Music
Windstreams
For percussion
Windstreams was commissioned and premiered by percussionist, Michael Askill with funding from the Music Board of the Australia Council.
About the work
I wrote Windstreams in Green Valley, south of Sydney, while watching the movement of trees in a strong wind storm.
Instrumentation
Windstreams is scored for: 8 drums (tomtoms and rototoms), bass drum, low timpani, bell tree, 4 suspended cymbals, tamtam, glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bells, 5 temple blocks and 2 wood blocks.
Score and recording
Buy or borrow the score from SOUNZ.
RNZ Concert recorded Windstreams in 1994.
Reviews
[Gillian Whitehead] has the ability to focus on the resonance of sounds, giving them an intense aftertaste. She makes you listen to the echo more than the event, a dangerous strategy for anyone without her acute sensitivity to timbre.
— Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald 23 April 1987
Wind stream (sic) is one of those exquisitely fragile soundscapes which could be a disaster in less skilled and sensitive hands than those of Michael Askill. Surrounded by more than a dozen percussion instruments, he built fragments of sound into a kind of aural tapestry that was both varied and delicate.
— Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald