About a Tree was commissioned by m3architecture and is a musical response to About a Tree was commissioned by m3architecture, as a musical response to their commemorative building for the Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine, Queensland.  
In the late nineteenth century Barcaldine was the end of the Central Western Railway at a time when pastoralists were notorious for poor treatment of their workers.  This led, in 1891, to a Shearer's Strike that garnered national attention.  There was a tree outside the Barcaldine Railway Station that became the meeting point for those engaging in industrial action.  The 1891 strike failed, and this failure gave energy to a movement that would become the Australian Labor Party.  In 1892 the manifesto of the Queensland Labor Party was announced in an event that took place under the tree.  The manifesto is one of the foundation documents of the Australian Labor Party and in 2009, the document was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register.  The ghost gum entered Labor Party folklore as the Tree of Knowledge.  
In 2006 the tree was poisoned, leaving just a stump and a few dead branches.  m3architecture was approached, in collaboration with Brian Hooper, to produce a memorial to the tree.  The result can be readily seen on the internet and on m3architecture's website.  The outer screen of the memorial is clad in charcoaled timber, creating a kind of mourning veil around the relic. The central space is defined by 3600 suspended timber members, which are hung to form the external shape of the original canopy.  The memorial won The Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage Architecture and a National Commendation for Public Architecture at the 2010 National Architecture Awards of the Australian Institute of Architects.
This composition tells the story of the tree.  One might imagine a tourist entering the memorial, their gaze immediately drawn upwards to the hanging timbers, gently moving and touching in the breeze.  A tour guide interrupts and offers to tell the story of the tree.  The story begins with an elegy to the tree that must have been there for some decades before the events that made it famous, and now lives on as a ghost.  Then comes a faster section, permeated by an ostinato in the piano that depicts the movement of a train.  This section is faster and more dramatic, depicting the conflict and tension at the heart of the story.  The music builds to a climax that gives way to a triumphant transformation of the original elegiac melody - a train journey through the thrills and spills of modern Australia.  The train quietly disappears into the distance and piece ends with a reprise of the opening material, bringing us back to the memorial itself, looking forever upwards.