Scale Variable 2014

TIO N OD UC INT R

SCALE VARIABLE Since 2001 Scale Variable has presented enlightening new chamber music from around the world, Australia and Western Australia.

Challenging, captivating and engaging Scale Variable points to the ocean of new art music from the present and recent past.

Concert 3 / The Sound Collectors Concert 4 / Lisa Moore Concert 5 / Decibel: Inner Space

GR AM

Concert 2 / Etica: Silver Swans

PRO

Concert 1 / Montreal-New York Quartet

1 ERT CO NC MONTREAL-NEW YORK QUARTET / SATURDAY 5 APRIL The Montreal-New York Quartet brings together four internationally prominent new music soloists in a special collaboration.

Tim Brady (Montreal) Guitar Lori Freedman (Montreal) Clarinet & Bass Clarinet Pemi Paull (Quebec) Viola Tom Buckner (New York City) Vocals American experimentalism is the point of departure, with works by John Cage and Christian Wolf,

DATE 5 April

TIME

PLACE

7.30PM Music Auditorium WAAPA

in contrast to Brady’s own guitarinfluenced post-modern chamber music. New Zealand composer Annea Lockwood’s meditative composition forms another counterpoint, balancing premieres by two Australian composers, John Encarnacao and Erik Griswold.

This wide-ranging spectrum of style and sound represents an assessment by these distinguished musicians of the current state of serious music.

TICKETS

$25 / $15 WAAPA Box Office waapa.ecu.edu.au/boxoffice

“Imaginary Guitars...otherworldly configurations that defy both convention and belief. Astonishing!”

Joe Gore / Guitar Player Magazine on Tim Brady

“With his magnificent instrument he communicated the intrinsic beauty of melodic invention ... convincing and inspiring” Le Devoir on Pemi Paull

“Clarinet never sounded so human-wildly curious, deeply soulful, swooping, swooning naked intimacy” Juan Rodriguez / The Montreal Gazette on Lori Freedman

John Cage Music for Four; Tim Brady Road Songs (Premiere); Erik Griswold Mindax Redcats (Premiere); Christian Wolf Edges; John Encarnacao No Direction Home (Premiere); Annea Lockwood For Richard (with ensemble and duo improvisations)

“A pillar of the experimental music non-establishment” The New York Times on Tom Buckner

Program:

Presented in association with WAAPA

2 ERT CO NC ETICA: SILVER SWANS / THURSDAY 10 APRIL This outdoor concert will see the WA premiere of James Ledger’s Silver Swans, the world premiere of Chris Tonkin’s Transient States, and a reprisal of legendary Australian composer Ross Edwards’ Musica Viva commission Laikan which was premiered at the Perth Festival in 1980.

2013 with the acclaimed national tour of his collaboration with Paul Kelly’s Conversations with Ghosts.

In Silver Swans, the WA composer has drawn inspiration from Orlando Gibbon’s madrigal The Silver Swan and WB Yeats’ poetry; in a work that includes both eerie, strange electronic sounds and traditional chamber instrumentation.

Ledger’s reputation as one of Australia’s most in-demand composers was cemented in

Thirty-four years on from its first performance, Ross Edwards’ Laikan has lost none of its energy

DATE

10 April

TIME 8PM

PLACE

Inner Courtyard Fremantle Arts Centre

TICKETS

$35 / $20 (plus booking fees) fac.oztix.com.au

and immediacy. Edwards is famous for drawing on the sounds of nature in his work and this is a fantastic opportunity to hear it under the stars.

Christopher Tonkin is the head of Composition Studies and Music Technology at UWA. In Transient States he has drawn on pieces of text from female characters in Shakespeare’s plays, which in turn drive dramatic changes in instrumentations and style.

Etica Ensemble Jon Tooby, Conductor; Philip Everall, Clarinet; Kathryn Shinnick, Violin; Melinda Gourlay, Cello; Adam Pinto, Piano; Paul Tanner, Percussion; Emily Clements, Flute; Phillip Waldron, Double Bass; Jennifer Barrington, Soprano; Catherine Cahill, Clarinet; Darryl Poulsen, Horn; Kathy Corecig, Viola Program James Ledger Sliver Swans Chris Tonkin Transient States Ross Edwards Liakan Presented in association with Fremantle Arts Centre

3 ERT CO NC THE SOUND COLLECTORS: LOUISE DEVENISH AND LEAH SCHOLES / FRIDAY 18 JULY Confluence Presented by PICA in association with Tura New Music

The Sound Collectors are taking up residency at PICA to explore the question of what percussion is through the development of new works with local composers Lachlan Skipworth, Elise Retize and John Pax, as well as Rick Burkhardt’s percussion theatre work Simulcast.

DATE

18 JULY

TIME

PLACE

This creative development is designed to challenge perceptions of what percussion performance can be through the exploration of quiet percussive sounds, breath, gesture and spoken word.

To stimulate discussion around this topic, the residency will culminate in the premiere performance of these works and more.

