Australian pianist and composer Philip Eames has been featured in the World Event Young Artists, the Ligeti Academy, and the 2010 ABC Young Performers Awards. He has received the 2011 Redland City Youth Development Fund Scholarship, the Australian Postgraduate Award, and the Ars Musica Australis Fellowship. Eames is a PhD candidate at the Sydney Conservatorium and holds two Masters degrees from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, also receiving his Bachelor degree with First Class Honours in performance from Queensland. As a composer he won the 2013 Tagore Composition Competition and won the 2010 ASKM Composers Competition. Eames has also worked in the role of Musical Director of the Greater Manchester Police Male Voice Choir.
Bathtub Mockup. Philip Eames, 2012. Score for piano, originally for electronics. From the composer: “A piano transcription of my electronic work ‘Bathtub mockup’ with the potential for speaking pianist or added vocalists. It deals with some of the more narrow-minded attitudes of 20th century musicians and musicologists”.[purchase_link id=”3051″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]
Excalibrations. Philip Eames, 2014. Score and parts for string quartet, acoustic guitar, piano, marimba, small drum kit. From the composer: “Made up of a variety of my sketch material – both new and old – and ‘calibrated’ to fit together into a working whole. It is divided into roughly five equal sections, each of a one-minute duration. The instrumentation of each section varies with one or more group often being left out, or becoming more prominent”.[purchase_link id=”3063″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]Wakefield Chamber Opera. Philip Eames. Story by Nathaniel Hawthorn. A chamber opera in five scenes, score for Bb clarinet, trumpet, bassoon, piano, violin, viola, cello, marimba, crotales, and two voices; and piano reduction. From the composer: “Finding its base in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story ‘Wakefield’, this chamber opera explores the extent to which eccentric characters can unexpectedly change the course of people’s lives, and what happens when an individual decides, rather counter-intuitively, to remove themselves from the flow of the life they created”.[purchase_link id=”3067″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]String Quartet No. 1 (Spiders! Spiders! Spiders! Spiders!), Op. 9. Philip Eames, 2013. Score and parts for string quartet in four movements. From the composer: “There is no programmatic connection between the title and the music. It is intrinsically polyphonic and utilises a variety of compositional techniques, including playing material in retrograde. The piece as a whole was intended to perversely treat the string quartet as a highly rhythmical, more percussion-like ensemble, rather than the melodic, harmonic and intonation-focused group that it is”.[purchase_link id=”3070″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]
Eight Lazic Harvest Dances, Op. 18. Philip Eames, 2015. Score and parts for cello and piano. From the composer: “The Lazicans (100BC-400AD) were an overly joyous, festive people who lived near the Caucasus Mountains, in what is now modern-day Georgia. Virtually every aspect of daily life was accompanied by some form of music-making, with troupes of dedicated musicians relentlessly employed in both the towns and fields. This was typically intrumental in nature with early guitars, bugles and goat-skin percussion making up the core of the texture. Although their small empire is officially long extinct, Lazic music and traditions persisted in isolated mountain communities well into the renaissance where Italian merchant activity allowed it to become known to the wider world”.[purchase_link id=”3061″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]
Dance No. 4 for Piano. From Eight Lazic Harvest Dances. Philip Eames, 2015. From the composer: “A challenging rhythmic study for solo piano based on the fourth dance of the Eight Lazic Harvest Dances“.[purchase_link id=”3054″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]
Grande Sonata Brillante, Op.16, (for Morris Dancers, Clarinet, Cello, Piano, Drums and Bass). Philip Eames. Score and parts. From the composer: “This work is exactly the opposite as what the title suggests. The intention was to directly clash with the expectations of the kind of person who’d go to see a piece called Grande Sonata Brillante, i.e. a lush, romantic work for flamboyant piano virtuoso. Instead, it’s a democratic chamber work for mixed genres and mediums, with the surreal Morris concept undermining it all. The piece is a stylistic collage, being very Percy Grainger affected on top of major jazz and rock considerations, and changing moods frequently. However, it is generally upbeat, cringe-worthy and danceable, constantly bouncing around in 4/4 until abrupt changes occur”.[purchase_link id=”3138″ style=”button” color=”red” text=”Add to Cart”]