Synergy percussion has the dual distinction of being Australia’s oldest and foremost contemporary music ensemble. A world of sound with percussion at its heart, the group celebrated 40 years of concerts, collaborations, recordings and commissions in 2014. Over four decades of huge cultural change, Synergy Percussion has remained vital and fiercely committed to defying expectations of what percussion music might aptly express. Core members Timothy Constable, Bree van Reyk and Joshua Hill are all award-winning and internationally acclaimed exponents of new music in their own right, equally at home on world-music stages, contemporary/experimental art venues, pop concerts and recital halls. The ensembles’ expansive vision of percussion, together with the exceptionally wide musical experience of the members past and present, has allowed the group to work together with a diverse and exemplary family of artists from around the world. Collaborators include Fritz Hauser, Hossam Ramzy, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Aly N’Diaye Rose, Trilok Gurtu, Jose Vicente, Kazue Sawai, Dave Samuels, Evelyn Glennie, Riley Lee, Taikoz, Michael Kieran Harvey, Sydney Dance Company, Meryl Tankard and Regis Lansac, Akira Isogawa, Grainger String Quartet, William Barton, and the Leigh Warren Dancers, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras among many others. Well over fifty commissions of Australian and international composers has helped create an Australian percussion sonic identity, and contributed to the canon more generally. Notable commissions include Steve Reich Mallet Quartet (2009, the most significant percussion work of the composer post drumming of 1971), Anthony Pateras beauty will be amnesiac or will not be at all (2013, the most ambitious Australian concert work for percussion), Nigel Westlake Omphalo Centric Lecture (1984, statistically the most performed classical percussion ensemble piece in the world), Ross Edwardes prelude and dragonfly dance, Peter Sculthorpe Sun Song, Djilile, Gerard Brophy Book of Clouds. The group also commissions internally, and works by ensemble members have been performed internationally to high acclaim. Synergy Percussion has a proven track record of successfully creating and executing education and outreach programs aimed at encouraging young people from all walks of life to engage with music. The group has contributed to the education programs at all major tertiary music institutions across the country, including supervising the post-graduate percussion program at the Australian National University. The ensemble has enjoyed a long-standing collaboration with Musica Viva to deliver such programs to students across Australia, the most recent being the highly successful Under Construction with composer Damian Barbeler. Members of the group also mentor young musicians through the Sydney Youth Orchestra’s Percussion program and through the young artist in residence program.
synergypercussion40under40.com 40 miniature works for percussion and video, commissioned by a cadre of dedicated art-lovers from an unprecedented international cross-section of contemporary composers, choreographers, musicians, and video artists. Your own private contemporary art experience whenever and wherever you are. Explore. Listen. Share. Project Credits Artistic Director - Timothy Constable Creative Producer - Tim Hansen Synergy Percussion: Timothy Constable Bree van Reyk Joshua Hill Project Associate Artists: Claire Edwardes Yvonne Lam Mark Robinson
Video Artists: Nick Alexander Sam Brumby Zoe Crocker Bridget Harvey & Michael Thompson Samuel James Matthew McGuigan Sabrina Organo A very special thank you to the commissioners and supporters of this project, to our General Manager Lee McIver and management team, our Board of Directors and Chair Jeremy Wright.
You Feel Like Paradise - Marcus Whale
“You Feel Like Paradise” uses the relentless product placement in Britney’s “Hold it Against Me” video clip as a score for percussion. I wanted to pay tribute to the tapestry of commercial stimuli that made up Britney’s gloriously dystopian image around the time of the Femme Fatale album. I admire her shamelessness, it’s more honest than the illusion of sincerity we’re often sold by pop music.
