Zeewijk

two bass clarinets

Premiere by Steph Winter and Alex Wallace, on November 24, 2020, at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, WA

Live video recording

Sample Score 1

Sample Score 2

Zeewijk draws inspiration from Drew Pettifer’s A Sorrowful Act: The Wreck of the Zeewijk, which examines hidden queer histories through archival art practices. Pettifer’s project centers on the 1727 wreck of the Dutch ship Zeewijk and the subsequent sodomy trial—the first recorded instance of European queer history in Australia—where two young men were sentenced to death by marooning.

This composition reflects themes of breath, waves, and exposure, distilling them into spectral harmonies and textured air sounds. Two bass clarinets, positioned apart and facing one another, embody the isolation of those two men, stranded on separate islands.