CURATED BY CHRISTOPHER HEALEY FOR CUTCOMMON
The Australian Composers’ Concert 2020 was supposed to be performed for you live and in the physical world. But with the COVID-19 outbreak leading to event restrictions, this collective has resourcefully designed a digital concert for you to enjoy from home. CutCommon is proud to be hosting this event, and will make the video available for your self-isolation viewing pleasure (date TBA).
In the meantime, you can help raise funds for the Australian Composers’ Collective directly, at this link, until 29 March. Below, composer Christopher Healey curates a series of interviews in which these composers talk about the works that’ll feature in their group concert.
Sam Colcheedas: Aromatic Fantasy for String Quartet
My Aromatic Fantasy for String Quartet is all about, funnily enough, aromas! An odd and somewhat synaesthetically sensory topic to have for a string quartet, but I was inspired by the event that occurs when one experiences a familiar aroma and, in return, a powerfully linked memory is conjured up instantaneously to this scent. We are immersed and thrown back in time to this memory, and often it brings on immense nostalgia or joy.
This piece contains quite a lot of ‘breathing’ from the strings, where naturally shaped phrases are followed by pauses, then silences, then an ‘exhale’. One should be able to hear the natural rhythm of the breath and experience a linked reminiscence of a memory — whatever it may be — during this work.
At points, the thematic materials are interrupted by other wafting scents, triggering different memories, before returning to our central theme. It’s structure is loosely ternary form, but given it is a fantasy in nature, it should feel structureless, as if we are watching a coloured scent waft in the wind, unsure of its direction or intentions.
I’d like audiences to try to see what memories are conjured up when they listen to this quartet. Hook that memory to the motif heard throughout, and see where the music takes you.
It’s a rare occurrence in Australia to have an all-Australian program, but there is great exposure already in regards to programming, where often we’ll see single world premieres of new Australian works being placed in many of the concerts currently being held. Being able to listen to current, emerging, developing, and inspired Australian composers will also make these pieces more accessible, widespread, and available for performances outside of Australia.
Matan Franco: Summer’s Air
I composed this work in 2012 during my first year as an undergraduate composition student at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. The assignment for which it was composed had the brief ‘theme and variations’, and so that is more or less what it is, but in moto perpetuo form (meaning fast repeated notes, literally ‘perpetual motion’).
I wrote the piece to be constantly on the move, with a sense of variety by virtue of the main theme being assigned to a different instrument in each ‘variation’, as well as through use of metric modulation. Just as the listener settles into a particular groove, I suddenly thrust the music in a different direction so that there is always that sense of surprise.
The term ‘Australian music’ is a very broad one. With Australia being the incredibly diverse and multicultural country it is, there are so many unique stories to be told and creative voices to be heard. As such, having concerts and events dedicated to the performance of ‘Australian music’ provides a fantastic platform for composers and musicians — both established and emerging — to share their work with the public, and to contribute to the creative fabric of this country, which has and continues to produce so many incredible artists.
Lisa Cheney: Black on White
The piece being performed at the Australian Composers’ Concert is solo piano work titled Black on White. It’s short, high-energy piano solo that is centred around tone clusters and the melding of the black and white keys played in quick succession. The work spans a wide register of the keyboard, and is contracted by a rhythmic and repetitive syncopated middle section.
It was written in my final year of undergraduate studies for a wonderful pianist and friend in 2008. Since then, it has never been performed again and I’m really excited to hear it be brought back to life by the talented Sam Colcheedas.
These kinds of events are important because there is so much amazing music in this country that people would love to listen to again and again, if they only knew it existed. There’s just so much music and so many wonderful composers that there is something that will speak to everyone.
Julian Yu: China Rhapsody
China Rhapsody consists of many quotations from traditional Chinese songs and instrumental music, all of which deal with Chinese heroes from ancient times.
I loved performing Peking Opera with my schoolmates, playing round with the instruments; and composing just naturally grew out of that. I didn’t aim to become a composer. It just happened, since I enjoyed it so much.
Australia is full of creative musicians with gifts crying out to be enjoyed, recognised, and developed.
Sam Cooke: Prismatica
Prismatica is a new work I wrote for oboe, bassoon, and piano. My aim with this piece was to explore connected and disconnected angles, reflections, and chromatic perspectives. The piece moves through colours of wistful and melancholic, to intense and urgent. The result hopefully captures something like light passing through a prism and gradually fading.