MARCUS WHALE (b. 1990) is a Sydney composer, musician and artist. His practice encompasses live performance, sound installation and recordings, scored works and video. His compositions have been performed by The Song Company, Synergy Percussion, Ensemble Offspring and Chronology Arts. Further information - www.marcuswhale.com
Les Darcy vs Eddie McGoorty 1915 - Michael Sollis
Michael is a composer, director, and researcher specialising in cross artform collaboration and theatrical production of chamber music. Recent commissions include the Canberra Centenary (City of Trees radio plays with UK Artist Jyll Bradley), Music For Everyone (music theatre piece Dinosaurs with librettist Cathy Petocz), the Embassy of Sweden, and the Australian Society of Music Educators (choral work Giningininderry). He has been performed internationally by USA group exhAust and Swedish group the peärls before swïne experience, and by Australian groups such as the Australian String Quartet and The Australian Voices. Michael is director, founder, and composer of the innovative group The Griffyn Ensemble. Further information www.michaelsollis.com
Citadel - George Lam
Objective: to create a game where two percussionists strategize to win. Citadel is my second game piece for percussion duet, a sequel to my 2014 work Theseus and the Minotaur. In Citadel, the two players engage in a classic game of “capture the flag”: each player moves on a game board by choosing a sequence of small percussion instruments placed on a grid, calculating the best path to steal the other player’s “flag”. The first player to return the flag to home base triumphantly sounds the gong to win the game.
Hong Kong-born composer George Tsz-Kwan Lam (b. 1981) grew up in Winthrop, Massachusetts, and studied music composition at Boston University, the Peabody Conservatory, and Duke University, where he received a PhD in music. George is interested in projects that intersect music, theater, and the documentary, and is currently at work on a new chamber opera for Rhymes With Opera and a new documentary work for New Morse Code (New Haven, CT). George’s recent one-act opera was The Persistence of Smoke (2011). Further information www.gtlam.com
Deviant Miniature - Ruben Naeff
Ruben Naeff has composed many works for orchestra, ensemble, chamber music, dance and film. He collaborated with such groups as Berkeley Symphony, Orchestra Con Brio, Signal, JACK Quartet, Deviant Septet, Wild Rumpus, and Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. His music has been performed in seven European countries and several American states. Ruben co-Âfounded the West 4th New Music Collective. Further information www. rubennaeff.nl/
Assymetron - Nicholas Ng
Dr Nicholas Ng is a Brisbane-based composer, performer and researcher. He has composed for radio (ABC Radio National, ABC Classic FM), dance and theatre (QL2 Centre for Youth Dance, Griffin Theatre, Performance 4a), and exhibitions (Art Gallery of NSW, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art). Published by Orpheus Music, his compositions have been performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, The Australian Voices, Chronology Arts and the Society for Universal Sacred Music. Nicholas enjoys performing his original music and has appeared at venues such as Merkin Concert Hall (New York City), ‘The Studio’, Sydney Opera House. Further information www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/ng-nicholas
Dance #1 - Bree van Reyk
Dance #1 is a series of choreographed moves, shared responsibilities and sight gags for three performers at one vibraphone.
Bree van Reyk is a versatile percussionist, drummer, and composer who has recorded and toured extensively around the world for over a decade. Her unique musical career spans from that of percussionist with Synergy Percussion and Ensemble Offspring, to drum-set player with Paul Kelly, Holly Throsby, Sarah Blasko, Lior, Katie Noonan and more. She is a composer of music for film, and has written live and electronic soundtracks for Shaun Parker, Sydney Dance Company, Bell Shakespeare, NOMAD Percussion, Bianca Spender and the MCA. With visual/performance artist Lauren Brincat she has created works for MONA FOMA, GOMA, AGNSW and Performance Space. Further information www.breevanreyk.com
Brew - Molly Herron
Brew was written for Beth Dawson, an avid supporter of the musical arts and brewer of beer. The color and texture of the gongs as the resonances accumulate and overlap made me think of that other kind of brew.
