Sally Greenaway | Composer

As pandemic restrictions ease across Australia, composer Sally Greenaway reflects upon the last two years through her new work The Sky is Also Yours. Commissioned by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for their Spring Digital Concert 2021, the piece is scored for four members of their Double Bass section.

Our shared monotony in distancing ourselves from the outside world was a collective groundhog day and may have felt at times like the walls were closing in. The fourth bassist has plucked pizzicato notes in a steady rhythm, as if taking one step at a time.

And just as the seasons change, the colours and fluctuations in our emotional states are mirrored by the complex harmonic changes from the third and second bassists.

But through it all we have looked to the good nature of us all - a hopeful pathway to navigate forward, together. The first bassist is nourishment and hope through sound, with a lyrical and poignant melody that breathes our revitalisation.

A quartet of double basses is capable of great power and depth. But they are also capable of extremely beautiful, almost heavenly sounds that whisper soft singing directly to our hearts. And as spring erupts into greens and yellows and scent fills the air, and we carefully dare to enter the world again, we can all look up and enjoy the vastness of the blue by day and the stars at night: the sky is also yours.