Work
The Mechanical Dragon
for SSA choir and piano with car horn, wood and metal percussion
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About
This short piece was written in 1996 for Elise Bradley and the choirs at Westlake Girls' High School in Auckland. She had requested something that was up-tempo and fun to sing. I was already working on a cycle drawn from the book The Dragon are Singing Tonight by American Jack Prelutsky. Looking at another poems in the volume I decided to make a setting of I Made a Mechanical Dragon. The piece was ultimately incorporated into the larger cycle.
The work incorporates the sounds a mechanical dragon might make, and includes parts for metal and wooden 'noise-makers'. As the words of the poem suggest, the resulting contraption is not completely successful but at least the poet can boast that '...I made it myself with my hands!'
The choir members play percussion.
Commissioned note
Written for Elise Bradley and the choirs of Westlake Girls High School
Text note
Text by Jack Prelutsky
Performance history
Performed by Euphony from Kristin School at the NZCF Big Sing Finale in 1999