Behind the making of the Australian of the Year Awards musical theme

For the second year running, the ANU School of Music is providing the soundtrack to the Australian of the Year Awards ceremonies.

The music, composed last year by Head of School Professor Ken Lampl and Kirsten Lampl, was performed by staff and students. It will again play in events around the country from 23 October, as the State and Territory recipients are announced, followed by the national ceremony.

In composing the music, Professor Lampl said he wanted to capture the profound honour of the award and inspire leadership in a way that was uniquely Australian.

“The image I had for the piece was the geographic space and vastness of Australia, which is incredibly beautiful and inspiring,” Professor Lampl says.

“There’s also the openness to new ideas that Australia and Australian of the Year represents: ideas of leadership, society, innovation. This is a fertile place for the discovery and articulation of new ideas.

“So the awards represent new horizons and possibilities for human thinking and culture in the same kind of way. To me, that's what the music also represents.”
 

Behind the music

Professor Lampl: “The layers of the music are strings, bass, brass, guitar and percussion. The tempo is 120BPM (beats per minute).”

“Movies like Star Wars start with an overture, which is what this is. An overture is similar to a pop song in the way it has verses and choruses.

This piece has an introduction, which introduces the rhythm and motion. Then we get our main theme with the brass. That's what I call the 'majestic theme' and is the A section. Then comes the B section, which is your second theme."

"What happens in popular songs is there are alternations between verse and chorus. In instrumental songs, it's A section/B section. That's how overtures are constructed.

In pop songs, the most memorable stuff is the chorus, which happens second. In the overture, it's almost like the main melody (the chorus) comes first in the A section.

So there’s the introduction, A-B-A, then back to the introduction again.

To make the piece longer, I took the introduction and created an interlude section out of the introduction. Then there's one last A section on the way out.

The last thing is the coda, which is the very end.”