BY ANNI KALCO
In a Japanese Garden
Ossicle Duo
Melbourne Recital Centre Salon, 3 July
In the Melbourne Recital Centre Salon, beautiful bonsai trees set the scene for a program of composed works inspired and influenced by Japanese gardens. The often-intimidating space was transformed into an inviting foliage-filled room imagined by Ossicle Duo for In A Japanese Garden.
Ossicle Duo is a newly formed new music ensemble starring Benjamin Anderson (bass trombone) and Hamish Upton (percussion). The duo is committed to commissioning new works for the less-common instrumentation of percussion and bass trombone. However, this performance featured two solo works and only one work for percussion and trombone.
Anderson’s playing was brilliant to watch during Osaka-born composer Dai Fujikura’s work deliquesce for solo trombone. One hand was fluttering in front of the muted bell, creating almost electronic-sounding glitchy pulses; while the other hand was sliding through glissandi that oscillated between blurriness and clear chromatic pitches.
Technical proficiency aside, the first note produced was so strikingly resonant that it lingered in the air for a sense of contemplation before all the warping of sounds and overtone-laden chords began. This set the scene beautifully as we were taken through the sounds of Japanese gardens.
Upton then performed Six Japanese Gardens on percussion and electronics by Swedish composer Kaija Saariaho. Six movements moved through stately, contemplative moments to louder, chaotic, and random sections. Through it all, the mood was sort of melancholy and dark.
The first movement Tenju-an Garden of Nanzen-ji Temple was a standout, as Upton’s choices meant warm wooden sounds felt even warmer against the cutting high-pitched bells. Upton triggered prerecorded electronic soundscapes of textural voices and shimmers, while splashing dark cymbals suggested these gardens are full of mystery and earthy dissonance.
To conclude the evening, the two Ossicle Duo members finally came together to perform John Cage’s Ryoanji. The work is written in graphic score and this performance featured the sounds of a wood and tile against the slow-moving slides from the bass trombone, which ventured way down to the depths of its breathy and rumbling lowest register. These lines outlined the contours of the pebbles purposefully placed in the Ryoanji garden. It is a repetitive piece, but the unsettling nature of the glissandi means that as a listener you never quite fall into a state of contemplation.
Ossicle Duo presented a program that was loud and chaotic, warped and rich, peaceful and meditative, and interrupted by recurring, calming high-pitched patterns. This asymmetry was masterfully held together by something similar to that special Japanese art of balancing beauty and simplicity with complexity.
Images courtesy Ossicle Duo and Anni Kalco.
