Announcing an exciting collaboration between Steve and Australia’s most respected environmentalist, Bob Brown as part of the Bob Brown Foundation campaign to “Save The Tarkine”.

Announcing an exciting collaboration between Steve and Australia’s most respected environmentalist, Bob Brown as part of the Bob Brown Foundation campaign to “Save The Tarkine”.

Bob has very generously used Steve's piano piece 'Tarkine Sunset' behind a montage of his photos of the Tarkine as his Christmas message for 2017 from the Bob Brown Foundation.

Steve’s melody is intended to express the fragile and transient beauty of a sunset - something nearly everyone has experienced. In this case, the sunset in Steve’s mind was one from the Tarkine (takayna) coast south of Arthur’s River, on a beach almost buried in huge flotsam logs twisted and tumbled into sculptural forms only Nature could imagine and achieve.

Steve first visited this area in 1978, the second stop on his first trip to Tasmania, when access was rough and ready, but mostly impossible, drawn by the magic that seemed to even inhabit maps of the NW of this special island. There’s now a lookout near Arthurs River called “The Edge of the World” - exactly what it feels like when the Roaring Forties wind strafes your face with sand and foam from the relentless waves travelling from the African coast; you feel there’s nothing else tangible except yourself and ageless Time.

The Tarkinaraa were here for tens of thousands of years and their artefacts, spirit and descendants still shape how one reacts to this country and speak of resilience and formidable courage. Yet all this is now threatened with destruction so the music melody is not only intended to express the beauty of that sunset, but also the danger the sun will set on the Tarkine / takayna as we (and the flora and fauna for which it is home) know it, if the bulldozers and chainsaws move in.

Bob Brown’s photos speak to the same ephemeral and transient beauty, though powerfully portraying renewal and hope through how Earth owns us all and how we should own our responsibility to care for it. It is a huge honour and privilege to collaborate with Bob on this small contribution to saving the Tarkine / takayna and Steve is humbled by Bob’s generous spirit and lifetime of trying to set things right while many of us find it hard to look beyond our daily struggles.

The recording of “Tarkine Sunset (takayna)” was produced by Heath Cullen http://heathcullen.com mastered by Mick Wordley http://mixmasters.com.au. Sheet music will be available soon.