
Composed by Nigel Westlake in 1992 as a commission for the ABC's 60th birthday, the work began life in the cinema, as the score for John Weiley’s IMAX film Antarctica (1991). Performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra with guitar soloist Tim Kain, it was recorded in The Ballroom, Government House, Hobart. The four movements of Antarctica are drawn from the primary themes of the film, covering the ‘desolate grandeur of the pole, the life it sustains, and human presence in the region, both historically and today’.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.