Austin Symphonic Band Performing You’ll Come Matilda (Endlessly Waltzing)
Austin Symphonic Band. November 5, 2023 concert at the Connally HS Performing Arts Center in Austin, TX. ASB performing You’ll Come Matilda (Endlessly Waltzing) by Jess Langston Turner. Music Director Dr. Kyle R. Glaser conducting. "Grand Structures" Concert.
Video and Sound Production: Eddie Jennings
From the program notes written by David Cross:
You’ll Come Matilda (Endlessly Waltzing) (2015)
Jess Langston Turner (b. 1983)
The song Waltzing Matilda has been called “the unofficial national anthem of Australia.” Like most folksongs, the lyrics of Waltzing Matilda are based on actual events that took place, in this case during the Australian Great Shearers Strike of 1891.
The song tells the story of a starving drifter who stole a sheep from his former master. When the owner of the sheep came to confront the drifter with three armed members of the Australian National Guard, rather than allow himself to be captured and hanged for the theft, the drifter jumped into the watering hole beside which he had camped. The weight of his knapsack caused him to drown, and it is rumored that his ghost still haunts the watering hole to this day.
In this setting of Waltzing Matilda, the composer successfully communicates the story surrounding the song, rather than just offering a straightforward arrangement of a nice melody. Like the lyrics, the music takes a dark ominous turn near the middle of the piece, and at the end we are left with the voice of the drifter’s ghost whispering to all those who pass by the location of his demise.
Jess Langston Turner has won numerous honors for his music. He was the 2005 National Winner of the Young Artist Composition Competition of the Music Teachers National Association for his Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. He has won numerous prizes for his choral music, including the 2008 John Ness Beck Award and the 2009 first prize of the Roger Wagner International Choral-Composition Contest. In June 2010, he was named to the National Band Association Young Composers Mentoring Project and was awarded the 2010 Walter Beeler Prize for Wind Composition for Rumpelstilzchen: A Fairy Tale for Wind Ensemble. In 2012, his work for young band The Exultant Heart was awarded the Merrill Jones Composition Prize for Young Bands sponsored by the National Band Association.
Listen for:
• Theme and variation form on the melody.
• A rich and colorful orchestration.
• Compositional nods to Charles Ives, Maurice Ravel, and Frances McBeth.
• A whispered word echoed repeatedly at the end.
