Burns Brightly (2025)

Instrumentation

Percussion quartet:
1. Vibraphone 1, Tam-tam
2. Vibraphone 2, Bass Drum
3. Marimba 1, Suspended Cymbal
4. Marimba 2, Tom-tom (medium)

Duration

c. 3 minutes 30 seconds

Creation Note

Burns Brightly was gratefully commissioned by Canberra Symphony Orchestra for premiere performance in Canberra in October 2025. This is the third and final piece composed especially for CSO players as their Composer in Connection for 2025, a season with the theme of Stories. Companion works are Cameo, exploring the presence of Ariadne’s ancient Greek myths in the ruins of Pompeii, and Storyteller, an orchestral celebration of the Narrator’s voice.

About the work

“There was once a little girl who was obstinate and inquisitive…” This is the opening of the fairytale Frau Trude (Grimm 43), an eventful yet very compact story of barely a page long. It ends sadly for the little girl, while the sinister Trude wins out in this tale. This hits a nerve with my experiences as a woman, grappling with social conditioning of compliance, politeness, sheltering. Burns Brightly celebrates the little girl who disobeys, and the witch, and every state of being in between. It is a blossoming of the self despite pressures to conform to external expectations.

P.P. 2025

Availability

Performance

First performance: 2:00pm 26/10/2025, Albert Hall, Yarralumla, Canberra, by Canberra Symphony Orchestra Percussion Quartet: Veronica Bailey, Timothy Brigden, Wyanna O’Keefe, Louis Sharpe.

Online

Review: Canberra City News, https://citynews.com.au/2025/percussionists-take-to-the-spotlight/