Molly Herron is a composer whose music is inspired by the complicated, messy sounds of our every day environment and the energy of interaction. She has composed for a broad range of instruments from full orchestra to flower pot and includes work for film, theater, and dance. She has had residencies with Exploring the Metropolis, La Pietra Forum and the School of Making Thinking; and her work has been presented on the Fast Forward Austin festival and the Berlin Film Festival. She works frequently with Baroque instruments and everyday objects and collaborates with instrument inventors to find new avenues for sound. Further information www.mollyherron.com
…grows cold - Matt Frey
“. . . grows cold,” for two vibraphones, marimba, and glockenspiel, explores the hazy place in our minds where memories come in and out of focus. At times just a blur and at other times heard clearly, the musical material in this quartet incorporates a riff from one of commissioner Beth Dawson’s favorite 80s bands, New Order.
Matt Frey is a Brooklyn-based composer of contemporary concert music, both for vocal and instrumental ensembles. In 2014, his opera The Fox and the Pomegranate, won the Pellicciotti Opera Prize. Frey’s concert music has been performed by groups including the JACK String Quartet, the West Point Woodwind Quintet, the NYU Symphony Orchestra, andPlay, the Manhattan Wind Ensemble, Washington Square Winds, and Contemporaneous. Further information www.musicbymattfrey.com
Block Party - Michael Gordon
Over the past 25 years, Gordon has produced a strikingly diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for high-energy ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. Transcending categorization, this music represents the collision of mysterious introspection and brutal directness. Deeply passionate about the sonic potential of the traditional orchestra, Gordon’s orchestral works include Beijing Harmony, commissioned by the Beijing National Centre for the Performing Arts, a work that projects the kaleidoscopic, perpetual sound of the orchestra to form a sonic architecture; Rewriting Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, a radical reworking of the original, commissioned by the 2006 Beethoven Festival in Bonn and premiered by Jonathon Nott and the Bamberger Symphony; and Sunshine of your Love, written for over 100 instruments divided into four microtonally tuned groups. Further information www.michaelgordonmusic.com
Organic Electric - Nick Wales
Nick regularly composes for full length theatre and dance productions, for film and collaborates with numerous contemporary artists. Nick composed the soundtrack for feature film Around the Block released in 2014. He recently composed the Helpmann Award Nominated score for “AM I” and the dance works “Spill” and “Trolleys” which were featured as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad collaboration with choreographer Shaun Parker. Nick collaborated with Sarah Blasko writing the orchestral arrangements for her recent album I Awake, the pair also co-composing the Sydney Dance Company score “Emergence” in 2013 . He is a Founding Member and CoComposer of CODA, a musical group that incorporates classical styling with contemporary rock and electronica. Further information Nick Wales
Requiem - Lachlan Skipworth
The music of Lachlan Skipworth combines a sense of open space and stillness of his native Australia with the colour and yearning of honkyoku, ancient solo pieces for the Japanese shakuhachi. After studying this repertoire intensely for 3 years in Japan, Skipworth returned home to hone and refine his experience into a highly personal musical language, working closely with his principal teacher Anne Boyd. Notable works include light rain, for shakuhachi and string quartet, dark nebulae for saxophone quartet, afterglow for chamber orchestra, and the recent concerto for clarinet and orchestra. Further information www.lachlanskipworth.com
Bells for Oombulgurri - David Harris
Co Director of earin, David is an Adelaide based composer, broadcaster and lecturer in composition at the Elder Conservatorium, Adelaide University. Before joining the University Staff in 2002, he lectured in composition at the Flinders Street School of Music where over a ten-year period he developed composition studies to degree level. As a composer David has been prolific (350 pieces since 1980) and varied, ranging stylistically from ‘hardcore minimalism’ (making a piano sound like an aeroplane) to an expressive post-romanticism and many experimental shades in between. Further information davidcharris.wordpress.com
Imagined Piece - Jane McKernan
