This is a recording of the world premiere of 'Elegy' for Baritone Saxophone and String Quartet, which was written and premiered during my time at the Brevard Music Centre in 2013. This performance and recording took place on the 23rd of July, 2013 at the Brevard Music Centre in North Carolina, USA.

I am very grateful to following wonderful and dedicated musicians for helping to bring 'Elegy' to life: 

Gordon Gest, Baritone Saxophone

Audrey Lee, Violin 1
Clara Engen, Violin 2
Joseph Koeferl, Viola
Maxwell Frank, Violoncello

Izabel Zambrycki, Conductor

A video of this performance can also be found on youtube, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSVgwjm2vrg

Elegy (Bar. Sax. + String Quartet)

First performed at the Brevard Music Centre in North Carolina, USA, August 3, 2013 by the immensely talented and groovy:

Rachel Woolf (flute), Claire Werling (Bass Clarinet) and Zachary Singer (Marimba)

Quiver (Flute, B. Clarinet & Marimba)

Performance by 'ADY Ensemble' and conducted by Adrian Head.
http://ady.net.au/

Ady gave the premiere performance of this work in 2012 and performed it again live (this recording) in 2013. Can't tell you how lovely it is to now have a record of this performance. My thanks to Adrian Head and the Ady musicians for being such wonderful champions of new local music. Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/aoOUybePC3I

Performed at The University of Queensland, School of Music in the Nickson Room on September 5, 2013.

Audio recording: Thomas Green
AV recording: Lisa Cheney

Composed by Lisa Cheney.
For more information on Lisa or her works please visit www.lisacheney.com.au 
To obtain the score for 'Reflection', please visit the Australian Music Centre at http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/cheney-lisa or contact the composer directly.

Reflection (string orchestra)

Permission to display a one minute excerpt of The Pool and the Star (9'40")was granted by the MSO, ABC Classic FM and Olli Mustonen. In order to best give a taste of the entire work, various bite sized moments of the piece have been sewn together in chronological order. 

My thanks to:
Performers: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Olli Mustonen
Recording: ABC Classic FM
Commissioned as part of the 2013 Cybec C21st Composers' Program
Program mentors: Dr. Philip Bracanin and Dr. Brenton Broadstock
Performance details: Wednesday 9 April 2014, at the Melbourne Recital Centre for the Metropolis New Music Festival. 


MORE INFORMATION:
The Pool and the Star for Chamber Orchestra was performed for the second time by members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Olli Mustonen on the 9th April, 2014. It was recorded and broadcast by ABC Classic FM at the Melbourne Recital Centre, Elizabeth Murdoch Hall.

The Pool and the Star was commissioned as part of the 2013 Cybec Foundation C21st Australian Composers' Program and premiered by Brett Kelly at the finals concert on 25 January, 2014 at the ABC Centre in South Bank, Melbourne. It was then one of two works from the finals fortunate to be selected/programmed as part of the MSO's Metropolis New Music Festival.

Program Note:
The Pool and the Star is inspired by a poem of the same name by the late Australian poet, Judith Wright. I have often found Wright’s work a stimulus for creative expression, and on this occasion it was the vivid imagery and evocative language
in The Pool and the Star that invited my musical response. The work loosely captures the narrative of the poem in which the pool, in love, each night awaits patiently for the rising of a star to bring to life the time and waters from which the pool gathers
itself together. Venturing through and between two worlds, the music depicts earth and water on one hand, and on the other, sky and space. Accordingly, the piece is through-composed commencing with a portrayal of calm and tranquillity and progressing through a series of changes of varying intensity, returning in the closing bars to a mood akin to that of the opening.




The Pool and the Star EXCERPTS (Chamber Orchestra - MSO)

Reich That! (2012)
For Flute, Violin, Cello, Piano, Glockenspiel and one or more Reel-to-reel Tape Machines.

Performed by Ensemble Fabrique.
Recorded by ABC Classic FM.

In Reich That! the reins of control have been handed over to the ensemble. The work is influenced by Steve Reich’s early minimalist loop based compositions, however, in Reich That! the musicians are given a greater amount of freedom of choice. The work begins with the exploration of at least one prerecorded loop of a single instrument (as chosen by the ensemble) on the reel-to-reel tape player. The composer recommends using at least two reel-to-reel tape machines with a different prerecorded loop on each (any number of tape players and loop combinations are encouraged). In the absence of reel-to-reel tape players other music technology software can be used for a live performance. In the beginning section of this work the tape player/s are manipulated by altering speed settings and physically ‘stopping’ or ‘pulling’ on the magnetic tape to explore the possibilities of the ‘instrument’. Gradually the live acoustic instruments are asked to respond by interpreting or mimicking the sounds produced from the tape player/s, gradually melding in with technology to create an otherworldly sound space. As the altered sound world reaches its peak the ensemble take over, the tape players are silenced, and the ensemble begins to select loops of melody or silence at will. From this moment on, the piece no longer has a set structure and is determined entirely by the ensemble. Two-thirds through the work the tape player manipulation is gradually reintroduced to effectively build the work to a climax.  As a consequence of the improvisatory nature of this work, there is no set duration for this piece.


