‘Across the C’ is a piano duet which explores the many ways in which we can hear a single chord. It revolves around the C Major chord, attempting to overshadow it with notes outside of the chord and its tonality, while maintaining its presence. This piece is slow and contemplative in nature, not only a study on the morphing of tonality, but also describing the ever-changing nature of the sea. Here it is performed by Liam Mulligan and Gabrielle Cadenhead.

Across The C - Gabrielle Cadenhead

Articulate, for solo flute, explores artists’ constant struggle to authentically express emotions, whatever their artform. This piece strips away traditional musical concepts of melody, pulse and tonality, comprising solely of articulation. The first section consists of pitch without rhythm, blurring the line between breath and sound, while the second section takes consonant sounds from the first stanza of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and applies them as percussive tonguing. Much like Eliot’s poem, this piece examines the emotional disconnect between composer, performer and audience.

Articulate - Gabrielle Cadenhead

‘She Stands’ is an electroacoustic work based on an original, feminist poem of the same name, and takes the form of a duet between spoken word and electronic soundscape. The soundscape is constructed from sounds produced by an instrument traditionally considered “feminine” – namely, the harp – when played in an unconventional way, obscuring and subverting this projected “femininity”. Through software, these sounds have been modified and their source made more ambiguous, as the tone colours of the harp are extended and manipulated, juxtaposed to the sole live performer.
Many thanks to Kaela Phillips for providing the original harp sounds.

Photo credit: Liam Mulligan.

She Stands - Gabrielle Cadenhead

Recycled Memories is a minimalist-inspired piece for SSA choir concerned with the act of remembering, and how memories are recycled and reused. The way in which memories are encoded, stored and retrieved can be corrupted over time, creating slight alterations from recollection to recollection. This piece is built on two plainchant-inspired melodies, and one slowly becomes the other, so incrementally that it is almost unnoticeable.

Photo credits: Liam Mulligan

Recycled Memories - Gabrielle Cadenhead

This is a live recording from the premiere performance at Konzertprojekt's 'Colour Cravings' on 18th August 2017.
‘She Stands’ is an electroacoustic work based on an original, feminist poem of the same name, and takes the form of a duet between spoken word and electronic soundscape. The soundscape is constructed from sounds produced by an instrument traditionally considered “feminine” – namely, the harp – when played in an unconventional way, obscuring and subverting this projected “femininity”. Through software, these sounds have been modified and their source made more ambiguous, as the tone colours of the harp are extended and manipulated, juxtaposed to the sole live performer.
Many thanks to Kaela Phillips for providing the original harp sounds.

She Stands (Live Recording)

'Mapping the Interior' is a fixed media electroacoustic work inspired by the stream-of-consciousness literary technique employed by authors such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. This technique is applied as a musical structure, as each recorded flute sound develops and evolves into the next.

Original flute sounds by Gabrielle Cadenhead and Dorothy Wu

Mapping the Interior

‘Under the Stars’ is a descriptive overture which evokes different perceptions of the stars. It opens with a fanfare, led by the brass, conjuring the idea of space as humanity’s next “frontier”. This is followed by a more peaceful section, a piccolo and flute duet portraying the delicate wonder of the stellar world, twinkling in its use of glockenspiel. The third section is more contemplative, presenting only fragments of a theme, and dwells upon the ancient belief that stars were the souls of the dead. This is all tied together by the recurring tubular bells motif, which encapsulates many of the different emotions of the piece, and resonates into infinity.

This piece was written for and premiered by Newcastle Youth Orchestra in 2016. This recording was made in August 2017 thanks to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Symphony Orchestra.

Under The Stars

'Fractals and Shadows' was premiered by Sydney Youth Orchestras' Symphonic Wind Orchestra in October 2017, composed and conducted by Gabrielle Cadenhead.

‘Fractals and Shadows’ is a tribute to the city of Sydney. Inspired by a rooftop view of the city illuminated at night, this piece plays with ideas of dark and light and the contrast between them. The opening evokes the angular skyline with jagged rhythms and intervals, one melodic “fractal” evolving. This dark cityscape is then pierced by the piccolo, the brightest of instruments, and the piece moves toward a lighter, freer and faster section. The work ends with a chorale which brings the piece out of the chaos of peak hour and toward the light of dawn.

