Earlier this month, Associate Professor Christopher Sainsbury's latest composition, Antique Flight Stilled Through Millennia, had its world premiere at Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music, as part of a Canberra Symphony Orchestra (CSO) concert. This remarkable collaboration between the CSO, conductor Benjamin Bayl, and Sainsbury showcased the depth of his artistic vision and Indigenous heritage.

The concert, which included Sainsbury’s work alongside larger symphonic repertoire, was met with resounding success. Audience members described the experience as profoundly moving, highlighting the intricate emotions and mystique embedded in the music. Sainsbury reflected on the premiere, expressing gratitude for the synergy between the orchestra and conductor. “Working with Benjamin Bayl, the musicians, and CSO was an excellent experience,” he shared.

As one of Australia’s most celebrated current composers, Sainsbury dedicated significant time and effort to crafting Antique Flight Stilled Through Millennia. Inspired by Duck Season, a poem by Australian poet Isobel Robin, the composition explores themes of ancient connection, cultural heritage, and artistic meditation.

A Glimpse into the Composition

Sainsbury’s Antique Flight Stilled Through Millennia draws from Robin’s evocative imagery of antiquities and the vitality they can encapsulate:

"In Cairo once, reaching for the past,

I chanced on antique flight

stilled through millennia, waiting for me -

prised with care from three thousand years

of sand that clogged some dead Egyptian

Aunty's living-room:

one museum fragment, crazed a bit,

but most joyously alive with reeds,

rustling papyrus, and three

tense, turquoise birds flushed from their hides.

They knew me - summoned me with harsh duck cries;

swept me upward into old, pale air."

The poem’s exploration of ancient Egyptian relics resonated deeply with Sainsbury, who relates the experience to his connection with rock carvings made by his Indigenous ancestors on the sandstone platforms of the Central Coast of New South Wales. He describes these sites as spaces of deep silence and contemplation, inspiring both his music and a profound sense of cultural connectedness.

“I found in Robin’s poem a shared meditation on ancient fragments, whether Egyptian or Australian,” Sainsbury said. “Her reflections on the joyous vitality of birds taking to flight in still objects inspired my musical approach, which aims to capture both the mystery and uplift that such artifacts evoke.”

Musical Innovations

Sainsbury’s composition employs a unique "fanning scale," a signature in his work. This scale features narrow intervals at its lower end, gradually widening to incorporate minor thirds and tritones in the upper end, creating a harmonic and melodic language that in some ways captures the mystery in the Robin poem.

The piece, modelled on the structure of a classical sonata, introduces a melodic movement idea and a contrasting chordal theme, weaving these elements through exposition, development, and recapitulation. Orchestrated with the same forces as Haydn’s Symphony No. 31—flute, oboes, horns, and strings—Sainsbury sought to honour Haydn’s textural clarity while evoking the ancient of Robin’s poem. “I aimed to let the birds in the poem’s ‘museum fragment’ take flight with lightness,” Sainsbury explained. “This orchestral texture, combined with the harmonic mystery of the scale, allows the music to lift into the ancient air that Robin so beautifully describes.”

A Celebration of Shared Heritage

Sainsbury’s connection to Robin’s poem extends beyond its vivid imagery. For him, it symbolizes a shared human experience across cultures, rooted in the contemplation of ancient artifacts and sites. “Through Robin’s poem, I sensed her silence before poetic expression, much like the silence I experience before a musical response,” he noted. “This shared root of creativity and connection between cultures is something I celebrate in this work.”

Sainsbury’s ability to weave complex cultural narratives into his compositions has become well known and the success of Antique Flight Stilled Through Millennia underscores this ability. More broadly through his life’s work in the Indigenous music education sector he has established the School as a major centre for Indigenous music, with the award winning Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers program resident at the School, and the establishment of the Yil Lull Studio with resident engineer/producer Will Kepa, and various other initiatives.

Past article about Associate Professor Christopher Sainsbury:

Celebrating First Nations Composers: Ensemble Offspring Live at The Street Theatre