There’s some sort of catharsis in the fact that Connor D’Netto’s new work about home and homesickness will be premiered in both Brisbane and Melbourne – the city he grew up in, and the city he now calls home.

D’Netto’s song cycle POSTCARDS is set to premiere in North Stradbroke Island, Brisbane and in Melbourne between 9–12 August, performed by vocalist Lotte Betts-Dean, guitarist Libby Myers and pianist Alex Raineri.

“It’s very fitting,” D’Netto tells Limelight. “It all kind of worked out perfectly.”

POSTCARDS is the end point of D’Netto’s MOMENTUM Commission, awarded to him (and to the Hobart-based composer Maria Grenfell) for a work for voice and chamber ensemble inspired by nature and the Australian environment.

“I was thinking about Australia not just as an environment, but as a place, an our connection to that place,” says D’Netto. “A lot of the concept of home is intertwined with memory – memory of a place, of a home or other homes.”

Connor DNetto

Connor D’Netto. Photo © Ray Roberts Photography.

The performers enlisted to play POSTCARDS are no less fitting. Both Raineri and Myers have commissioned D’Netto for solo works that...