Jeanell Carrigan, renown Australian musician, last week sent my brother and I copies of a new CD of chamber music by Meta Overman. Thank you, Jeanell!

Score & CD incl. Island Songs; Postcard from Jeanell

Soprano Narelle Yeo and pianist Jeanell Carrigan have made a lovely recording of Overman’s Island Songs (1956), settings of three poems by our father, John Joseph Jones (1930 – 2000) which we think he wrote during his short time in Fiji before settling in WA (where he subsequently built and managed the Parkerville Amphitheatre). The songs are Deep, deep blue water; Farewell; and Lullaby. [Note to writers: JJJ always used his full name despite the error in the score below.]

The disc is full of wonderful music by Overman, who was born in Holland in 1907 and died in 1993 in Perth, Western Australia. She was fluent, prolific and imaginative and her musical style is not quite like any other I have ever heard. Broadly speaking you might describe her sound world as neo-tonal.

Deep, deep blue water. See Wirripang for a better sample.

In 1954 Overman composed Prayer for Solo Harp for our parents’ wedding in Albany, Western Australia. The previous year she also set John’s The Image of the Cross (1953) for speaker, choir and two pianos.

You can read all about this prodigious Dutch-Australian composer and the role she played in Australian music in Perth and Melbourne at the AMC (try https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/overman-meta) and Wirripang.

These songs are on a CD titled Grotesque and other chamber works by Meta Overman, published by Wirripang as Wirr 098.

Carrigan performed the songs in the first of two all-Overman concerts at WAAPA in August/September 2018 with another wonderful soprano, Helen Brown, at which time I purchased a copy of the sheet music. Along with the CD the score is available at another Wirripang page. They also have samples free to download.