At just 17 and 19 years of age Mirla and Arthur were falling in love, just as the events of the Second World War overtook and then separated them. On Valentine’s Day 1942 Arthur waved goodbye to Mirla as he set sail from Fremantle, aboard the HMAS Perth, towards a Pacific War. Two weeks later, the Perth was destroyed in the Battle of Sunda Strait.
Thus begins the story behind the new album by Mirla: Solo Project (Australian screen composer, pianist and neo-classical artist Emily Mirla Harrison) which she describes as “a meditation on love, and the virtues of hope, resilience and patience: remedies for those separated by time, space and circumstance.”
Autumn turns to winter, still no word from Arthur. Has he survived? In those hardest of times, the blackest of moments, Mirla returns from work to find a bundle of her letters: all unopened, marked ‘Returned to sender’.
On November 11 we stop to remember and honour Australians like Arthur, who served their country in wartime, and those who have died in the line of duty.
But Arthur and Mirla’s story has a relatively happy ending, Arthur cheats death but is forced into labour on the Burma (Death) Railway and later, while being transported by sea, Arthur’s ship once again sinks – for six days he clings to the debris before finally, he is rescued. In those long months of waiting, suffering, and not knowing, Mirla also learns to survive, protecting herself (and her love for Arthur) from her self-doubts, her fears, by leaning into the virtues of hope, resilience and patience. This was her lesson of war. After two and-a-half years, Arthur returns to Mirla and today their story continues to inspire others, including their grand daughter, Emily Mirla Harrison whose new album pays homage to her grandparent’s war-time love story.
This is an album of the neo-classical genre that is introducing a new generation to classically inspired music.
Neo-classical music is now popular in Europe and there’s growing engagement from Australian audiences for compositions such as Harrison’s album ‘Solitaire’ – 13 original movements that mix contemporary classical composition for piano and strings with electronic elements to create a dreamscape journalogue, that includes spoken word (excerpts and original poetry), and field recordings, bringing an authenticity to this very personal work. I found my first experience of listening to this digital release extremely evocative, I’ll even go so far as to say spine tingling. There is a measured balance between the electronic elements and the composition, so that the musicality of the work is not lost in the need to tell the story.
Harrison cites Max Richter’s The Blue Notebooks, Rachmaninoff and Olafur Arnalds as guiding lights. She says, “The musical concept draws from my grandparents’ experiences captured in war diaries, letters, poems, drawings, voice recordings, a biography and documentary. A classic Australian story of sweethearts separated by the war, the compositional narrative explores a young woman’s psychological drama as she waits for news of her sweetheart sailor-boy. Nana survived the months of ‘not knowing’: a long game of patience. She learnt to be resilient, to overcome her fears by sustaining a hope that Arthur would be returned.”
“Composed during Covid lockdowns the album draws a comparison between Mirla’s war experience and the human impacts of pandemic. As the album re-tells a classic Australian story, we’re reminded of our capacity for love, loyalty and endurance. By listening to the echoes of our grandparent’s stories, we’re encouraged to stay calm and press-on”.
November 11. Lest we Forget.
Emily Mirla Harrison — pianist, screen composer, and contemporary – classical recording artist.
A graduate of the prestigious AFTRS, Emily quickly achieved scoring credits for the ABC’s award winning Bluey, campaigns (UNICEF, Billabong) domestic short films and the feature documentary Undone (2020). Her album track In Search of Lost Time, was shortlisted for ‘MadeBy’ (RAD / OneMusic competition 2021). In 2018 Emily won the JD Music Prize (AGSC, 2018) to develop her concept album Solitaire and she was shortlisted in the APRA AMCOS Professional Development Awards (2021).
Find Solitaire on Spotify here
More on this project here
