Dolphin songs inspire flautist Sally Walker and Indigenous composer in new work

Canberra flautist Sally Walker has played on stages around the world but few compare with her recital to dolphins on a boat off Port Stephens.

Her lifelong fascination with the playful and highly intelligent sea creatures and a hydrophone recording of their responses to the 2021 performance has culminated in a new work from her Australian National University (ANU) colleague, Indigenous composer Chris Sainsbury.

The work made its world premiere this week (Thursday 20 March) with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (CSO) chamber ensemble. Recorded with the CSO during the year, the work will also feature on the first ever album of Australian flute concerto performed by an Australian flute player.

Three of the four works have been written for Ms Walker, the CSO’s Artist in Focus in its 75th year. She will arrange the fourth.

The album, financed by Arts ACT, will include a piece by early Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks. It will be released in 2026.

Ms Walker dived with dolphins in her early 20s alongside now good friend, French expert Dr Olivia de Bergerac who suggested she bring her flute next time. “They love music,” Dr de Bergerac said.

That’s proven to be the case.

“I sat in a wetsuit for four hours, six weeks ago and got a cameo appearance of a couple of bottlenose dolphins showing us their baby and then disappeared,” Ms Walker says.

“Whereas the times I’ve been on the boat with my flute, they have hung around the entire time.”

In 2021, the dolphins even ventured out of their normal habitat to the open sea to follow the boat.

“They stayed with us the entire time. The boat was stationary, I played and they actually came and interacted with me right under the boat,” she says.

“When I listened to the recording and analysed it, the echolocation – the sounds they use to communicate because they’re living in a world of sound –became more and more excited and are rapid and high pitched at the musical climax of the phrase.

“And while that was a moment of beauty for me, it’s also a very interesting point about the emotional content of the dolphins’ calls and them interacting with my sound.”

An emotional time for Ms Walker, who had just lost her father, the experience inspired her to record the dolphin song under her flute playing.

For the record, she played Debussy’s famous flute work, Syrinx, and Jules Mouquet’s Pan and the Birds, the slow movement from his La Flûte de Pan.

The response was profound as one dolphin turned over and showed her its belly, a sign of trust and intimacy.

Mr Sainsbury, from Avoca Beach, had wanted to write a concerto for the flautist. And on meeting, Ms Walker offhandedly admitted she was dolphin mad.

A week later the composer excitedly revealed one of a handful of surviving songs in his Darug language told of a dolphin and asked to hear her recordings.

The result is three movements, the first using the pitches from a predominant and repeated dolphin call.

The second captures the joy of Ms Walker playing on top of the boat, watching dolphins circle, jump underneath her and interact.

The third movement emulates playful dolphin sounds, including abundant harp and percussion.

It’s been a significant collaboration for Ms Walker.

“The reality hit me that I am premiering the first Indigenous Australian flute concerto,” she says.

“That weighed on me quite heavily in the sense it feels like a really important responsibility and recreating a lost song feels powerful and sad and maybe hopeful at the same time.”

Ms Walker has also collaborated with composer Lyle Chan, with special musical appearances by Mr Sainsbury and Miguel del Aguila, in Living Poems of the Sea, a multi-media work for next month’s Canberra International Music Festival celebrating her dolphin encounters and friendship with Dr de Bergerec.

It’s described as a meditation on the enthralling world of dolphins and whales in music, sound, words and images.

Ms Walker will next week perform Elena Kats-Chernin’s Night and Now in a 10th anniversary performance with the CSO, which will also perform Tchaikovosky’s Symphony No. 6 under the baton of Jessica Cottis. The performance will be quite special for the flautist – Ms Kats-Chernin is now an old friend and parts of Night and Now refer to Ms Walker’s recent travels in Argentina with her future husband.

“It’s a beautiful piece by itself, but with those insights for me, it’s like revisiting a long friendship,” she says.

Canberra born and bred, Ms Walker describes her role as CSO Artist in Focus in its 75th year as special.

“The Canberra Symphony Orchestra was the very first orchestra I heard,” she says. “Being able to collaborate with them in such a way is really personally and professionally special for me.”

In May, Ms Walker will participate in the Rediscovering Music program designed for people experiencing hearing loss and working with the Young Kingsland Fellows.

For tickets to Night and Now at Llewellyn Hall on Wednesday and Thursday nights, 26 and 27 March, visit the CSO website.