PROGRAMME NOTES

Jakob Bragg (born 1990)

Through Gates Unseen (World premiere)

A ceremony, a passage, a rite.

The ‘staff’, violently shaken, raised, swayed and slammed back down provides the catalyst for much of the activities enacted by this vast congregation. Low drones smear and collide with each other, brass choirs amplify the entrance of towering blocks, drums with harp and oboe awkwardly dance, the viola laments, the cello responds, echoes of bassoons and bass clarinets shadow the intensity while the ‘staff’ reasserts itself for a final solo of ecstasy.

Through Gates Unseen takes Australian artist and descendent of the Yawuru people Robert Andrew’s Tracing inscriptions (2020) as a departure point to explore the dialogue between control and decay. Andrew’s work uses suspended charcoal, branches, ochre and stones, each connected to a moving plotting machine at the far end of the gallery space. Over time, the plotting machine and suspended strings gradually move each piece of organic matter, slowly marking the white wall behind, smearing, decaying, breaking apart and bumping into each other.

Through Gates Unseen translates the plotting machine into a custom-built percussion ‘staff’ as a force that dictates the unfolding of music activity. Sheer blocks of sound echo the separated but interdependent panels of charcoal and branches that gradually erode over time, while the smearing of line and ornamentation resemble the blurred black and ochre shadow left by the organic material upon the white gallery wall behind.

JB

JAKOB BRAGG has developed a compositional practice that engages in unconventional approaches to acoustic instruments, nurtures ongoing artistic relationships, and navigates the exploratory and ritualised. Based in Huddersfield, Jakob works primarily with new music specialists in which ideas of virtuosity, ornamentation, multiculturalism and drama are explored. Recent works include the political “At least so far…” for voice +, harnessing the use and misuse of language by politicians; the exploratory Subdue for solo clarinet, an intense exploration of timbre through decoupled instrumental technique; and a host of works composed for somewhat unusual instruments including the Uilleann pipes and recorders, doublebell trombone and ondomo, Productions Totem Contemporain’s Babel Table, and objects such as bearing balls, saucepans and vibrators. His works have been performed across Europe, Asia, Australia and America by artists including ELISION (Australia), International Contemporary Ensemble (US), Arditti Quartet and Zöllner-Roche Duo (UK), Cikada (Norway), Quatuor Tana (France), Meitar Ensemble (Israel), BRON (Netherlands), and orchestras including the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Australian Youth Orchestra.

Jakob is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Huddersfield studying under Bryn Harrison and Mary Bellamy, with previous mentors including Aaron Cassidy, Liza Lim, Elliott Gyger (University of Melbourne) and Gerard Brophy (Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University).