Aniva Star Goddess is composed for Emily Granger and Claire Edwardes’ album Magic Sky released on the HUSH label. Magic Sky speaks to the innate healing powers of music, with a selection of works that intend to soothe and calm.

The concept Magic Sky conjured up the Milky Way as I mused on how to write for Emily and Claire’s wonderful duo of harp and bass marimba. Thinking of the children in the hospital, I wanted to create something to lift up the roof for them, a piece to stimulate the spirit of imagination.

One evening as I held my own feverish son asleep in my arms, I dozed, and the first notes of the piece came into my mind very clearly. I realised this was the piece I’d been waiting for. I went to my harp and played the piece in one sitting, as my son slept behind me on the couch. It seemed to come from a star goddess, hence the name, Aniva Star Goddess. Aniva is a Polynesian name for the Milky Way, galaxy, or the Pleiades.

I feel very blessed to write for Emily Granger, a harpist who I admire, and to be listed alongside these wonderful Australian women composers on this beautiful album.

Presented by The Hush Foundation, Magic Sky is an enchanting and otherworldly album, featuring new works from Australian female composers for marimba and harp performed by Claire Edwardes and Emily Granger. Together, they explore the experience of waiting in hospital spaces, inspired to create an offering that aims to ease the anxiety patients and families face at this time.

Claire and Emily, along with composers Anne Cawrse, Elena Kats-Chernin, Andrea Keller, Hilary Kleinig, Natalia Mann, Katia Mestrovic, Jessica Wells and Sally Whitwell, attended site visits at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney and Melbourne and a visit to Cairns Regional Hospital. Some of the waiting spaces included the Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Department, Transit Lounge, Maternity Ward and Renal Area, where the composers spoke to patients and staff about their experiences and their surroundings.

The Hush Foundation is beyond proud to be releasing their twenty fifth volume of music at a time when, more than ever before, our most vulnerable people need a village.