midnight (2025)
score available from
Wise Music
program note
This single-movement string quartet is subtitled ‘midnight’ in reference to the Ukrainian folk song Black Eyebrows, Brown eyes, which opens with the words ‘Dark are the eyebrows, deep are the eyes, Dark as the midnight,’. It’s a love song about absence, separation, yearning and seduction – though in 2025, it perhaps takes on a further poignant meaning or allegory in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from 2014 and further from 2022.
It was written in a single day for Harmony Bridge: Ukraine-Australia, whose purpose is to advance, safeguard and promote Ukrainian music and arts in Australia. The premiere performance was given by The Crossing Machine at Collins St. Baptist Church, Melbourne on 6 November 2025.