Oboe and piano have almost no acoustic characteristics in common. The oboe can only play one note at a time but with enormous subtlety and delicate shades of colour, pitch and dynamic contour that can change expressively at will within each note. The piano can play fistfuls of notes at once but every one of them, once struck, will only ever get softer. The player has no control over the pitch or tone colour of each note, only over the number played at once and the volume with which they commence.

These five dialogues are deeply contrasted studies in musical ground that might be shared between these radically contrary instruments.

Intimate Dialogues was commissioned through Create SA and the Australian Cultural Fund. It is dedicated to Celia Craig and Michael Ierace who gave the first performance at the Pavilion Theatre in the Tutan Skyline in Kulala Lumpur on 25 October 2026.