Large Ensemble/Orchestral

for orchestra (2025)

Duration: 1' 30"

2(pic)222(cbn) / 42211 / 2perc / timp / harp / strings

Programme note:

Tide-rush is made to be a representation of the ocean’s layers. Beginning with its sparkling, rolling surface and descending to a deeper and darker world with churning, undulating textures and frenzied melodic lines collapsing in on themselves.

for string orchestra (2023)

Duration: 4'

strings: 8/8/6/6/3 minimum

Programme Note:

This piece was originally written for the RCM String Band workshop, 2023.

I initially begun writing this piece with an entirely different concept and title. However, after a very surreal dream, I changed the concept and title to the one in front of you now.

In this dream I was stood in a forest clearing. The sun had long since gone down and a thin layer of fog covered everything. In front of me was an open grave, with a skeleton three times what you might expect a human skeleton to be occupying it. From its bones sparked purple light, flickering aggressively against the night scene. This dream was surreally peaceful, even as the sparks grew more and more aggressive. It felt as though I was watching the final energy leave this “giant’s” body.

for sinfonietta (2023)

Duration: 6'30"

1111 / 1000 / timp / (min.) 11111

This piece was premiered in the Overtures open recording session on May 19th, 2023, conduced by Patricia Gomez.

Programme Note:

In Moondance, Shorthouse imagines what people might have danced to on the moon. He envisions bodies made of stars moving and cascading around each other. With little gravity to hold them down their dance becomes clumsy and off-kilter, with the music following this strange, alien waltz.

In this piece, Shorthouse pays homage to Debussy’s Nuages, utilising a similar, rocking motif and modal melodic interjections.
He imagines these “Moon-people” being inspired by Debussy and the impressionists’ use of floating textures and ungrounded metres.

concerto for recorder and orchestra (2024)

Duration: 13'

2(pic)222 / 4220 / 2perc / solo recorder / strings

Movements:

I. Angels on the beach at night

II. Cosmic flesh descends

This piece was premiered on the 8th of March 2025 by Luca Imperiale (recorder) and the Horsham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steve Dummer at The Capitol, Horsham.

Programme note:

Written for Luca Imperiale and the Horsham Symphony Orchestra, Thomas was approached by Imperiale in June of 2023 to write this piece for the premier two years in the future. After meeting with conductor of the orchestra, Steve Dummer, Thomas began gathering materials and inspiration for what would be his largest undertaking yet.

During a trip to Sydney in August of 2023, Thomas and a friend visited and camped at The Basin in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park on Darramurra-gal country. Nearing the end of the Australian winter, the campgrounds were all but empty, save for brush turkeys and wallabies. Gazing into the ocean inlet, and at the surrounding cliffs, it was hard to not feel an intense sense of the sublime. The night they camped; Thomas had a very vivid dream, where we begin the first movement...

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