano) as part of ChamberQUEER Festival, New York, 2024.
A version for mezzo-soprano and piano is also available.
Text (Movement III): Evan Bryson. Also uses text by W.B. Yeats and ancient prophecies spoken by the Oracle of Delphi (480 BCE).
Performances of this work
30 Apr 2026: at Meta Cohen and Olivier Messiaen: Prophecy and Eternity (fortyfivedownstairs). Featuring Jessica Aszodi, Coady Green.
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