Project Description
Shores of Botany Bay is a traditional Irish song that has become a classic Australian folk song, with its catchy lyrics and ‘ear worm’ tune. The story is told by a bricklayer, Pat, who decides to emigrate from Ireland to Australia after hearing rumours of the Australian gold rushes. He has had enough of his job laying bricks and mortar on the docks, with its long hours and poor treatment by his bosses.
These six arrangements of Shores of Botany Bay are part of a larger collection of choral arrangements of 20 Australian folk song titles. The works were commissioned in 2022 by the Queensland Kodály Choir as a legacy project of Australian Choral Music and are collectively available in a two-part anthology titled On a Distant Shore.
The Queensland Kodály Choir has generously determined that these anthologies and all of their associated resources should be made freely available to anyone who would like to make use of them. To facilitate this, whilst each of the arrangements is copyright, the full set of project resources has been licensed under Creative Commons International Licence, meaning that they can be freely shared, copied and/or redistributed.
Conductors/choirs wishing to access the Anthology – Parts 1 & 2 – and/or the companion rehearsal tracks, can do so by following the link to the Cuskelly College of Music website. The complete individual titles (including cover title page, vocal score, piano accompaniment, extracted instrument parts, performance notes and glossary of terms) are available in the Anthology Catalogue on this website.
Perusal and download copies of the six arrangements of Shores of Botany Bay are available below.
