For solo shakuhachi

Although this was my first attempt to write for the shakuhachi, an end-blown Japanese bamboo flute, people had been observing for years that the phraseology of some of my more quiescent works, notably The Tower of Remoteness (1978) for clarinet and piano, recalls the traditional shakuhachi repertoire of meditational pieces (honkyoku). This similarity wasn’t consciously intended but perhaps it’s not surprising: I’d come to regard my own works as musical contemplation objects and my source of inspiration was was the timeless and mysterious sound world produced by insects.

Raft Song at Sunrise takes advantage of the astonishingly expressive qualities of the shakuhachi to introduce a human voice into this sound world. It was composed especially for Riley Lee to perform during the exhibition of Ross Mellick’s bamboo construction Raft No. 3 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in January 1996. Later that year Riley was to make an important contribution to my music for Bruce Beresford’s feature film Paradise Road.