The Sound Collectors are Louise Devenish and Leah Scholes.

7.30PM PICA Performance Space

TICKETS

$25 / $20 pica.org.au/tickets

Their collective backgrounds in contemporary percussion, percussion theatre and graphic score realisation are combined in a process of collecting, discovering, exploring, interpreting and sharing new and diverse music for two percussionists.

The Sound Collectors have a special interest in Australian music and percussion theatre. They are able to realise new works with flexible instrumentation that

allow the voices of performers and composers to be heard in performance.

4 ERT CO NC LISA MOORE “FROM ME TO YOU” PIANO & VOCALS SATURDAY 9 AUGUST Described by the New York Times as “lustrous at the keyboard, and at once engaging and challenging,” pianist Lisa Moore has moved audiences across the globe with her powerful and sensitive performances.

Lisa’s performances combine music and theatre with expressive and emotional power. Crowned ‘New York’s queen of avant-garde piano’ and ‘visionary’ in The New Yorker, this Australian virtuoso has

DATE

TIME

9 August 8PM

PLACE

performed with a large and diverse range of musicians and artists including the London Sinfonietta, New York City Ballet, Bargemusic, ExhAust, Howl, So Percussion, Le Train Blue, Eighth Blackbird and the New York League of Composers.

Lisa moved to New York in 1985.

From 1992-2008 she was the founding pianist for the Bang On A Can All-Stars – the New York electro-acoustic sextet and winner of Musical America’s 2005 Ensemble of the Year Award.

TICKETS

Octagon Theatre, $40 / $25 University of Western Australia theatres.uwa.edu.au/events

Lisa has released 7 solo recordings and over 30 collaborative recordings, with two new solo recordings soon to be released – Orange Mountain Music (solo music

by Philip Glass) and Cantaloupe (solo music by Martin Bresnick, Phil Kline, John Luther Adams, Missy Mazzoli and Julia Wolfe).

“She’s the best kind of contemporary classical musician, one so fearsomely game that she inspires composers to offer her their most wildly unplayable ideas” Pitchfork

Program Brett Dean Equality and Prayer Philip Glass Mad Rush Ted Hearne Intimacy and Resistance Martin Bresnick Ishi’s Song Randy Newman I Think It’s Going To Rain Today Frederic Rzewski De Profundis

5 ERT CO NC DECIBEL: INNER SPACE - THE GIACINTO SCELSI PROJECT MONDAY 10 NOVEMBER / MELBOURNE Decibel are a Western Australian new music ensemble founded in 2009.

They focus on the combination of acoustic and electronic instruments in live performance, as well as innovating score creation and reading, using score reading programs they develop within the group for tablet computers.

Decibel has commissioned over 50 new Australian works since their foundation, and has also presented programs featuring

DATE

10 Nov

TIME 6PM

PLACE

important international composers.

Their 2009/10 programs won the APRA|AMC Inaugural Excellence in Experimental Music Award in 2011, and were nominated again in 2012.

This program features works from Giacinto Scelsi’s (1905-1988) latter period as well as reworkings and new compositions inspired by the composer. An idol of Ennio Morricone’s Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, and mentor to

Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

TICKETS

$38 / $28 www.melbournerecital.com.au

Alvin Curran amongst others.

Scelsi’s work went largely unrecognised in his life-time.

almost decomposed into a spectrum, rather than composed into combinations of notes.

His works offer a unique examination of minimal transition: many works featuring a microtonal detail that is applied to minimal note structures and innovative harmonic techniques. The result is a delicate and particular sound world not unlike the spectral composers, with Scelsi’s approach noted by Italian composer Guiloi Castagnoli as sound seeming

Decibel Cat Hope, Flutes, Artistic Direction; Lindsay Vickery, Saxophone, Clarinets; Tristen Parr, Cello; Stuart James, Piano, Percussion; Aaron Wyatt, Viola, Violin Presented in association with New Music Network and Melbourne Recital Centre

A N EW MU SIC TUR

TURA NEW MUSIC Award-winning Tura New Music is one of Australia’s peak bodies for the production and presentation of new music events as well as a resource agency, promoter, and advocacy support network for Western Australian New Music artists and performers.

Established in 1987 the company has presented hundreds of events featuring thousands of artists across WA, commissioned hundreds of new works, established an international class archive, facilitated dozens of projects with like-minded partners and taken new music to the far reaches of the state.

Patron David Blenkinsop OAM Board of Directors Chair Jeremy Feldhusen

Kathleen Bozanic/ Simon Dawkins / Sally Everist Liesbeth Goedhart /Justine Lawler / Robyn Johnston Artistic Director Tos Mahoney General Manager Annalisa Oxenburgh Administration Melanie Anastas

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS The 2014 Scale Variable Series is presented by Tura New Music. Tura New Music’s annual program is supported by the Government of Western Australia through the Department of Culture and the Arts in association with Lotterywest, and the Australian Government through the Music Board of the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.