Ipswich composer Cate Carter is combining music, military history and local heritage through a growing collection of original works, including a new operetta telling the story of two Ipswich women who lost their lives while serving as missionaries overseas.
Speaking on West Bremer Radio’s Get Your Arts Into Gear, Carter described herself as a “born again composer”, having returned to music following a lengthy career in the Australian Army.
Her musical beginnings included playing viola and working in theatre and opera as a stage manager before joining the Army, where she also helped establish a creative arts association within the Defence Force.
Since returning to composing, Carter has drawn heavily on military experiences and history, producing chamber, orchestral and choral works.
She said written words were often the starting point for her compositions, with poetry, letters and other texts inspiring the music she hears and ultimately puts onto the page.
New work to premiere at Ipswich Proms
Ipswich audiences will have an opportunity to hear Carter’s work during the upcoming Proms at St Paul’s Anglican Church on September 12, part of the Galvanized heritage festival.
Carter’s composition, Creator of the Stars on High, will receive its premiere during the concert.
Based on a medieval text, the piece has been written for choir, organ and oboe.
Carter described it as beginning quietly before gradually building into a large finale.
The Proms will bring together a massed choir, orchestra and soloists and is one of the flagship events of this year’s Galvanized program.
Military experiences inspire music
One of Carter’s major works is The Witnesses, a five-movement suite for orchestra and choir based on British Army veteran Harry Parker’s novel Anatomy of a Soldier.
The work received its premiere in London in 2024 at the Royal Military Chapel but is yet to receive an Australian premiere.
One section even features a tenor singing in Pashto, with Parker’s text translated by an Afghan-born member of the Australian Army.
Carter has also composed a song cycle based on 11 pieces of war poetry spanning conflicts from the Boer War through to the modern era.
Rather than selecting works written by observers, Carter chose poetry written by people who had personally served in the conflicts.
Individual songs from the cycle have been designed so they can also be performed separately for commemorations connected to particular conflicts.
Ipswich women inspire new operetta
Closer to home, Carter has created an operetta titled Annie and Mavis, telling the parallel stories of two women connected to St Paul’s Anglican Church in Ipswich.
Annie Gordon taught Sunday school at St Paul’s during the late 19th century before undertaking missionary work in China, while Mavis Parkinson taught Sunday school at the church during the 1940s before travelling to Papua New Guinea.
Both women lost their lives while undertaking missionary work.
Carter developed the operetta while serving as composer-in-residence at St Paul’s, writing it for children’s orchestra, choir and two soloists.
The concept places children at the centre of telling the women’s stories, reflecting Gordon and Parkinson’s connections to the church’s Sunday school.
Importantly, much of the text comes directly from historical material uncovered during Carter’s research, including the women’s letters and diaries, contemporary newspaper reports and speeches.
Carter said the project initially began as an instrumental composition, but after reading the women’s own words she realised their voices needed to become part of the work.
She now hopes to see Annie and Mavis staged in Ipswich, potentially as part of a future Galvanized festival.
Carter believes the operetta is not only an Ipswich heritage story but a powerful story about women whose willingness to travel overseas and serve others continues to resonate with the humanitarian work undertaken by community organisations today.
Composer receives RADF support
Carter has also received a Regional Arts Development Fund grant to support her attendance at the Australian Music and Psychology Society Conference in December.
She will present War is Not Always Adagio: Other Musical Representations of Military Experience, exploring how music can portray aspects of military life beyond combat.
Her presentation will consider experiences including boredom, humour, bureaucracy, coded communications and weapons systems, using examples from her own compositions.
With several works now awaiting Australian performances, Carter hopes more opportunities will emerge to bring her compositions—and particularly the uniquely Ipswich story of Annie and Mavis—to the stage.
0 Comments