Rushall Express
for solo guitar (1997)
duration: 5’
GRT • 034

audio sample






score available from
Australian Music Centre

program note
Rushall train station is just across the road from where I was living in 1997. When I first started ‘dashing off a quick piece’ for Ken Murray (who was present with guitar in hand during the entire writing process), we jokingly referred to it as a rush job, and so the title stuck. But dozens of sessions (and coffees) later, I began to wonder if the piece would ever be finished. Every little motivic extension or fingering alternative seemed like a set of Russian dolls - each solution containing a few more slightly smaller puzzles. In any event, the title did start to ring true in the sense that the piece endeavors to maintain a ‘train–like’ propulsion throughout.