WA composer Olivia Davies’ Murmuration is a setting of Thuy On’s shape poem of the same name. The poem resembles a skein of birds, the word “murmuration” stuttering into flowing phonemic life down the page.

Davies writes of her setting: “The music is generated from a simple canon and follows the formation of the word as it appears in the poem. I use glissandi, the technique of sliding between pitches, to evoke the image of a murmuration of birds, ascending, turning and descending.”

And birds there were, all luscious fricatives and thrumming nasals. But I was also reminded of Tennyson’s “murmuring of innumerable bees”. Like On’s poem itself, Davies’ Murmuration, which was commissioned for WASO by Prue Ashurst, is compact yet with a sonority suggestive of eternity.

Conductor Andrew Foote and the WASO Chorus sent its tiny syllables flying into St Mary’s vast space with a touching solicitude and affection – a worthy world premiere performance.

WASO Chorus Sings Serenity. Photo © WASO (supplied)

Murmuration was the fifth item in this sell-out Sunday afternoon concert by a 60-plus-strong WASO Chorus. It was also, for this reviewer, one of two highlights in a...