It is great to have an event solely dedicated to Australian new music, as there are many different voices out there looking for a platform to be heard. This event brings together composers from a variety of backgrounds and locations.
The Australian sound cannot be defined, but can be expressed in the vastness of the land and the diversity of its inhabitants.
Carol Dixon: No Stone Unturned
I wrote the second movement of String Quartet No. 1, No Stone Unturned during Australia’s recent crisis in late 2019 and early 2020, whereby much of south-eastern Australia was consumed by bushfire. I combined musical elements to create a prayer-like lament for this vast country. This slow movement employs the unusual time signature of 5/4, containing dissonant, chromatic, and suspended chords which move towards release from tension with tonally based harmonies.
The first movement of the quartet (2016) will be performed again and is characterised by a moderately fast pulse throughout. It celebrates the gift of attaining health and vitality during these years.
A highlight of my career was setting up the Australian Composers’ Concerts. After my composition studies I needed ways to continue to develop as a composer and have pieces performed. After a call-out for composers to join me in putting together a concert in April of 2016, the first Australian Composers’ Concert was held at St Stephen’s, Richmond. I continued curating this for another two years. It was a fabulous experience to have done this, to work with others and provide another platform for Australian composers to achieve a final and rewarding outcome of their hard work.
Christopher Healey: Children of Time
I originally wrote this piece as a string quintet to be performed at the Wintergreen Music Festival in Virgina, United States, but am delighted to rework it now for the fabulous Invictus String Quartet. I titled the work Children of Time, which is a little composers’ joke, as this is also the title of a science fiction book by an author called Adrian Tchaikovsky.
The work, however, does capture some of that angst and turmoil of surviving the strangeness of life beyond planet Earth. Humorously, a notable American composer described the piece to me as “like Shostakovich if he laid off the sauce”.
Artists aren’t able to save the world, not really; they’re only able to make it worth saving. Each bold work and each moving performance enriches the world, and in so doing is a finger on the scale that says ‘there is reason to go on’.
Why Australian music? Because different peoples have both similar and different values, and similar and different ways of expressing those.
Australian music is needed, especially now.
May Lyon: Solitude and Showoff + I Like Math
I have three miniatures being that will be performed. The two piano pieces Solitude and Showoff will be performed by Louis Nicoll with a trio by Ensemble Françaix. The piano set use the same pitch material, but are dramatically different in mood. Solitude is dreamlike and has evolving harmonies centred around a single pitch, whereas Showoff varies a short theme by increasing the tempo and style, allowing the pianist quite a bit of freedom to play raucously.
The I Like Math trio is focuses on interconnected patterns with the players weaving around each other. Originally written for piano, cello, and clarinet, Ensemble Françaix arranged the version that will be heard at the concert.
I think new music of all genres should be heard the same way new books of all genres should be read. Imagine if the majority of people considered to be ‘well read’ were only reading books written before 1950 (or even 1900!) by European authors? Even accounting for differing tastes, it would still seem a little bizarre. In other genres of Australian music, the most up-to-date pieces are encouraged and celebrated. I don’t think there should be a difference with classical music.
Brenton Broadstock: I Touched Your Glistening Tears
(The following is an excerpt from the work supplied program note, written by Linda Kouvaras.)
I Touched Your Glistening Tears (1998) is accompanied by the following lines, a heart-wrenching verse, penned by the composer, first meditating on the subject of Matthew, his multiply-handicapped son, then generalised into the thoughts of a carer of a person who has an incurable illness. Light touches the son’s/sufferer’s tears, reaches the father/carer; both parties in either situation are bonded by their helplessness.
I touched your glistening tears….I stroked your hair, helpless, watching as the life ebbed from your body
Your eyes, like mirrors, lifeless, reflecting only the life outside of you
The sun shone through a nearby window giving radiance to your face, making the tears in your eyes glisten
I wiped away your tears…..I can do no more…..
Visit the Australian Composers’ Collective fundraiser page to help support these artists, and follow the event on Facebook.
CutCommon is proud to offer its website as a digital concert hall to host the video recording of this event (date TBA).
All content courtesy Christopher Healey.
