This month we're following on from March's Small Ensemble Waves and zooming in even closer to the qualities particular to music for one instrument or performer. In solo works sometimes it is possible to perceive a heightened level of detail and purity of tone colour, as well as an increased closeness between performer and listener. The Solo Waves playlist invites you to savour the varying complexity and freedom that can result from one performer leading the music entirely rather than working as part of an ensemble.

Solo Waves - April 2016

BackStage August 19 2016

Listen back to all the Soundcloud recordings featured during 2016 on Making Waves playlists.

2016 Waves

International Women's Day 2017

International Women's Day 2018

International Women's Day 2019

The inspiration for Stratus Rising came to me in early 2010 when my family and I stayed at a friend’s house in the Victorian alpine town of Warburton. The house sits on the slope of a big crescent hill, and one early morning I walked out onto the porch and witnessed something truly sublime: the green hill was covered in wispy strands of white clouds slowly climbing their way up the slope to return back to the sky. Moments after seeing this magical sight I sat at my friend’s piano and began writing this composition, though it was not until April 2011 that I finished the work. What I have tried to create here is a piece of music which embodies the dynamic nature of this vision and that region, one which is at times sublimely peaceful against the backdrop of its still, low-lying clouds, and at others equally tumultuous when these very same clouds turn into powerful storms.

Stratus Rising (2011)

This is from 2010 - commissioned and performed by Eclectica Trio (Amanda Lovelock, Anna Coleman and Charise Altmann).
The clarinets take on the role of storyteller for this piece – they growl like a wolf, squeal like a pig, and huff-and-puff with increasing vigour to blow the house down. Unfortunately, they do it all in the wrong language (“this contemporary music just sounds like random notes to me!”). Will you still be able to follow the story? Don’t stress, it all ends happily ever after.

The Three Little Pigs

'Two Portraits of One Subject' was written in 2012 at the request of Belgian classical guitarist Trui van Neck. The subject of the title is Robert Schumann. There are references throughout the work to both the man and the music - some more subtle than others.

Two Portraits of One Subject - Paul Ballam-Cross

This piece was written in April 2014 for a dance/art short film by Tamara Elkins (yet to be released). The title is a reference to Debussy's The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, which was sampled to create this work.

The Girl with the Ash Brown Hair

Premiered by flutist, Guro Petterson at the Royal College of Music, London. 
Received it's Australian premiere by flutist, Kim Tan at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

WOLF, Mark - Hamaroy Troll (2010)

Recorded by Marshall McGuire
Muntu Walunga is a piece influenced by African mythology and the sounds of African thumb-pianos (mbiras - or “lamellaphones” to be precise!). These instruments produce a metallic percussive sound that has little resonance, and the music is typically fast and extremely rhythmic. In the piece the harp is asked to play using certain effects which imitate this sound, and the pitch material is based on six to eight-note cells (typical of the eight-note scales of the African mbiras). The pulse of the rhythmic sections is often in three which is also typical of mbira music.
From the book “African Mythology” by Jan Knappert, I learned that the Bakongo people of Zaire (central Africa) tell a myth of the creation of people:
Nzambi (God) first created Mahungu “Breath”, a human being who was both male and female, and so: Muntu Walunga “The Complete Person”. It had the shape of a palm-tree with two heads. Wooden statuettes show the tree with breasts on one side, with a woman’s head, and on the other side a bearded head, the two coming out of a spathe, like a spadix emerging from a sheaf of a palm-leaf. This double person lived a happy life since it knew no jealousy or hatred, no desire or want. One day Mahungu saw the tree called Muti Mpungu, the tree of the Supreme Being. Mahungu went up to the tree trying to embrace it, but the tree split Muhungu into two equal personalities, who were henceforth called “Lumbu” (Man) and Muzita (Woman). After this event they always wanted to be together and to embrace one another.

Muntu Walunga - solo harp

Tracings for flute and live electronics explores the changing timbral qualities of single notes and the way that this can be combined to create shifting textures. In a way it reveals how simplicity can harness great colouristic potential in regards to sound, but also creates a warm and aesthetic wash of sound.

This piece traces some of the ideas presented in Takemitsu’s article One Sound as well as in his perception of sound: 

The perception of sound, while depending on its strength, duration and pitch, is actually influenced more fundamentally by the characteristic of sound that takes as its composite factors all of these and yet is larger than their sum, that of timbre.

