Moondani Dances Recording Project. Composer Taran Carter

For the full audio recording from this session of Monodani Dances by Taran Carter, please go to this Youtube link:    • MOONDANI DANCES  

MOONDANI DANCES
Composed by Taran Carter
Performed by the Eltham High School Alumni & Friends Band, June 21 2024
Conducted by Rick Keenan
Commissioned by the Eltham High School Symphonic Band, 2024

The Eltham High School Music Department commissioned Melbourne Composer Taran Carter to write Moondani Dances for our Symphonic Band.

On June 21 2024, 44 professional musicians came together to create a new ensemble, with the goal of producing the first recording of Moondani Dances. The musicians are a combination of current Eltham Music Staff, Alumni, Previous Instrumental Staff and Friends of the Music Program.

Moondani Dances Program Notes:

Moondani Dances was commissioned in 2024 by Eltham High School and is based on an idea of the Eltham High School Symphonic Band Conductor, Rick Keenan.

In 2014 Eltham High School commissioned me to compose a piece that became MOONDANI: Black, a work in memory of the victims of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. This piece contained a short “market theme” that was devised as a way of introducing the township of St. Andrews and portraying the energy and wonderful chaos of the St. Andrews Market on a hot February morning.

Ten years after MOONDANI: Black was first performed, Rick Keenan asked if I would be interested in expanding the “market” section of this earlier work into a stand-alone piece. I loved the idea of revisiting this material and of musically celebrating the renewal of the township of St.Andrews after the devastating fires.

This new composition, Moondani Dances, expands on this earlier musical through programmatic devices, extended rhythmic patterns, musical fragmentation and expansion, simple harmonic ideas infused with internal clusters, and a prominent and integral percussion groove.
The music depicts the hustle and bustle of the St. Andrews market and if you listen carefully you can hear the sounds of buskers playing Irish folk music, the sounds of children's pony rides, djembe drumming coming from the famous chai tent, the sound of wind whipping up the market dust, bird calls, the down-pour of rain bringing respite to the hot summer market and, if you listen very, very carefully, the traditional English folk-tune To Market, To Market, To Buy a Fat Pig.

“Moondani” is the name of my family home, and Moondani Dances is the third Moondani Music to be composed.

Program notes by the composer, February 2024