Vivaldi Voices

The Swan River Festival of Voices drew choirs from six universities across Australia and New Zealand, and in its twelfth year had achieved the kind of reputation that attracts corporate support, civic pride, and - this year - an Italian foundation bearing what its press release described as a significant and previously unknown Vivaldi manuscript, to be authenticated and performed for the first time in modern history. The Vivaldi manuscript goes missing and the festival's brilliant, volatile accompanist is found injured at the base of the choir loft stairs. She says she saw who took it. Someone needs her to forget. Vivaldi Voices is a novel about authenticity - in music, in professional identity, in institutional behaviour, and in the particular courage required to keep saying true things in rooms that need you to be wrong. Patrick Maher spins curious tales of imagination and mystery, set in other times and other worlds for readers of all ages, where psychic abilities, science, and medicine can easily leap about in the playground of the mind together. His stories are set in worlds that seem normal but one step removed, where deep, enduring friendships are valued.