Collusion Music have recently announced that I will be joining their ranks this year as Composer-in-Residence!! Having worked closely with the ensemble during 2012 on the score for Transient Beauty, I was very willing to start off this program with them. To do the journey justice, I want to blog about my experiences throughout the year...
Collusion’s dedication to new Australian contemporary classical music is fierce, and they have had no shortage of amazing new works by Brisbane composers, and Australians further afield. Where the big orchestras perform a tiny percentage of Australian works in their repertoire, Collusion are fast becoming the experts in performance of contemporary work. How can we not love them?!?
So, where to start as a composer-in-residence? Having composed particular works in residencies over the years, this residency is a little different… For starters, I have a whole year to develop up new works for the ensemble, of which they will perform a work at each of their concerts this year, and will culminate in a bunch of new recordings as well. So, there’ll be a definite exponential growth in material for me this year.
The first work I have composed for the ensemble this year is titled ‘I saw a peacock with a fiery tale’ – the first movement of a longer work that will be composed over the course of the year. Influenced by a lot of the gypsy music I have been enamoured by over the last couple of years, this piece is a stylistic departure from my usual work – primarily because it’s a lot of fun (there’s a definite ear-worm in there)!! What I wanted to achieve is a playful sense of getting to know the individual members and their wonderful uniqueness in a kind of ‘prelude’ for the larger work.
Having now been to the first rehearsal, and with the concert only 10 days away, I’m really looking forward to hearing this in the big concert hall! Workshopping the piece has allowed me some time to make some revisions, and refine a couple of ideas in the piece that will go on to inform the next movements.
Very excitedly looking forward to the 24th April!!
Date: 24 April 2013
Venue: Ian Hanger Recital Hall, Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University (Brisbane)
Time: 7pm
Conductor and ABC Classic FM Presenter, Guy Noble is known and loved throughout Australia for his engaging presentation of classical music. He will join Collusion Music as guest narrator for their first concert of 2013, The Soldier and the Fool. Guy Noble will narrate Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale Suite, alongside Collusion Music’s virtuosic performance of Stravinsky’s delightfully comical play on sound. Collusion is a small ensemble but packs a big sound! This concert will feature a repertoire of reductions, from Schiff's operatic work Gimpel and the Fool, to Australians Nigel Sabin's post-minimalist work Inner-City Counterpoints and Susan Hawkins world premiere of the thoroughly enchanting I saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail. Please join Collusion in their 11th year of making accessible classical and contemporary music.
Benjamin Greaves - Violin
Diana Tolmie - Clarinet/Bass Clarinet
Danielle Bentley - Cello
Special Guest - Craig Dalton - Piano
Narrator – Guy Noble