Jamie’s debut composition was commissioned by The Australian Voices as part of the ‘Far and Near’ project in 2020. Debuting online in August 2020, the composition has been described by composer Gordon Hamilton as “A little masterpiece… I was shocked and delighted.”
The piece is for SATB choir with two soloists: a soprano and a tenor, and features lyrics by Emily Dickenson, and also anonymous members of the public. Combining ideas such as vocal surrussation, morse code, and art-song inspired melody, The Hour and the Clime represents the pain of distance and longing, frustration with modern communication, and ultimately, love’s power to transcend all these obstacles.
The Hour and the Clime is a piece meant to musically evoke the ways in which being separated from loved ones by physical distance can obscure the ways we try to communicate sincere feeling. Without touch, or vocal tone, or a kind facial expression we can say things we don’t realise we’re saying.
Included in the score is a collection of anonymised messages that have been sent between people in long distance relationships that form a backbone of the composition. My eternal gratitude goes to those people who allowed me, and by extension you, a window into their most private expressions of heartache, love, loss, and the mundanities of watching a movie together from the other side of the world.
Special thanks also go to Kieran O’Dea, Chris Koop, Rick Smith, Gordon Hamilton, and Rachel Bruerville, who in the midst of my writers block and stress over my relative inexperience as a composer have suggested edits to scansion, a chord or voicing here or there, and provided general support and friendship through the rollercoaster of composing this work
(and who in one notable occurance, contributed a LOT of texts to the aforementioned collection).
And to Emily Dickinson, who once said…
‘unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality’
…and who as a result will forever be immortal herself.
To request copies of this work, or any others by Jamie. Please Contact them at the linked page
Jamie Moffatt Music 