Songs Under the Southern Cross

Jesu, meine Freude (Jesus, my Joy) BWV 227 is the longest and most musically complex of J.S. Bach's motets composed around 1723. It is set in eleven movements for up to five voices. The text is after the  Lutheran hymn of the same name with words by Johann Franck, first published in 1653.

Composed in 1993, Revelations of Divine Love was commissioned by The Song Company with funds provided by Australia Council and first performed on 9 September 1994 at St James Church, Sydney.

The text was assembled by the composer from Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love and the bible.

Southern Cross Chants was written in 2004 for The Song Company Commissioned by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust.

It was first performed on 2 December 2004 in the Verbrugghen Hall at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music conducted by Roland Peelman, to whom the work is dedicated.

Ross writes: "Southern Cross Chants is a further exploration of the astronomical text provided by Fred Watson for my choral Fourth Symphony, Star Chant (2001). It consists of a series of modules, each of which may be detached for separate performance.

The text celebrates stars and constellations of the southern skies by juxtaposing their classical, scientific and Australian Aboriginal names. The first module, for example, pairs the words for the constellation Hydra with Unwala: Hydra being the water-snake of ancient Greek legend, whose head is Unwala the Crab to the people of Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The work thus attempts a musical fusion of art and science whilst recognising that Australia's indigenous cultures were possibly the world's first astronomers."

Songs Under the Southern Cross Program