My perception of time in traditional Japanese music
Toru Takemitsu

It explores these ideas in the context of flute and electronics, uncovering the timbral nuances of each gesture in the live flute and combining these to create a sound world that changes in extremely subtle ways. 

Performed by Jeremy Tatar

TRACINGS

String Quartet No. 2 in E minor by Connor D'Netto
recorded live @ MICMC 2015 - 18 Jul 2015

Winner of the Australian New Works Award, presented by Chamber Music Australia

Performed by the Noga Quartet, winner of the 7th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition

String Quartet No. 2 in E minor - live @ MICMC 2015

Commissioned by the Silo Collective and performed by the Enigma Quartet, this is my recording of the world premiere performance of my String Quartet, "The First Movement" on November 17, 2015. 

String Quartet: The First Movement [Live recording]

Minimalist saxophone quartet recorded at Melba Hall at the University of Melbourne. 
The Jive is a lively piece in three sections. It employs minimalist techniques such as canon, adding rhythmic cells, cross-fading, resulting patterns and mensuration canon. Some of these techniques are used more freely than in strict minimalism. I experimented with different canonic textures and the resulting patterns created when shifting motives between the different saxophones. Motives in rhythmic unison as well as cross-rhythms are explored in the last part of the piece. Dynamic swells and funky rhythms make The Jive somewhat unpredictable…

The Jive

I. Suddenly for soprano, flute, and piano (A. Mellos 2014)
Madeline Cain, soprano; Daniel Pesca, piano; Caroline Sonett, flute
Live recording, November 12, 2014 Kilbourn Hall, The Eastman School of Music


I. Suddenly from 'Three Poems of Yannis Ritsos' - for soprano, flute, and piano

MultiSonics

Levitas was written with the aim of inspiring and uplifting its audience. It's themes and harmonies are easily accessible to a wide range of listeners, and it was a thrill as well as a challenge to infuse this piece with enthusiasm and zest for life. 



Levitas for Brass Quintet

Opening section of work Chromoson - an immersive audio-visual experience

Chromoson

Jassa Joint

melting landforms with radioactive rhythmic spice

get the EP "I Is, You Is, We Is" here -
muffledrecords.bandcamp.com/album/i-is-you-is-we-is

Sarajevo

For Lyn Fuller, Premiered at the Canberra International Music Festival, May 5th 2016. Commissioned by the National Capital Authority.
MOON FIRE is inspired by a famous tale about a Belgian cathedral tower. Legend has it that on January 27th, 1687, in the town of Mechelen, a local looked up at St Rumbold’s tower and perceived it to be on fire. The townsfolk called the alarm and ascended the tower with buckets of water and anything they could muster to extinguish the blaze. Upon reaching the top of the tower it was discovered that there was no fire, but the blood red moon shining through the fog had created a mirage! Hence the Mechlians were jokingly referred to as Maneblussers (“Moon Extinguishers”) and even named a local beer after the legend.
Rather than the joke, my piece is inspired by the imagery of the blood moon, shining through the fog to create a sensation of an eerie sky lit by vaporous flames. Alarm bells are heard, and a panic of the people, but descends into an eerie fog-like mystical trance. The power of the moon could be perceived as dangerous, volatile, rather than benign.
Having lived in Belgium for a year, I wanted to dedicate this work to the Belgians who have had to face terror this year in Brussels airport and train station. May they always gather in strength to fight their fires.

Moon Fire for Carillon and Electronic Track

Marlēné Claudine Radice is a Sydney sound designer and composer who specialises in notated electroacoustic composition. Previously, she has performed and recorded with the Sonic.Art Quartet, COUP Melbourne, Feminatronic and as one half of electronic duo Erwartung. Marlēné's has been commissioned as a sound designer and composer for Canberra’s National Museum of Australia in 2017 and Questacon in 2013.

