Program notes

Willow Bend for orchestra, opus 50 (1994)

Willow Bend was originally composed in 1994 for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. It is scored for full orchestra but has also been arranged for strings alone – for the Steel City Strings in 2004. The piece was recorded as a companion piece to my arrangement of Brahms’ lullaby, Wiegenlied, on the ABC Classics disc, Dream Children. The ABC had asked me to compose music suitable for inducing sleep in infants having heard that I had a baby on which to practice my technique (my son Konrad, born February 1994). The piece celebrates – very quietly – the dawn walks Konrad and I would take around the neighbourhood. Konrad was a restless sleeper and early waker and the bumpy motion of the stroller would put him to sleep. The walks often ended in the Botanic Gardens in Wollongong on a bench at a beautiful and life-affirming spot marked with a plaque as ‘Willow Bend’.

© Andrew Schultz, 1994.

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