Research Background

Let Love Rule is a celebration of one of Australia’s musical treasures: the inimitable Archie Roach. Drawing from his latest release entitled “The Concert Collection 2012-2018”, Archie Roach reimagines his repertoire spanning the last 30 years and gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Accompanied by the lush strings of the Tinalley String Quartet, Let Love Rule breathes new life into Archie Roach’s iconic songs, showcasing the poignancy and soulful lyricism of his work. The Queensland Music Festival presented Let Love Rule live at the Tivoli in July, and featured Roach (voice/guitar), Sally Daste (guitars/vocals), Bruce Haymes (keyboard), and the Tinalley String Quartet.

Research Contribution

My role was music arranger. The project involved expanding or contracting seven songs originally recorded in acousting and/or full band versions to string quartet for the live ensemble. A constraint for the project was minimal rehearsal preparation with the complete ensemble, which was navigated throughout in my arrangement approach. Songs were transcribed to lead sheet format, and then expanded into full score. For each, the lyrical story from Archie was always at the foreground of the project, and woven into this were moments for the Tinalley quartet to be featured. Each song brought a unique arrangement ‘puzzle’ to solve, and perhaps the most challenging were songs that had existed in a full band format, whereby techniques to support rhythmic drive and intensity were explored in the orchestration for strings.

Research Significance

The concert was well attended, and audience and musician feedback positive. In rehearsal, each piece was assembled with great ease by the musicians from Archies’ band, and from the Tinalley String Quartet. Each had prepared the music prior to the very short rehearsal encounter. As an arranger, this scenario is at the core of the significance of this output.