Green Leaf Prelude

In 2000 I wrote a piece called “Sand Waltz” for the Canberra Wind Players. In the middle of it I wrote a four-chord progression. When I started working on the ballet “Wild Swans” (2003) I came back to this material and it became something that I grew to rather like. Eventually it became the basis for the overture to the whole ballet. It had somewhat dreamy quality but also a sense of anticipation and mystery. Later, when writing this as the first movement of the Concert Suite “Wild Swans” I gave it a title “Green Leaf” as it refected the way the princess Eliza was making a hole in a green leaf to look through it, imagining far-away exotic lands and birds. (Elena Kats-Chernin)