Gallipoli (2013)
(for String Quartet)

Gallipoli was commissioned by the Ian Potter Foundation's Cultural Trust in 2013 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of ANZAC. It received its first public performance on February 19 2015 by the Australian String Quartet as part of the Albany Festival, Western Australia. Albany was the final port of call for the troopship carrying the Australian Infantry Forces to Egypt.

The music ranges between the sorrowful, drone-based questioning with which it begins and a graceful tenderness. There are outbursts of contained anguish, consolatory moments which draw briefly upon harmonic idioms of the period, until finally, an ethereal violin melody wanders heavenwards - still seeking an answer - and eerily evoking the spirits of fallen soldiers floating over the Dardanelles Peninsula.