Dallas Gray
Contemporary Australian piano works.
Some voices take a lifetime to find their song. For Dallas, music had always been her companion—first as a gifted pianist, then as a teacher—but it wasn’t until after raising her children and decades of nurturing others’ talents that her own compositions began to pour forth. At fifty, she sat at the piano not as an instructor, but as a storyteller.
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Each piece she writes carries the resonance of lived experience: harmonies that know both joy and loss, melodies that bloom with the patience of seasons, and silences that speak as eloquently as the notes themselves. In a world that hurries towards youthful genius, her work is a reminder that some of the most profound music can only be written by a life fully lived.
A collection of piano solos written about the shipwrecks of the Wilderness Coast of Victoria.
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Each ship is an exploration. A dive or a dream. A new discovery or a connection to the past. Choose your wreck and play it as it feels right. Play it as an expedition. Don't worry about me.I've let go.
Six contemporary classical art music
piano pieces hinting at the neo impressionist style.
Each piece reflects a journey through Flinton in Gippsland Victoria. Once a bustling dairy farm, full of life, music and eccentric characters, the house now sits crumbling into the damp earth. Piece by piece the rooms and their former inhabitants are introduced to the listener.
Memories seem to be held in spaces left behind. That feeling you have when you enter an abandoned place and can feel the walls breathe with stories.
The titles of each piece hold the names of family, their personalities, their musical loves, their rooms. Repeating refrains or familial ties.
read/listen.
Iron Crown
Iron Ore Carrier
The Iron Crown was built in Williamstown Victoria for the Commonwealth Shipping Board. On the 4th of June 1942, Iron Crown was torpedoed off Gabo Island by a Japanese submarine while carrying iron ore from Whyalla to Newcastle. 38 of 42 crew died and the few survivors were picked up out of the ocean by the SS Mulbera. The wreck was discovered by archeologists in April 2019 in 700 metres of water 100kms off the coast.
Monumental City
Passenger Steamer.
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The American steamer Monumental City was the first steamship to cross the Pacific, attracted by the Victorian gold rush. It had previously been involved in the Californian gold rush carrying passengers from Nicaragua to San Francisco as they crossed the American continent from Europe and the east coast of America. It had a short career on the Australian coast, being wrecked on Tullaberga Island after only one month in service due to a navigation error. Thirty seven lives were lost in the disaster. The 54 survivors were left stranded on Tullaberga for days while a raft was built from timber from the wreck so they could cross to the mainland and nearby Mallacoota.
Riverina
Passenger Steamer.
Wrecked onshore near Tullaberga Island, Victoria, Australia 1927. 142 passengers were aboard when the SS Riverina wrecked due to heavy seas on it's way from Hobart to Sydney. The vessel was carrying 19,352 crates of applies and 296 tonnes of general cargo. All passengers were saved after a 13 kilometre walk to nearby Mallacoota, The wreck was unable to be salvaged and was later used as target practice by the RAAF.
Iron Prince
Steamer
Built in 1909 in Glasgow, the steamer was first named Bright Wings, then Aughinish before being bought by BHP and renamed Iron Prince.
Wrecked 19th April 1923 off Cape Howe.
Schah
Schooner
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Wrecked at Shipwreck Creek, Victoria, Australia 1837
Formerly the slave ship Frasquita. Condemned and then auctioned in Sierra Leone it was renamed Schah in Scotland and re-registered in 1834. Too small to compete with the trade ships between the Ottoman Empire and England, it was sold again to an Australian company for voyages from Sydney to Hobart. It's final voyage carrying 13 passengers and 8 crew ended with the Schah being driven off course and crashing into rocks at Shipwreck Creek close to Mallacoota.
There were 13 survivors.
