Darryn and Eliza Santana unlock the beauty of the harp and guitar on second album

Perth guitarist Darryn Santana and harpist Eliza Santana are set to release their latest album, Works for Harp & Guitar Pt. 2, on Friday, May 10. The new record was years in the making for Darryn and Eliza Santana, who met and formed the duo in 2015 while studying at The Conservatorium of Music at UWA. It follows on from 2018’s Works for Harp & Guitar, and presents three world premieres by prominent Australian composers as well as the Australian premiere of a monumental five-movement sonata, Spirit of Trees, by legendary Armenian American composer Alan Hovhaness. BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with Darren and Eliza Santana to find out how it all came together.

Congratulations on the release of your new album, Works for Harp & Guitar Pt. 2. How long has this been in the works, and how does it feel to be releasing it?

Thank you. It’s been quite a long time in the making. Since 2022, we have been rehearsing and performing the large sonata for harp and guitar, Spirit of Trees, by legendary composer Alan Hovhaness, which, at 25 minutes, takes up a huge chunk of the album. We had also started to reach out to some prominent Australian composers to be involved in the project. Two of the composers, Marian Budos and Shaun Rigney, wrote pieces specifically for this project, while the third composer, Isaac Glover, had already written down his piece many years prior, but it fit the album perfectly.

Honestly, the main feeling we have after completing this project is excitement and pride in our ability to get this finished and to do so in a way that we are artistically and personally satisfied with. It is also great to see all three composers featured on this album happy with their works.

How did you come to start writing and performing music together? And how has your sound changed since the early days?

We met in 2015 at UWA, where we both studied classical music. We started jamming and realised that the sound of harp and guitar together was beautiful and unique. Despite how well the instruments blend, there is so little music written for this combination of instruments; therefore, we really got passionate about finding, performing, and commissioning music for this ensemble. Not that long after, we recorded our first album, Works for Harp and Guitar Part 1, in 2018, and now here we are with pt. 2.

The album contains music from a range of different composers. What is the process of acquiring or selecting these compositions for inclusion on the record?

At the time (in 2022), Darryn was presenting a radio show called Plucked Strings on RTRFM, and a big part of that job was interviewing amazing artists. Darryn had approached Shaun Rigney in April of 2022 to be interviewed about a concerto he wrote back in 1985 called Lapis Lazuli, and then Marian Budos in August of that year, where Darryn dedicated an entire radio broadcast to Marian’s life and music.

It was only after these interviews that Darryn came up with the idea to ask them if they wanted to write specifically for us, and to our absolute delight, they both agreed! The third composer on the album, Isaac Glover, is a young artist we found online whose compositions we really enjoy and hope to continue collaborating with.

One of these compositions is a five-movement sonata, Spirit of Trees, by Armenian American composer Alan Hovhaness. Given that he was such a prolific composer, what is special about this track in particular?

Well, as far as we were able to gather from the publishers, it’s the only piece he wrote for harp and guitar, so that really stood out. In Spirit of Trees, you hear everything that we love about Alan’s music: traditional Armenian model forms, his interest in ancient and traditional music (particularly traditional Indian music), and then there is that inexpressible, unique quality to Hovhaness’s music that has an almost mystical quality, transporting us to mediaeval and fantasy-like realms.

The record includes the premieres of some Australian composers too. How was it bringing this music to life for the first time?

Both Shaun Rigney and Marian Budos are very well-established composers in Australia. Isaac is young, but he already has a great body of work behind him that we are sure will be more recognised as time goes on. It was exciting to bring all their compositions to life. All three are really great to work with. Their music unfolded very naturally for us, and it started to become obvious to us what the composers wanted very early on.

Since they all live on the east coast, communication was always done online, and it was pretty clear that we were all on the same page from the get-go. I don’t think we even required that much back and forth; for the most part, we simply got the score, rehearsed it over about a period of a month or two, and then had it recorded and mixed.

What’s next for you? Any live performances or projects in the pipeline we can look forward to?

We plan to do some concerts in the south-west, including the Albany Entertainment Centre, with some fantastic artists. I wish I could give dates, but they have not been finalised just yet. Stay tuned!