AASR Song Spotlight: Climb The Rainbow
Today’s featured work from the AASR is Climb The Rainbow, from Ten Songs for Soprano and Piano with music and lyrics (respectively) by twins Martin (1945-2019) and Peter Wesley-Smith (1945- ).
This significant Australian song collection explores a remarkable range of emotional and musical landscapes, combining vivid text setting with the distinctive compositional voice for which the Wesley-Smith brothers are so well known. Climb The Rainbow captures something simultaneously playful, searching and deeply human - a sense of reaching beyond the ordinary toward possibility, imagination and transformation.
For performers, the work offers far more than vocal display. It requires emotional responsiveness, textual clarity and a willingness to fully inhabit the world of the song. It sits beautifully at the intersection of poetry, musical character and storytelling.
The inclusion of repertoire such as this within the AASR is central to the project’s purpose. These are substantial Australian works that deserve to be heard, studied, programmed and taught more widely. Yet many remain unfamiliar to younger singers and difficult to access through recordings or performance resources.
Through ongoing recording projects, we hope to continue helping this repertoire find new audiences and new life.
Listen to Climb The Rainbow performed by Nicole Thomson and Judith Brown AM. The recording was created as part of Nicole’s Masters degree.
You’ll find all the links on the song page here.