Reich That! (chamber ensemble + tape player)

Imaginary Dances is the receptacle vehicle for a growing collection of small ensemble works framed in contemporary-popular styles. Each work or musical ‘morsel’ hopes to inspire the listener to visualise how a dancer might interact with the music. Imaginary Dance No. 1 is a light and delicate dance contrasted by a slow and floating middle section. Imaginary Dance No. 2 is inspired by the music of John Adams and is characterised by a process of moving in and out of keys and layers of contrapuntal textures which at times create a wall of sound. Further works are planned for the Imaginary Dances collection, with the goal being to exploring contrasting musicals concepts within each piece. 

Imaginary Dances - No. 1 (2013) [quintet]

Premiered 20 May, 2010 for a Sounding Out Composers' Collective Concert at the QLD Conservatorium of Music, Conservatorium Theatre.

Instrumentation: Sop, Fl, Vln, Hn, Tin Whis., Perc

Soprano - Alicia Cush

“At night a pale yellow is hardly to be distinguished from white; blue approaches to green, and rose-colour to orange.” 
Goethe, Chapter 8 – Faint Lights, A Theory of Colours.

In this short work for small ensemble, Faint Lights endeavors to gently play upon the changing perception of colours produced by less powerful lights. In particular the perception of colour produced by ‘Faint Lights’ (as Goethe aptly names them in Chapter 8) such as the moon and candle-light at night and at twilight. Faint Lights slowly glides through the unique colours of the instruments to create a illusory atmosphere. Like a candle flame flickers and casts its shadow, the music at times
feels unstable and  precarious before hypnotically steadying to  a lilting, ethereal and dream-like state as the light diminishes to nothing.



Faint Lights [2010] (soprano + chamber ensemble)

Matthew Horsley & I beckon you with our bellsl! Come join us as we sculpt for you a new 10-15 minute soundworld with the Federations Handbells. Come and enjoy the magic of bells as part of The Festival of Slow Music in Ballarat, for free concert 'The Big Om', 6:30pm Fri 28 Aug – Minerva Space at the Ballarat Mechanics’ Institute, Ballaarat. More info at: http://www.festivalofslowmusic.com

The Festival of Slow Music is beckoning you...

Plexus Collective, live @Melbourne Recital Centre 16.03.15
Recording shared with permission from ABC Classic FM.
Clarinets, Violin and Piano

No Distant Place
Mvt 1. Souls Eternity
Mvt 2. This is the Test (starts at 7'14")

Earlier this year I had the unique experience of discovering a poem by Derek Bourne-Jones in a cemetery, located on a rock in the centre of a beautiful ‘Garden of No Distant Place’. The powerful words of the poem eloquently touched on many feelings that I had had up until to that point about life, loss, sacrifice, eternity and most importantly, love. Drawing my inspiration from the poem, ‘No Distant Place’ is being approached as a large-scale and long-term project, of which Movement I and II are initial offerings. 

Movement I,  ‘Soul’s Eternity’ is dedicated to the contributions of our World War 1 heroes, in particular the selfless bravery of Army Nurse Rachel Pratt. Conflicting emotions arise when reflecting on such tragic events as war and sacrifice; an undeniable sense of deep sadness and loss, an aching awareness of the long term impacts and of the vast legacies left behind. These feelings combined left me with a sense of depth, timelessness and the gravity of an immeasurable ‘eternity’. Near the beginning of the poem, Derek Bourne-Jones writes, 

The soul’s eternity,
My grief would be for you
To know that you were sad
And cared to live no more
Without me by your side.

I found it almost impossible not to hear those words being spoken to loved ones by the millions of voices who lost their lives. With this impact in mind, the work explores what I felt to be an infinite sense of space, time (eternity) with a constant sense of tension and ‘waiting’ permeating throughout. The work begins ‘senza misura’ (free time) and remains flexible throughout. The traditional roles of melody and accompaniment are examined and subverted. In the place of a traditional melody, foregrounded notes rise out of chords and clusters, often emerging from or responding waves of energy. 

II ‘This is the Test’:  
And, too, this is the test
Of that philosophy
In which our two minds grew.

