Sydney Chamber Choir perfomed the song cycle Solander 12th of February 2022 in Australia.
Kate Reid, composer of Solander, writes:
- I was first drawn to the story of Daniel Solander, the highly acclaimed Swedish botanist and talented linguist, after many visits to Sweden, where I had the opportunity to appreciate the diversity of its people, the splendid landscape and the extreme winters - vastly different from the world that I was used to on the other side of the earth. This song cycle is written in celebration of Solander’s important contribution to scientific discovery and the great courage and commitment it demanded from him.
It begins with Solander’s childhood in the north of Sweden. It opens with a gentle reference to the indigenous people of northern Sweden, the Sami, singing a lullaby. It goes on to follow him on his two-year journey to Australia on the Endeavour as assistant to Joseph Banks in 1768. It concludes with a farewell to Solander, where we hear the same Sami motif return in the final bars.
