Anna McMichael fills us in on her new CD of lullabies, Close your Eyes and I’ll Close Mine.

I first began thinking about collecting and playing lullabies for adults in 2011, a year after moving back to Australia after working for many years as a violinist in the Netherlands.  I wanted music that would soothe but also intrigue people since we often struggle for balance in our busy and stressful modern lives. I raised the project idea with the pianist, Tamara-Anna Cislowska, in the course of our concerts together. She was enthusiastic, being a champion of modern works, and because she had recorded her own CD, Persian Hours, with complementary piano works.

I liked the concept of a genre that integrated older and newer works in a seamless flow of differing colours and textures so I set about finding older but lesser known works from the repertoire for violin and piano. But I mainly also sought out composers I knew both in Australia and abroad who I thought might find the idea appealing. I explained the theme and left it to them and was thrilled when I later received such varied and innovative compositions. I really could not have...

This article is available to Limelight subscribers.

Log in to continue reading.

Access our paywalled content and archive of magazines, regular news and features for the limited offer of $3 per month. Support independent journalism.

Subscribe now