Night Beauty (Whale Shark)

Memories

Nocturne is a tribute to Frédéric Chopin’s works of the same name. Chopin is one of my favourite Romantic composers and his nocturnes are some of his most famous and enduring pieces. Over the period of 19 years, he wrote 21 of these short, beautiful solos for piano, based on improvisation and a virtuosic compositional process. Interestingly, Chopin never wrote a nocturne in C major.

This recording was by the amazing Sally Greenaway
Artwork by Luka Vertessy

Nocturne

for in my dreams, you have no end

I composed Sleep Cycles as a gift for my sister’s 21st birthday in September 2014. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to finishing it until Christmas 2015. The aim of the piece was to illustrate the various characters the flute and guitar are capable of producing whilst also exploring extended techniques of each instrument.

Sleep Cycles depicts the brain activity of a night’s sleep, but in reverse:

I: Awakening. The end of sleep.

II: Rapid Eye Movement – when the brain is at its most active and shows many physiological similarities to its waking state. It is in this phase of sleep that we dream.

III: Slow Wave Sleep – or deep sleep. The third stage and the most restful form of sleep.

IV: Sleep Spindles – bursts of brain activity that occur during the second stage of sleep.

V: Lullabye – the act of falling asleep. The first stage of sleep.
 
Sleep Cycles is dedicated to my wonderful sister Alison.

Performed by James and Alison Mountain
Artwork by Luka Vertessy

Sleep Cycles - III. Slow Wave Sleep

'Serial Murder' is inspired by the murder mystery novels of Agatha Christie and gains its name from the compositional technique used to create it – serialism. Each movement represents a different Hercule Poirot story spanning the length of Christie’s career from her first Poirot novel to her last, published after her death. The suite is designed to be playful and performer exaggeration and over-theatricality is encouraged.

A Mysterious Affair – A Mysterious Affair at Styles 
The Cat and the Pigeon – Cat Among the Pigeons 
Third Movement Tragedy – Three Act Tragedy 
With Milk and Sugar? – Black Coffee
Curtain Call – Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

IV - With Milk And Sugar

It takes just over two minutes for a spacecraft to reach the technical definition of space – 100km above the surface of the earth. Astronaut Chris Hadfield described how this terrifyingly quick journey felt by saying:

‘Launch is immensely powerful, and you can truly feel yourself in the centre of it, like riding an enormous wave or being pushed and lifted by a huge hand, or shaken in the jaws of a gigantic dog. The vehicle shakes and vibrates, and you are pinned hard down into your seat by the acceleration. As one set of engines finishes and the next starts, you are thrown forward and then shoved back, until suddenly, the engine shuts off and you are instantly weightless. Magic.’

Launch is an attempt to depict this journey in almost real time – the initial explosion of take-off followed by the thrill of shooting through the atmosphere until finally, silence shrouds the shuttle and it is free of the Earth.

Performed by Samuel Williams
Artwork by Luka Vertessy

Launch

In Final Call, I sought to create a piece that outlines my confused feelings about living and studying in Melbourne. While I am incredibly happy and privileged to be studying at one of the best universities in the world and have met hundreds of incredible people and lifelong friends, I often have the inescapable feeling that I should be spending more time with the family that I’ve left behind in Canberra. As I live in a residential college, I assumed that that these conflicting emotions were common among those who have moved here from other cities so I decided to interview some friends and use their voices as the source material for my work.

The piece is extremely programmatic. I challenged myself to create a piece with a very clear story and direction. The piece is in two distinct sections; the first half demonstrating my happiness at all the new experiences and people I’ve met, the second a more reflective movement on my sadness at leaving my family behind. A lot of the voice material is either not altered in any way, or else presented in monologue format. The emotional drive of the piece is shown through the natural melodic lines of my subject’s voices. 

I interviewed eight of my friends who were not from Melbourne with the same series of questions written on cards that I would show them without speaking. These cards began with simple questions like ‘Are you from Melbourne?’ and progressed to more deeper and deeper questions, some of which were:

How has your life changed since moving to Melbourne?
Do you drink alcohol?
How often do you drink alcohol?
Have you ever done something you’ve later regretted while drunk?
Do you smoke?
How has your life changed since moving to Melbourne?

I ended up with over an hour of interview material. After listening back to the interviews, my concept changed dramatically. Originally, I had planned on creating a snapshot of the self-destructive habits that I have picked up since moving to Melbourne, represented through the similar experiences of my friends. After having the conversations with my friends, however, I realised that a touching theme was present through the answers of ‘How has your life changed since moving to Melbourne’. Most people, it seemed, loved their new life in Melbourne but also missed home very much. I decided to use this material to demonstrate my conflicting emotions at being in Melbourne.

Artwork by Luka Vertessy

Final Call

In November of 2017 I was approached by my high school music teacher to compose a piece of music for the guitar orchestra that I was a part of for my six years of high school. I’ve been in various guitar ensembles ever since high school, and when writing this piece, it occurred to me that I had to compose something that was easy enough for beginners to play, but interesting enough that they’d want to.

I didn’t write the piece until a year later. "A Perfect Sky" is a homage to the guitar music of composers such as Richard Charlton and Paul Svoboda who have contributed so much to the guitar ensemble repertoire.

A Perfect Sky

On the Peculiar Nature of Tears is an exploration of raw emotion. Between its lush chords and familiar sounding motifs is a sense of space that belies the beauty of its melody. 

This piece is inspired by “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The opening theme of Nimrod is the source for most of the musical material in this piece. Although it attempts to fight through the layers every so often, the theme cannot be heard in full until right at the end, a full five minutes into the piece.

It was composed in 2018 and is performed here by Matthew Castle on saxophone.

On the Peculiar Nature of Tears

With the Cattle is a short poetic documentary directed by Cameron Dunlop and with cinematography by Ian Tyley.

OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 BYRON BAY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2021 VEGAN FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION 2022 ANTENNA DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

Composed, performed and mixed by James Mountain.

Memories

Anthony George

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