AASR Song Spotlight: Indoor Yachting
Today’s featured song is Indoor Yachting by Katy Abbott, from Part 1 of her 2013 song cycle The Domestic Sublime. This resource not only encapsulates the suggested repertoire of surveyed teachers, but now includes the Australian Art Songs that we teach ourselves.
With characteristic wit and imagination, Abbott transforms the ordinary act of making a bed into a theatrical nautical adventure. Setting text by Australian poet Christopher Wallace-Crabbe, the piece captures a sense of escapism and play, inviting both performer and audience into a world where domestic life becomes something far more expansive.
A favourite for performers who enjoy character-driven repertoire, Indoor Yachting offers opportunities for storytelling, rhythmic vitality and expressive colour. Beneath the humour lies something deeply human - the desire to dream beyond the everyday. Works like this demonstrate the remarkable diversity of Australian art song. The repertoire is not confined to one style, era or aesthetic, but instead reflects the individuality, humour, imagination and lived experiences of Australian composers and writers.
The Australian Music Centre listing for the work notes: This work is in two parts. Part I was co-commissioned by Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Ars Musica Australis for Dr Rowena Cowley and David Miller. The commission was part of the Sydney Conservatorium 101 Commissions which celebrate the centenary of the institution. Part II was composed for Greta Bradman (soprano) and Leigh Harrold (piano) and was recorded by them in 2012.
While songs are often written for or commissioned by particular performers, or with specific singers in mind, they also have other lives and grow each time they are performed. Each time a singer learns and presents a new piece, they bring their own ideas and voices to bear.
Even with pieces not written for us, as singers we inhabit them, bringing our own individual style to each performance. And this is how songs become lasting works - being sung by more singers, performed to new audiences and outliving their first performances and performers into the future.
Listen to a live recording of Indoor Yachting by Flametree on our YouTube Channel or the studio recording by Greta Bradman and Leigh Harold.
You’ll find all the links on the song page here.