Marlēné's soundtrack, titled 'Retrograde', connectedly explores abstract sounds and planetary motion. Read her description of the piece: 

"Retrograde motion references the movement of anything outside of the earths atmosphere that runs in a counter motion to the spin of the planet it orbits. In this soundtrack I wanted to experiment with how music made entirely out of reversed audio samples would be interpreted by a listener. The music is inherently unsettling as while we listen to sounds which are in reverse we cannot help but attempt to create meaning and order from sound that has been abstracted from its original form. " - Marlēné Claudine Radice

EHE 20.10.16 - Marlēné Claudine Radice (SYD) - Retrograde

@2016 
Performed by the Briar String Quartet (Matthew Rigby- Violin 1, Navin Gulavita- Violin 2, Georgia Stibbard- Viola, Sage Fuller- Cello) 
Premiered at the Composer's Concert, St Stephen's Church Richmond, Victoria

Recorded at Sing Sing Studios, South Yarra, Victoria
Engineer: Aaron Dobos 

I always heard the phrase ‘The first step is always the hardest’.
Beginnings spark a potential energy, waiting to burst out. The endless possibility and avenues a road can lead is enthralling; blossoming new and dynamic waves. It’s exhilarating, yet restrained, not knowing where the road leads or how it will end.

This piece is my first step.

String Quartet No. 1 - "First"

What is 'space'? Where is 'nohwere'? How do we understand these concepts? How do we cultivate 'nowhere' and 'space'? These are questions that I considered when approaching this work. Into Ethereal Space responds to the exhibition title 'Nowhere=Space' by exploring contrasting peaceful, meditative sections and flurried rhythmic sections. This piece invites you to enter into a space of contrasts and to explore, contemplate and consider what 'nowhere' and 'space' might mean.

This piece was commissioned for the opening of 'Nowhere=Space' at 107 Projects. This is a live recording of the premiere performance, 11 July 2018.
Performed by Quart-Ed: Caitlin Sandiford, Sarah Qiu, David Tocknell and Karen Cortez.

July 2018.

Inside the Mosaic

Into Ethereal Space

for two flutes, percussion, piano
Music X, Blonay, Switzerland
July 2010
Timothy Munro and Pethrus Gardborn, flutes
Jeremy Malvin, percussion
Erika Dohi, piano

These dark notes drifting takes its title from a poem by 9th-century Chinese poet Li Po.  Inspired by a Chinese folk tune, the piece evokes distant flutes, coloured by the sounds that one might hear across a valley at night in the spring.

Spring Night in Lo-Yang hearing a flute
In what house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting,
scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-Yang?
Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
who could help but long for the gardens of home?

These dark notes drifting

Matthias Bamert
West Australian Symphony Orchestra

This work was commissioned as an education piece, and is
designed to showcase the sections of the orchestra at the circus or at the zoo:
Brass (opening): fanfare, welcome to the circus/zoo;
Woodwinds: the monkeys;
Strings: the trapeze/the swans;
Percussion: lions and tigers;
Tutti, and brass fanfare to end.
The conductor may pause at each new section to introduce the instruments
of the orchestra, or may have the opening few bars of each section of music
played before performing the piece without pause.

Roar!

For solo soprano and SSAATTBB. Commissioned and recorded by The Australian Voices, 2012. Conducted by Gordon Hamilton.

Dedicated to William Duckworth and Jocelyn Wolfe.

Text:
DROUGHT

BY JUDITH WRIGHT

The summer solstice come and gone,
now the dark of the moon comes on.
The raging sun in his pale sky
has drunk the sap of the world dry.
Across the plains the dustwhirls run
and dust has choked the shrivelling tree.

This is my world that dies with me, 
cries the curlew in the night.
I have forgotten how the white
 birdfooted water in the creek
used in spring to call and speak.
All is fallen under the sun
and the world dies that once I made.

The strength that brandished my green blade,
the force uncoiling from the cell,
 drains like water from a wrecked well,
 says the dried out corn of the earth.
The seed I cherished finds no birth.

Now the dark of the world comes on.

Drought (choral)

Title: la grotta azzura (ambient mix)
Date: 2007, 2009 

Description: Ambient mix of 'la grotto azzura' (the blue grotto), originally created for AAIR Radio Ana Capri Remix competition hosted by the London School of Architecture in 2007. All samples utilised in the remix were recorded around the Island of Capri and provided by AAIR. Sound editing and composition/remix performed in Logic Pro.

​Competition judges included Brian Eno (UK) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (JAP/USA).  As there were too many good submissions, AAIR decided to not award only one winner. La grotto azzura was featured first amongst all international submissions published online. Remix Competition site now inactive.

IMAGE CREDIT: 'The Blue Grotto' by late Romantic Painter Heinrich Jakob Fried.

TRACINGS

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