Jane McKernan is a choreographer and performer. She has been a member of the collaborative trio The Fondue Set (with Emma Saunders and Elizabeth Ryan) for the last 14 years, and has been making her own work since 2009. Jane received the Arts NSW Robert Helpmann Scholarship in 2011. Her recent piece, Mass Movement won the Audience Choice Award as part of the Keir Choreographic Award at Carriageworks and Dancehouse. Further information Jane McKernan
Poles - Julian Day
Poles is a simple instruction work. The performers use long metal tubes to unlock resonances within a space, like sonar. They cut the rods in roughly equal proportions and allow them to drop to the floor, creating an ascending scale that triggers a dramatic degree of reverberation. Thus, a deliberately quotidian action ‘discovers’ the invisible yet innate properties of the space. Poles sits within a body of pieces that frame social and spatial action using everyday objects. It was filmed within a multi-level carpark in Kings Cross, Sydney, housing Alaska Projects, an independent gallery known for its adventurous performance work. Julian Day creates simple yet arresting works that fuse his backgrounds in composition and visual art. He treats sound as a socio-political phenomenon, primarily within two site-responsive projects: Super Critical Mass, in which temporary communities undertake homogeneous sonic tasks, and An Infinity Room, whereby matching synthesizers instigate ‘turbulent geometry’ within the air. Day has presented work at Whitechapel Gallery, MASS MoCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, MATA and Liquid Architecture and recently won the ARTAND Australia Credit Suisse Contemporary Art Award. Further information www.julianday.com
Red Piece - Lauren Brincat
Lauren Brincat (1980) is an artist who works in video and performance, sculpture and installation. The artist’s video works take the form of documented and often repetitive performed actions. Influenced by her formal training in painting, the artist has noted that she considers herself to be ‘a painter despite not using a brush or paint’. Acknowledging performance history, DADA, The Gutai group, rock’n’roll and the everyday as inspiration, Brincat is pushed by ‘physical and cognitive limits’. Brincat was awarded the OZCO Emerging Artist Creative Australia Fellowship (2012-2014) and has recently been on residency in Mexico City and Paris. Further information www.laurenbrincat.com
Ritual #2 - Daniel Wohl
Paris born composer Daniel Wohl draws on his background in electronic music to create pieces that blur the line between electronic and acoustic instrumentation by processing or layering them in “provocative and surprising” (NPR) ways that can frequently be “boldly surreal” (New York Times). His compositions have recently been heard at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Dia Beacon, MoMA PS1, Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, Mass MoCA, MIT, Disney Hall’s REDCAT, the Chelsea Art Museum, Arsenal de Metz and the Andy Warhol Museum. He works with ensembles such as the American Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Calder Quartet, eighth blackbird, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, California EAR Unit, New York Youth Symphony, and So Percussion. Further information www. danielwohlmusic.com
Lucid Intervals - Timothy Constable
Timothy Constable is an award-winning percussionist, composer, electronica producer and singer. He is the artistic director of Synergy, comprising Australia’s premiere percussion group, and splinter group moth. He is a regular guest in the Sydney Symphony percussion section, and a member of new music groups Spectrum, Coda and Diode. His composition credits include contemporary dance scores (Kaidan, ABC Limelight magazine best new composition 2oo7) and works for percussion (heard in festivals in Europe, USA, Australasia). Further information http://timothyconstable.com/
inex - Alex Pozniak
Alex Pozniak completed his Masters in Musical Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, with the assistance of a UPA scholarship and under the guidance of Matthew Hindson. Alex obtained First Class Honours and the University Medal in 2005 for his undergraduate studies. He was the winner of the 2011 APRA Professional Development Award in the Classical category, allowing him to travel to the United States and Europe to pursue studies in composition. Alex co-founded the Sydney new music collective Chronology Arts in 2007 and is a passionate music educator, teaching at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music and St Ignatius’ College Riverview. Further information www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/pozniak-alex
One Minute According To Your Heart - Kate Moore