Performed by: Sydney Youth Orchestras' Symphonic Wind Orchestra
Recorded by: Liam Mulligan and David Tocknell
Mix/Master: Adam Melzer

Fractals and Shadows

Echo
For every church I have called home

Alone in a church:
the echo of tradition.
The reverberation
of tears and hope,
forged and shed and consolidated
among friends,
among family.
Congregations elongated
by the leaking of time.

Purity of focus,
clarity of sound:
I breathe
and many others breathe with me.
I cloud the empty space,
the whole, full, rich space.
Add a new colour,
a new echo.

These walls –
they know things.
Confidential things.
Joyous things,
crying things,
empowering things;
screaming for justice things.
And they throw sound back at me.

The echo is only me
at first, but it grows,
and moments refract from jagged
directions.
Shards collide, collude –
meld, mould into something
indistinguishable but beautiful.

A disturbance
in the peace that is a church –
in the lie that is peace
in a church.
Both it and I, and my instrument,
bear scars.
Because we are only human:
it and I, and my instrument.
We echo,
but we are only human.

_____________________________________________
Composed and performed by Gabi Cadenhead
Poetry by Gabrielle Cadenhead
Recorded and mixed by Liam Mulligan
Premiered on Friday 11th May, 2018 at St Stephen's Uniting Church, as part of Konzertprojekt presents: Fluteprojekt
Performed at City Recital Hall's Extended Play New Music Festival in August 2018

Access the score here: https://goo.gl/forms/utFRlJAkzVenoStq2

Echo - Gabi Cadenhead

'Insomnia-Osmosis' represents the insomniac mind as it grapples with peripheral thoughts on the cusp of sleep. In this work, I have used external environmental sounds to capture the internal world of the insomniac, which reflects the encroachment of the outside world into the insomniac’s consciousness as they attempt to slow their racing mind. The interplay of different sound sources creates a soundworld which evolves from peaceful to chaotic as the insomniac becomes increasingly frustrated with their inability to sleep.

Original sounds provided by Daniel Blinkhorn.

Insomnia - Osmosis

This piece, for flute, piano, vibraphone and string quintet, was inspired by the journey through a glow worm tunnel in the Blue Mountains. Inside the tunnel, viewers must be still and silent, in complete darkness, in order to catch a glimpse of the tiny pin-pricks of life. ‘Luminosa’, whose title is derived from the worms’ scientific name arachnocampa luminosa, captures this fragility, inviting the audience to become immersed in the stillness of the tunnel, and to take a closer look at the intricate details of the glow worms themselves.

Premiered on 16th March 2018 in Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, by Gabrielle Cadenhead, Salina Myat, Liam Mulligan, Sarah Qui, Caitlin Sandiford, Connor Malanos, Karen Cortez and Emma Trivett

Photo by Oscar Smith

Luminosa

Newcastle is home to some of Australia’s most stunning beaches, but it is also the world’s largest coal export port. Growing up in the Hunter Valley, going to the beach meant counting the coal ships looming on the horizon, a fixture of the landscape. This work captures that unsettling juxtaposition of picturesque beaches to the circulation of damaging fossil fuels.

Performed by Gabrielle Cadenhead (flute), Rhys Little (euphonium), Shaun Sheena Premnath (bucket) and Lachlan Foster (speaking voice) at Konzertprojekt presents: Saturation as part of Vivid Sydney 2019
Recorded by Shaun Sheena Premnath
Photo by Gabrielle Cadenhead

A Paradox Of Sea And Coal

Gabi Cadenhead is a poet and composer living on unceded Gadigal and Wangal land. Their creative practice is one of intersections – between story and sound; between performance and protest; between queer bodies, feminism and the sacred. They hold a Bachelor of Music Studies (Composition) and Bachelor of Arts (English and Studies in Religion) from Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the University of Sydney.

Gabi Cadenhead

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