CD Release: Kingfisher – Songs For Halcyon

This month, Halcyon’s new recording, Kingfisher – Songs for Halcyon was released on the Tall Poppies label (TP 236).

Formed in 1998, Halcyon has been at the vanguard of creating and performing Australian music.  Kingfisher – Songs for Halcyon reflects the breadth of contemporary classical Australian writing.

Featuring 21 new songs written especially for Halcyon and some thrilling virtuosic performances, Kingfisher – Songs for Halcyon comes with a comprehensive booklet of more than 20 pages, containing liner notes, the full song texts, notes and biographies of composers and performers. The composers featured are some of the best of Australia’s contemporary writers, including Andrew Ford, Paul Stanhope, Rosalind Page, Nicholas Vines and Nigel Butterley.

The album was recorded at Trackdown Scoring Stage, in Sydney, between May and July, 2014. It was engineered and mixed by Daniel Brown and mastered by Christo Curtis, Utopia Audio.

The tracks:

1. Andrew Ford: To My Excellent Lucasia, on our Friendship [2:42]
2. Stuart Greenbaum: Opalescence [4:00]
3. Paul Stanhope: My Love in Her Attire [1:38]
4. Elliott Gyger: The Pleiades at Midnight [4:27]
5. Stephen Adams: Sometimes snow fell, sometimes darkness… [3:43]
6. Jane Stanley: Round the Bay [3:31]
7. Graham Hair: All About Anna [4:06]
8. Rosalind Page: Aquila’s wing [2:49]
9. Nicholas Vines: A King’s Manifesto [6:01]
10. Katy Abbott: Follow Me Through the Shadow [2:57]
11. Dan Walker: The Mystic Blue [3:40]
12. Ross Edwards: The Tranquil Mind [3:16]
13. Kevin March: Sea-blue Bird [4:07]
14. Sharon Calcraft: Verathmende, Schillernde, Blitzende… [3:09]
15. Andrew Schultz: Lake Moonrise, Op. 94 [3:56]
16. Gordon Kerry: Music (La Musique) [2:59]
17. Raffaele Marcellino: Turbulent Passions Calm [3:43]
18. John Peterson: See, the Prismatic Colors Glisten [4:47]
19. Nigel Butterley: Nature Changes at the Speed of Life [2:41]
20. Moya Henderson: I Lost a World the Other Day [3:38]
21. Gillian Whitehead: All One Water [4:24]

The artists:

Alison Morgan, soprano/ Jenny Duck-Chong, mezzo-soprano/ Laura Chislett Jones, piccolo, flute, alto flute, bass flute/ Jason Noble, clarinet, bass clarinet/ Geoffrey Gartner, cello/ William Jackson and Joshua Hill percussion

Click here or here to purchase ($28.30 incl p & h).

Read our review of Halcyon’s concert performance of some of the songs from the CD Kingfisher – Songs for Halcyon.