Kate Moore is a composer of new music. She creates worlds of sound for acoustic and electroacoustic media and writes instrumental music, concert music, sound installations and more. Moore specialises in creating surprising performance scenarios that feature virtuosic instrumentalists and musicians set amidst unusual and alternative performance circumstances. Her work has been performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, The Sydney Opera House and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and at major festivals including The Holland Festival, The Sydney Film Festival, ISCM World Music Days 2010 and MATA 2009. She has worked with many ensembles including Slagwerk Den Haag, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Nieuw Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Calder Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, and Asko|Schรถnberg. Further information http://katemoore.org
Weather Music - Ruby Fulton
Baltimore-based composer Ruby Fulton (b.1981) writes music which invites listeners to explore non-musical ideas through sound. Her musical portfolio includes explorations of mental illness, Buddhism, philosophy, psychedelic drugs, addiction, and chess strategy; and profiles of iconic popular figures like the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and musicians Syd Barrett and Whitney Houston. She is a multi-instrumentalist, performing on and writing for violin, flugelhorn, and keys. Further information www.rubyfulton.com
Fener Lullaby - Gerard Brophy
Gerard Brophy is a composer of orchestral, instrumental and vocal music and electronica. After an increasingly musical adolescence, Gerard Brophy began his studies in the classical guitar at the age of 22. In the late seventies he worked with Brazilian guitarist Turibio Santos and the Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel before entering the NSW State Conservatorium of Music to study composition. He has been commissioned and performed by some of the world’s leading ensembles - the St.Louis, Melbourne, Queensland, Tasmanian, West Australian and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, the NZ Symphony Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest, Icebreaker, Nash Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Slagwerkgroep Den Haag, ANUMADUTCHI, Synergy Percussion, Het Trio, Ensemble Modern, Chicago Pro Musica to name some of them. Further information brophy-gerard
Scoundrel’s Fanfare - Paul Stanhope
Paul Stanhope (b. 1969) is a Sydney-based composer and a leading figure in his generation. He has had prominent performances of his works in the UK, Europe, Taiwan and Japan as well as North and South America. After studies with Peter Sculthorpe, Paul was awarded the Charles Mackerras Scholarship which enabled him to study for a time at the Guildhall School of Music in London in 2000. Paul’s recent works include Jandamarra: Sing for the Country – a dramatic cantata premiered by the SSO about the indigenous warrior hero from the Kimberley; Elegies and Dances for string orchestra and String Quartet no.3 written for the Goldner String Quartet. Further information www. paulstanhope.com
Flicker - Amanda Cole
Amanda Cole is a Sydney based composer who writes instrumental and electronic new music. She also collaborates with artists working in other disciplines to create installations and New Media works. Amanda’s compositions often feature microtonal tunings and structures. Her recent compositions include a solo for marimba, preparations and almglocken, an interactive microtonal choral work using iPads and computer and a siteapecific sound installation in the iconic Australia Square building foyer for the Expanded Architecture festival.  Amanda is currently working on a variety of interdisciplinary projects as part of her 2-year Australia Council for the Arts Creative Australia Fellowship. Further information www.amandacolemusic. com
Wings of Mercury - Larry Sitsky
Larry Sitsky, born in China of Russian-Jewish parents, he was appointed Head of Keyboard Studies at the School of Music in Canberra (now part of the Australian National University) in 1966, where he was later Head of Musicology, Head of Composition Studies, Head of Academic Studies and now Distinguished Visiting Fellow, as well as Emeritus Professor. He was the first Australian to be invited to the USSR on a cultural exchange visit in 1977. He has received many awards for his compositions, including the A.H.Maggs award (twice), the Alfred Hill Memorial Prize and a China Fellowship in 1983. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Award in 1988-1989 and won an Advance Australia Award for achievement in music in 1989. Further information australiancomposers.com.au/composers/larrysitsky
The Dying Pillow - Cat Hope
