Program - Composition lunchtime

Composer's Spring Concert 23 SEPTEMBER 2021

A DETAILED PAINTING OF QUEERNESS THAT USES NO COLOURS AND YET IS BRIGHTER THAN ANY FIRE

florence Lingane Electronics: Florence Lingane

Bassoon: Layni Cameron

Paintings have colour, words can be colourful, one painting can mean a thousand words and words can paint a picture.

A lifetime of moments meld with lifetimes of others, both highly personal and disconnected from the self. A conglomerate of crowd-sourced trauma and love, safety and violence, life and death, the passionate and the ambivalent. To be queer is an experience unlike any other, however, it is still a very human experience.

4 ETUDES FOR PIANO

Freyja Phillips

Piano: Nava Ryan This set of short works are simple

enough in their concept, being limited to only two intervals in each movement. Despite this compositional constraint these pieces display rich melodic and harmonic content and build tension through repeated notes. In a toccata style, the études present new and exciting challenges for the advanced pianist, with unusual techniques that are seldom explored. The performer discovers the importance of the positioning of their hands and how different fingerings can fundamentally change the way they play.

WINTER SOLSTICE I. WHITE ROAD

Bethany Thiele Piano: Rylan Malcolm

P‘White Road’ is the first of a three movement piano

piece

titled

‘Winter

Solstice’.

Being

the

shortest day of the year, these pieces are evocative of ‘the night’ by utilising free form and tonal ambiguities influenced by impressionism. ‘White Road’ was initially inspired by a fantasy novel in which the mysterious White Road would transport the

protagonists

to

the

winter

kingdom.

It

is

important to note that this first movement centres around the E phrygian and F lydian modes. Thus, there

are

no

black

keys

d e m o n s t r a t e t h e W h i t e R o a d ,

used

to

visually

TALL POPPY

Christina Bowden Tall Poppy is a piece inspired

by a photograph that hangs on my lounge room wall. The picture displays a beautiful poppy field that was captured in Tasmania by my mum. In 2012 my family went on a trip to Tasmania, we saw so many memorable places, but this particular photograph was taken on my mum's birthday. She saw these poppy's through the car window and insisted my dad stop driving so she could take photos.

Out of all the incredible photographs from that field, one in particular stood out - rather one poppy stood out. This poppy sat higher than all the others in its area and is a beautiful reminder that all beautiful things grow in their own time. Mum titled this picture 'Tall Poppy' and it sits in our lounge room as a colourful reminder of that special day.

In this piece I wanted to capture the individual 'pop' of colour from each poppy as well as harmonically blending the pops together to replicate the expansive sea of colour in the photograph.

Marimba: Matthew Conway Vibraphone: Steven Bryer

ALHAMBRA

Radithya Budi Theomarga

title itself, Alhambra, a city This piece is inspired from the

in Spain. This piece blends mystery, tension, anger, sadness and also a sense of relaxation and happiness. In other words, it represents the different emotions we experienced today.

The three parts contrast each other, in which the first part will play on different modulations and dissonant counter melody to create mystery to the song. The second part will add more tension, through faster and loud playing along with a lively interaction of both hands. Finally, the last part will involve broken chords and a dolce melody, which then finally represents peace.

Through the secrets behind Alhambra, I hope everyone will feel the complex emotions inside this piece.

Piano: Andreas van der Walt

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Dale Schlaphoff Cor Anglais: Shana Hoshiano Bass Flute: Elinor Hillock Bass clarinet: Amy Kuskopf

Contrabassoon: Milly Yip Double bass: Deakin Darby Narrator: Sam Carrick

An Inconvenient Truth opens up a window into the future: a

very grim, dystopian future brought about as a result of human failure. A climate emergency rages on, nation-states erupt into conflict, and wild chaos engulfs the globe. An Inconvenient Truth, is a pessimistic extrapolation on the current state of the world

intermingling

with

fearful

nihilistic

feelings

of

hopelessness, despair and guilt. The piece opens with an unusual combination of darker timbres posing a very intrusive question to the audience.

This question is met with no clear answer and instead faces an array of excuses, deviations and episodes that steer away from the hanging silent response of the opening. A self-composed poem is recited halfway through exploring themes of cosmic justice, accountability, revelation and apocalypse, yet still no clear

answer

is

reached.

The

music

grows,

becoming

increasingly restless until once more the question is asked, this time more persistent and urgent. However, no answer is supplied and the piece ends as uncertainly as it started.

When you stare into the abyss, The abyss stares back at you. - Nietzche