[1] In 1985 Maclean composed Christ the King, a setting of New Zealand poet James K. Baxter, which has received numerous performances in both Australia and North America, as well as several recordings.
Conceived as several interpolations for a performance of John Taverner's "Westron Wynde" Mass, the composer subsequently tied them together to create a single work that combines elements of plainchant and hymnody with polyphonic passages.
The composer's ingenious weaving and re-ordering of two Baxter poems, 'Song to the Father' and 'Song to the Lord God on a Spring Morning,’ was an early indication (in 1984) of her acute sensitivity to text, a trait that runs through all her subsequent works.
In an odd twist of coincidence, Parkman had previously served as Assistant Conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (USA), a city that has hosted more Maclean performances and commissions than any other.
For this ensemble she composed first "Os Anthos Chortou: As the flowers of grass"– setting Sappho in the original ancient Greek; then in 2007 "Misera ancor do Loco" (a conclusion in Italian to Monteverdi's fragmentary sequence, "Lamento d'Arianna," 2007) and "Vive in Deo!"