Moving Home was developed as a stand alone song for SongSLAM 2022. Since Daniella and Moran are Australian, we reflected on how the Australian accent changes compositional choices with different vocal nuances to consider. We decided to use the poem to promote Australian identity and reclaim a space for non-traditional accents within the artsong repertoire. Our initial process was highly collaborative, working back and forth to fine-tune the vocal part for Daniella’s voice and accent. We explored natural spoken Australian vowels and how they influence the song, such as slightly darker Ls and oo sounds more like french mixed vowels - for example, bloom [b l Y m].

 

The poet, Rod Moran, was incredibly excited by this work, and offered one more of his poems (The Lemon Tree). He has since also written us a final poem that could complete a song cycle (The River), telling the story of creating homes at different phases of life - in this instance, between Perth and Melbourne in Australia. These are a really exciting opportunity to explore Australian identity and reclaim a space for the nuances of the performed Australian accent within a primarily European space. 

​

Moran then specifically wrote a new poem for us to complete the set. We are now looking to commission the two final songs to complete the cycle. Once it is finished, we will record and premiere the complete cycle. ​​

 

We often hear artsong in different languages. Even when it comes to English, we are familiar to hearing accents such as English (received pronunciation) and American. There are folk songs we hear with a Scottish, or Irish accent. But it is very unusual to hear artsong with an Australian accent. Often we associate Australian accents with a folk-like outback style song such as Waltzing Matilda (which actually is often sung with more of a RP accent) or Give Me A Home Among the Gumtrees (which is more likely to have a comical over the top Australian 'ocker' accent).