Recording Coming Soon

Duration: 20 minutes | Composed: 2024 | Commissioned by Continuo for Quercus Trio | World Premiere by Quercus Trio at the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, 2024.

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PURCHASE

This work takes its title from a word first used by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who coined the term to describe the shafts of light that pierce and filter through the foliage and canopies of trees.
I have an affinity for finding and growing plants that thrive in the given climate and environment, very much in opposition to those who force them to try and grow where they can’t and shouldn’t. As a child of an immigrant, the metaphor of how the oak grows in Australia has another very particular connection to me – through my Hungarian ancestry. I have a now distant and invisible connection to my European ancestry, and while I know that is where my ancestors once lived and thrived, it’s now blended indistinguishably into my heritage – I don’t speak the language, I’ve never set foot in Hungary, and my father (the last link) has passed away. As a result, it feels like my Australian identity has become stronger, even though my origins can be traced back to somewhere else.
Shivelight is inspired and generated from the philosophy at the core of the unique and remarkable ensemble, Quercus Trio. True oak trees aren’t native to Australia. – Melody Eötvös
‘An acorn grows its roots deep into Australian soil and becomes an oak tree, wholly itself and of the place where it stands, whilst still being connected to its European origins and genus. It grows and takes on the Australian soil and air, thriving and becoming a part of its environment.’ – Quercus Trio