Cat Hope’s music is conceptually driven, using mostly graphic scores, acoustic /electronic combinations and new score reading technologies. It often features aleatoric elements, drone, noise, glissandi and an ongoing fascination with low frequency sound. Her composed music ranges from works for laptop duet to orchestra, with a focus on chamber works. Her practice has been discussed in books such as Loading the Silence (Kouvaris, 2013), Women of Note (Appleby, 2012), Sounding Postmodernism (Bennett, 2011) as well as periodicals such as The Wire (UK, 2013), Limelight (Aus, 2012) and Neu Zeitschrift Fur Musik Shaft (Ger, 2012). Her works have been recorded for Australian, German and Austrian national radio. Further information www.cathope.com
Exit Lines - Austin Buckett
Austin Buckett (b.1988) is an Australian composer and artist working in mediums that explore ideas focused around repetition, the perception of sound and the environments of its presentation. His practice includes writing works for various concert settings, audio-visual installations and producing studio albums. He has been a featured artist at festivals such as the 2011 Tura Totally Huge New Music Festival, and the 2012/2013 NOWnow Festivals of experimental film and music, and has curated events for Canberra Centenary’s ‘You Are Here Festival’ and ABC Classic FM including ‘Everything Always’ for their New Music Up Late program in late 2012. This year Grain Loops a 12” vinyl for thirty one-minute snare drum works was released on the renowned experimental music label Room 40, receiving critical acclaim internationally. Further information www.austinbuckett.com
2x+1 - Sandra France
Sandra France composes, performs, teaches and records music of a wide variety of genres ranging from classical contemporary through to jazz and folk music. She lives in Canberra where she engages actively with the local musical community as composer, performer and educator. France has been commissioned by several of Australia’s leading musicians and her compositions are regularly performed in concerts and for broadcasts on ABCfm. France’s commission by Symphony Australia, entitled Heritage Overture, for full orchestra, was recorded in January 2002 by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Further information www.sandrafrance.com
Connect - Andrew Batt-Rawden
“Connect” is a simple organic algorithmic work which uses the heartbeat of the ensemble to affect the movement of solenoids that are hitting two objects with predictable changes in pitch/timbre and another which stays static. The idea of hooking up an unpredictable human organic system to sound delights my inner empath. Our “heart” is often thought of in a romantic/expressionist context, however, when our physical hearts are connected to the music as in this work, it is (perhaps ironically) systematic-sounding and without emotive nuance. There is a feedback loop between the sound and the performer. Over a longer duration, this loop yields incredible results. Andrew primarily writes instrumental and vocal chamber music, and has recently started exploring electronic music. He has written for the Song Company, Dirty Feet dance company, Chronology Arts ensemble, the Orkest de Ereprijs, Alicia Crossley and Moorimbilla Festival (amongst others). His debut album “Seven Stations” was written in collaboration with poet Chris Mansell, and is on the Hospital Hill Records label. Andrew loves percussion, and has worked with Synergy’s Josh Hill on many projects. He is the publisher of Limelight Magazine, has been artistic director for a number of music festivals, and has just turned 30. Further information www. andrewbattrawden.com.au
Morgentau - Elena Kats-Chernin
Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Elena Kats-Chernin studied music in Moscow, Sydney and Hanover. She has created works across nearly every genre, from rags to operas and works for robotic instruments to a full scale choral symphony. Her music featured at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and the 2003 Rugby World Cup. She has received several awards including the Sounds Australian, Green Room, Helpmann, Limelight as well as Sydney Theatre Awards. The most recent is the jointly awarded Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award 2013. Her “Russian Rag” was used as Max’s theme in the 2009 claymation “Mary and Max” by Oscar winning director Adam Elliot. Elena Kats-Chernin’s “Eliza Aria” is the theme for the Late Night Live on ABC Radio National. Further information kats-chernin-elena
Messy Sounds - Damian Barbeler
Damian is widely recognised for his highly idiosyncratic compositional style; especially lush, emotional sound worlds inspired by textures and patterns from nature. His works regularly incorporate broader media elements: visuals, theatre and sculptural elements, and he is an enthusiastic collaborator, working with creatives from diverse fields like architecture, software design, media arts, dance and more. He has twice received the ‘Recommended Work’ award at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers and was a finalist in the Toru Takemitsu Prize 2008. Further information www.barbeler. com
