Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup (2016)
for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano
Duration: 12’
Commissioned by Musica Viva Australia with support from Geoff Stearn and the Hildegard Project. First performed by Eighth Blackbird
Awards
2018 Art Music Awards: Performance of the Year - Eighth Blackbird
2017 Sue W Chamber Music Composition Prize
Program Note
Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle – will you come and join the dance?”
- Lewis Carroll, “Lobster Quadrille”, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup is a new work by Sydney composer Holly Harrison, commissioned for Musica Viva with support from Geoff Stearn and the Hildegard Project. The work will be premiered by the Grammy Award-winning chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird on their national tour of Australia with Musica Viva.
In composing Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup, Harrison took inspiration from the ninth and tenth chapters of Lewis Carroll’s beloved nonsensical book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: "The Mock Turtle’s Story" and "The Lobster Quadrille".
The main characters of the two chapters are both composite creature of two animals. The Mock Turtle, with the head, hooves, and tail of a cow and; the Gryphon, with the head and winds of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion.
The two chimera characters pose as a metaphor for the amalgam of musical styles featured in Harrison’s piece: rock, jazz, metal, hip-hop, blues, and funk. A modern piece of programme music, Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup features playful juxtapositions between text and music, frenetically illustrating the characters and narratives through changes of style, tempo, time signatures, and warping phrases.
The piece is structured into four main sections with four primary melodic and rhythmic threads. Intertwining between each other, these ideas are drawn from the branches of arithmetic studied by the Mock Turtle: Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. See if you can hear these musical threads when Eighth Blackbird perform its world premiere.
Wild, mischievous, and sometimes sleazy, Harrison presents music that fits aptly with the oddities of the text she drew inspiration from.
Program Note Video
Reviews & Words
…a work of riotous energy, eclectic rhythmic complexity and inventive instrumentation drawing on instrumental extremes of range and tone with good humour and vitality.
(Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald)
Swarms with detail, hot jazzy moments of furious fiddling, some astonishing virtuosic percussion, a cellist at the top of his game and calm, mellow tones from the flute as well as peeping piccolo, gave us a fascinating potpourri of sounds.
(Neville Cohn, the West Australian)
Harrison’s work opens with a jazzy cacophony….The mood changes on a dime, with a sighing duet from violin and piano giving way to vigorous bass clarinet grooves and percussive flute rhythms accompanied by blue grassy pizzicato cello.
(Angus McPherson, Limelight)
Breathlessly energetic, with instruments crashing, whistling and squealing….this was a riveting piece that commanded our rapt attention.
(Karen & John Hutt, Music News)
Irrepressible, this was a piece of contemporary art music for god’s sake – that had a concert hall smiling throughout.
(Ian Whitney, Composer/Tunesmith)
Performances
18 December 2022, Rubiks, Nonstop Festival 2022, The Tivoli, QLD, AUS
29 January, 2022, Catchfire Collective, Steinway Gallery Greenville, NC, USA
30 January, 2022, Catchfire Collective, Steinway Gallery Greensboro, NC, USA
23 May, 2021, Catchfire Collective, Bull City Ciderworks, Greensboro, NC, USA
24 April 2020, Eighth Blackbird, Boise Chamber Music Series, ID, usa
22 April 2020, Eighth Blackbird, Ogden Symphony Ballet, UT, USA
16 February 2020, Eighth Blackbird, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA
14 February 2020, Eighth Blackbird, Gettysburg College, PA, USA
14 December 2019, Eighth Blackbird, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
23 November 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Skinnskatteberg, Sweden
22 November 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Sörmland, Musikens, Katrineholm, Sweden
21 November 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Västerås Concert Hall, Arlanda-Västerås, Sweden
20 November 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Jämtland, Sweden
19 November 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Sound of Stockholm, Nathan Milstein Hall, Royal Academy of Music, Sweden
17 October 2019, Eighth Blackbird, University of Oklahoma, OK, USA
11 October 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
18 June 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Rush Hour Concerts, St. James Cathedral, Chicago, IL, USA
1 June 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Noon to Midnight Festival, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA, USA
10 April 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Fairchild Theater, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI, USA
25 March 2019, Eighth Blackbird, City Winery Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
18 March 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Blackbird Lab Live from WFMT, Chicago, Illinois, USA
13 March 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Norton Auditorium, University of North Alabama, AL, USA
12 March 2019, Eighth Blackbird, University of Memphis, Harris Concert Hall, Memphis, TN, USA
10 March 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Temple Beth-El, San Antonio, TX, USA
7 March 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Tucker-Boatwright Festival, Richmond, VA, USA
25 February 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Carlo Felice Theatre, Genoa, Italy, USA
15 February 2019, Eighth Blackbird, E Desmond Lee Concert Hall, Washington University, St. Louis. MO, USA
19 January 2019, Eighth Blackbird, Warren Miller Center for Performing Arts, Big Sky, Montana, USA
3 November 2018, Hourglass Ensemble, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, NSW, AUS
13 August 2018, Rubiks Collective, Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC, AUS
1 August 2018, Rubiks Collective, Splendor, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
30 July 2018, Rubiks Collective, International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, United Kingdom
28 July 2018, Rubiks Collective, The Ballery, Berlin, Germany
24 July 2018, Rubiks Collective, Darmstadt 49th International Summer Course for New Music, Germany
9 March 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Town Hall, SA, AUS
7 March 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane, QLD, AUS
4 March 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC, AUS
2 March 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Newcastle Conservatorium of Music, NSW, AUS
28 February 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC, AUS
27 February 2017, Eighth Blackbird, City Recital Hall, Sydney, NSW, AUS
25 February 2017, Eighth Blackbird, City Recital Hall, Sydney, NSW, AUS
22 February 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Llewellyn Hall, Canberra, ACT, AUS
20 February 2017, Eighth Blackbird, Perth International Arts Festival, Perth Concert Hall, WA, AUS - World premiere