Composer’s Note - Daybreak

During the Winter of 2016, I journeyed to my hometown Canberra for a job interview and audition. It was for the head of the new Music Academy at Canberra Girls Grammar School, my old school. Which was kind of weird. As part of my specifically designed interview/audition experience, I was required to run a composition workshop, and this song D​aybreak ​is the result of that.

It was an odd experience to return to the scenes of my youth, to see how much everything had changed. So many new buildings, so many of the old buildings repurposed, so many more opportunities afforded to the girls at the school now than we could ever have dreamed in the late 80s and early 90s. It was pretty early in the morning when I arrived, the winter mist just beginning to clear to one of those perfect sunny cold Canberra days. The school is directly down the road from Parliament House, and as the mist cleared to reveal that magnificent flagpole above the treetops surrounding the school, I decided that the joy and optimism of a new day would be the perfect subject for our composing collaboration.

The girls were very generous with their ideas. The song was finished within a few days and I sent it back to the school. I ​think​ they liked it? It was hard to tell from their response. I didn’t get the job. (No surprise to me, as I have almost never been successful at auditions and job interviews. Fortunately people just know my work, ask me to do stuff, and I just say yes. Haha.) But I’m a big believer in creativity as a way of healing. I still really like our song we wrote, those lovely girls and I, so I am releasing it into the wild.