40 Seconds (To Save The World) - Martin del Amo
Martin del Amo, originally from Germany, is a Sydney-based choreographer and dancer. Starting out as a solo artist, he now primarily creates works for others. These include Slow Dances For Fast Times (2013), Anatomy of an Afternoon (2012) and Mountains Never Meet (2011). Martin regularly teaches and extensively works as consultant, mentor and dramaturg. He also writes, frequently contributing to RealTime magazine. Martin has been nominated for a Helpmann Award (2012) and two Australian Dance Awards (2010 and 2005). His work has toured nationally and internationally (UK, Japan, Brazil). Further information martindelamo.com
3.2.1 - Michael Smetanin
Michael Smetanin born in Sydney in 1958 is one of Australia’s most distinctive compoers. After completing study at the Sydney Conservatorium in 1981 and three years study with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatorium in the Hague between 1982-84. Smetanin’s music has been extensively commissioned, performed, and recorded
internationally with works appearing on over 30 commercially
released CD albums. Commissions include those from Schoenberg Ensemble, Bang on a Can All Stars, Orkest de Volharding, Elision and major orchestras in Australia. Further information smetanin-michael
Poka Yoke - Damien Ricketson
The music of Damien Ricketson explores the poetics of incomplete knowledge and is characterised by exotic sound-worlds and novel forms. Damien studied with renowned Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and received a doctorate from the Sydney Conservatorium where he currently lectures in composition. Damien is the Co Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring, a unique company dedicated to innovative new music, and through whom much of his music has been performed. Major projects have included Fractured Again, and The Secret Noise. Further information www.curiousnoise.com
Density - Annie McKinnon
Density is an interactive composition. The performers activate a computer program that launches a series of projections that make up a randomly generated graphical score. Every 10 seconds each performer moves to their right to play the next section of the piece. They do this four times throughout the performance. The intent behind Density is to explore texture and timbre. It is an exercise in active listening, the performers communicating and coordinating with one another, all to achieve some cohesion amidst the madness of the unknown.
Annie McKinnon is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, designer, and gadgetmaker. In 2012 she completed a Bachelor of Sound and Music Design at the University of Technology Sydney. In 2013, she was artist in residence at dLux Media Arts and in August 2014 completed a BrandX residency in collaboration with dancer, Fenix Icatu. She has collaborated with the likes of Andrew Batt-Rawden, Holly Austin, Bree van Reyk, Emma Davis, George Khut and international artist, Andreas Siagian. Annie also performs regularly as a solo artist and as backup vocalist on bass synth and samples for Caitlin Park. Further information anniemckinnon.tumblr.com
Rocket Street - Tim Hansen
Rocket Street is a real street in a real town - Bathurst, Australia to be precise. It’s where my friend Jane used to live when we were teenagers in college studying theatre. Almost twenty years later Jane commissioned me to write this piece, and I wanted to make something unserious for her, a throwback to when we were kids barely out of high school, goofing around and making stupid plays about nothing for fun.
Tim Hansen (b.1978) is an Australian composer who has been engaged by a diverse range of companies and individuals to create new works for theatre and music, and has had pieces performed in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, Belgium, France and Mexico. His work is a fusion of cabaret, music theatre and more traditional concert music idioms. In Australia he has composed music for the Song Company, the Sydney Theatre Company, the Saffire Guitar Quartet, Guitarstrophe and the Griffyn Ensemble, and has collaborated closely with artists such as guitarist Tim Kain and clarinetist Nicole Canham. Further information www.timhansen.com.au
View from above - Evan Mannell
Evan Mannell plays the drum set and various drum machines as well as singing a bit and playing his beloved telecaster guitar. He has composed music for video games, produced tracks for fashion shows, toured and recorded with hundreds of iconic artists from Australia and abroad. Evan is thirty-three years old and lives in Sydney with his wife Zoe Hauptmann, their young son Alby and their dog Ringo.
