Nicole Smede

THE GRASSENING - BREATH RETURNS 

Music in Mosso, Canberra International Music Festival,  2026

Text Score / Sonic Ceremony: any combination of instruments, solo or ensemble, with pre-recorded soundscape and optional visuals.

A living score shaped by the unseen life of plants, translating the electrochemical pulses of the critically endangered Lowland Grassy Woodland of Wodi Wodi Dharawal Country into a sonic dialogue between musician and ecosystem. 
There is no notation, no timestamps, no parts: only a set of written instructions, closer to an invitation than an arrangement.

Across three movements, A Quiet Uprising, A Pulse Beneath Soil, and Breath Returns, the work moves from dark soil through the heartbeat of roots to the canopy's chorus of birds, crickets and cicadas. In performance, the pre-recorded soundscape of plant signals and field recording plays in the space alongside visual elements that become a moving score, so that the ecosystem is not depicted but present: a fourth voice in a conversation between Country, composer, and musician. The Grassening – Breath Returns refuses the score as instruction to the body, and instead asks the musician to cede authorship to a landscape that was speaking long before, and will continue speaking elsewhere.

It first premiered in May 2026 with Ensemble Contrechamps for saxophone, double bass and percussion, as part of Music in Mosso for the 2026 Canberra International Music Festival, the three performers listening to the soundscape in their own time before spending time together on Country: walking, listening, observing, and forming relationship with place, then improvising the three movements in response.

This work extends on The Grassening, 2025.

Full score available upon request.