Our House is on Fire

For toy piano, percussion and bass tones with spoken word.For Clocked out.The score should be read in the Decibel ScorePlayer application on an iPad. PROGRAM NOTE“Our House on Fire” was the opening line of a speech by Greta Thunberg, a 16year old Swedish activist, at the World Economic Forum in Geneva in early 2019. The speech is a desperate yet clear plea for action on global warming, and the spoken text in the piece is taken from her speech, which is published in the Guardian newspaper. Each instrument in this work does what is not normal that it do: sustained, dark tones on the toy piano, sustained, variable and difficult to control cymbal and bass sounds. These are interspersed with more ‘native’ sounds: but the work explores the idea of trying to change, challenging systems do things they were not necessarily designed to do, pushing up against established systems.Red is for percussion, blue is for the toy piano, pink is for the low tone, which can also be played on a synthesiser or bass guitar with effects to sustain the sound. Crosses are stick hits on the cymbals, round dots are soft hits on cymbals or notes on the toy piano or bass.The width of the line indicates of dynamic. Words in Italics should be spoken by the performers – in any order and density – and should be spoken into something (e.g. bowl, container of some kind).PERFORMANCES Premiered 4th August in Brisbane, Queensland at Griffith Conservatorium.5th August at Laugavin, the Piano Mill, NSW.