MizuNoRin - Terumi Narushima
Terumi Narushima is a composer, performer and sound designer who specialises in alternative tuning systems. Her works include Tritriadic Chimes, a sound installation for LA MicroFest, Hidden Sidetracks, a composition for custom-made instruments premiered by Ensemble Offspring at the Sydney Opera House, and a project to build microtonal flutes using 3D printing. She has worked on various film and theatre collaborations, including Yasukichi Murakami: Through a Distant Lens which was presented at the Darwin and OzAsia Festivals. Further information www.anaphoria.com/TerumiNarushima
After the Zooids - Melody Eötvös
A Zoöid is a single animal that belongs to a greater colonial animal, as I most recently discovered of the Portuguese Man ‘o War. While the Zoöids are multicellular creatures and their structure is like that of any other solitary animal, they are still connected (either by tissue or by sharing a common exoskeleton) to a colonial organism. This term can also be used to describe more generally an organized body that has independent movement within its various parts. Upon discovering that the Sixxen was a part of Synergy’s instrumentation I decided to pair two of them with two vibraphones as well as explore some ‘bridging’ instruments that might also connect to the Sixxen/Vibes timbre. The result is a metallic zoon (the term, singular and in the world of the Zoöids, used to describe the organism as a whole) that simultaneously moves as a whole, yet maintains the individuality of its various parts through exploring a single tone-row (the nice kind) and tethering the microtonal Sixxen to the Vibes.
Melody Eötvös is a Bloomington IN-based Australian composer whose work draws on both multi-media and traditional instrumental contexts, as well substantial extra-musical references to a broad range of philosophical topics and late 19th Century literature. Current projects include an Australia Council Grant to compose a new piano sonata for Bernadette Harvey (Sydney). Further information http://melodyeotvos.com.au/
Few Manoeuvres - Marnie Palomares
Marnie is an independent dancer and has performed extensively nationally and internationally. She has worked for Branch Nebula, Shaun Parker & Company, Chunky Move (Gideon Obarzanek), Force Majeure, Antony Hamilton, Narelle Benjamin, Martin Del Amo, Sydney Theatre Company, Nigel Jamison, Garry Stewart, Jason Pitt, Bernadette Walong, Dean Walsh and Liz Lea. Marnie’s choreographic credits include works for Tasdance, Sydney Festival First Night (2009), Pulse8 Dance, Big W and Oral B commercials, ABC 2’s Giggles and Hoot, Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards (2011), QL2 Centre for Youth Dance, Ev & Bow, Australian College for Physical Education (ACPE), Synergy Percussion, Dance Makers Collective and Propel Residency Solo Tissue Girl in collaboration with High Tea with Mrs Woo designers. Marnie has been featured in TVC’s for SKII and Oral B, and animations for PictureDRIFT. Further information profile-marnie-palomares
Trailer #3 - John Cleworth
John completed a Bachelor of Sound and Music Design at UTS, Sydney. He graduated from St Andrews Cathederal School with distinction in music, including an Encore nomination for coposition and the Dean Lance Shilton Prize for Original Composition. John completed an album with Shakuhachi Grand Master Riley Lee, in 2015 which was released internationally on the USA label, Sounds True. He is credited as co-composer/sound designer, producer, sound engineer and editor. They performed the album live at the 2014 Sacred Music Festival. John plays drums and composes for his duo, Lusinth, who has headlined in various Sydney venues. Further information www.wonderlandmagazine.com