My latest work To the Waters Above was commissioned by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for the first of their Australian Series concerts for 2022. I was delighted to find out that the concert I was writing for would be titled Stargazers and would feature Australian works exploring the night sky, astronomy and all things celestial.

Jakub Jankowski

Jakub Jankowski. Photo © Zuzanna Juszczyńska.

For me, the challenge was how to musically depict the night sky for an ensemble line-up of flute, clarinet, percussion, piano and string quartet. I attempted a number of different approaches to translating ‘the stars’ into music, ultimately settling on a simple, poetic and less literal depiction.

The title reflects my musical approach and gives the trajectory of my work a ‘mythic’ flavour. In many ancient cosmologies, the firmament of the sky is thought of as a vault which separates the waters above from the waters below. The ‘waters above’ – as mentioned in the title – are fully revealed in a surprising way only at the conclusion of the work. I wanted the work to have the feel of a voyage upwards, which is something I describe in...