Three Moon
by Ralph Hultgren
Concert Band - Sheet Music

Concert band - Grade 3

SKU: BL.BMC045

Composed by Ralph Hultgren. Brolga Music Concert Band Series. Score and set of parts. Duration 5:25. Published by Brolga Music Publishing Company (BL.BMC045).

ISBN 9790720038599.

There is a legend and a mystery about every place you go. The legends and the mysteries permeate the thinking of a about the place. The Three Moon Legend is the same for Monto, an artistically energetic rural community in central Queensland, Australia.

The story is variously told that a swagman, or Chinese worker, was drawing water from a a creek and he saw the reflection of the moon in his bucket and the reflection on the creek and also the moon itself in the night sky. The vividness of all the images provoked wonderment in the man, and the creek he drew water from has been known ever since as Three Moon Creek.

Such a simple story underpins this composition for it is a work that is evocative of the people, country and history of Monto and the region that surrounds it. The grandeur of the Cania Gorge (the source of Three Moon Creek) can be heard in the opening statements. A bold, yet at time, lilting theme, then carries the work through, bringing hints of the Outback, the cattle country, the openness and oneness that can be felt as you treat the earth in that locale.

The middle section casts a reflective eye over all we have seen so far and elicits memories of past times and peoples. The drovers sing around the camp fire and there sol voices are raise in awe and awareness of the country. An indigenous dance motive takes the listener back to the opening as it blends with and becomes the opening motif and allow us to once again be in the wonder of Cania Gorge.

The work, Three Moon, is a tribute to the people of the local arts community who have laboured hard to obtain the support they needed for such an innovation. The life Three Moon will have outside Monto will take the delights of the region to many and will serve to display the vitality of spirit that permeates such a rural oasis.