Energetic and gestural, the second movement begins with the Bass Clarinet and Piano (a reference to the ‘two minds’) in a series of dynamic, forceful trills. The idea of rapid movement continues to evolves throughout the work, ‘testing’ the ensemble with rhythmic runs, crushed notes and on going sense of blurred time and space. Written in free-time without key signatures or bar lines, the work transitions between metrical and non-metrical passages and ideas. The performers are granted a liberal license in the shaping of phrases and gestural ideas.


No Distant Place
Derek Bourne-Jones

If, dear one, I should die,
My constant prayer will be
That you share my belief
And know the reason why
You must go on, and live
And, too, this is the test
Of that philosophy
In which our two minds grew.
The soul’s eternity,
My grief would be for you
To know that you were sad
And cared to live no more
Without me by your side.
Throughout my life your love
Has urged me ever on,
Has comforted and soother
The moments of despair.
This moment, more than all,
Is when I need you most
I now could happy be
Since I have thrown away
That nature which I feared
Would jeopardise my soul.
But let me be assured
That one more gift you’ll give –
That joyly you will live
And love the things I loved
And hope the hopes I held.
I then shall ready be
To wait at heaven’s gate
Your soul’s approach to see
Meanwhile, hold me not back
But feel great joy that I
Have looked on earth’s dark glass
And did not fear to die.

Photo: Belinda Strodder

No Distant Place (trio)

Recording from the 2015 Symphony Australia's Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Composers' School.

Excerpt displayed with kind permission from the TSO.

PROGRAM  NOTE:

arcane |ärˈkān|
adjective
understood by few; mysterious or secret

Composing Arcane I was transported to a world in my imagination; deep below the surface of the earth, standing in the middle of a vacuous cave with no signs of exit. It was pitch black and deafeningly silent, yet the silence was filled by the pure sine tones of my own tinnitus and the gentle hum of my body functioning. I metaphorically felt the weight of layers of earth above, but physically felt the air pressure, the drop in temperature. The weight of my own panic and fear at being in complete isolation bore down on my chest, pushing and willing itself to break free and to overwhelm. I explored the feeling of being completely alone and the not-quite-silence engulfing me, feeling the cold and hearing the tiny drops of water formed by condensation. Yet in my imagined isolation, I wondered at how one could block out the panic to notice the beauty of the earth. I imagined the way certain rocks and minerals reflected light off one another. The glimmers and flashes were delicate, beautiful and mysterious. Real tiny pockets of beauty and light hidden in the cold walls of a dark, isolating space and then, suddenly in my mind, these pockets began to morph into sound. Born out of an overactive imagination Arcane explores the mysteries, secrets and wonders that are experienced by few beneath the earth. How I could feel the experience so vividly without actually being there was both frightening and mysterious – a testament to the secrets of the mind.

Instrumentation: 
2 Flutes (1 = Piccolo & Flute, 2 = Flute & Piccolo)
2 Oboes (2 = Oboe & Cor Anglais)
2 Clarinets in Bb (2 = Bass Clarinet & Clarinet in Bb)
2 Bassoons (2 = Contrabassoon & Bassoon)

4 Horns in F 
2 Trumpets in C
2 Trombones 
1 Bass Trombone
1 Tuba 

1 Percussion 
Vibraphone, Crotales, 2 x Triangles (large & small), Suspended Cymbal, Double Bass Bow, Brushes and 2 x Triangle Beaters for Crotales, Tam-Tam, Glockenspiel
Timpani (5 drums)

Harp

Violins I
Violins II
Violas
Cellos
Double Basses

Full work duration: ca. 9"


Arcane (TSO) [Excerpt]

Cellist: Gemma Tomlinson.
Composer: Lisa Cheney.
This is the live, world premiere recording of 'When We Speak' for solo cello and electroacoustic track. The work was premiered at the This Will Be Our Reply concert, International Women's Day concert at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Melba Hall on 7/03/2016.

PROGRAM NOTES:
When We Speak for solo cello and electroacoustic track seeks to comment on broader issues surrounding gender inequality and these considerations on my compositional practice. Throughout the work the interweaving of many ‘voices’ is present in: my own musical language, the music and speech of respected Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho, the expression of the live cellist and her own literal voice.  The, at times semi-improvised cello part, weaves its way through an atmospheric soundscape derived from a recent public interview with Saariaho. The accompanying recorded musical sounds are extracted from Saariaho’s own compositions, with special weight placed upon manipulated excerpts from Gemma Tomlinson’s own performance of Sept Papillons. 

When We Speak (solo cello + electroacoustic track)

This recording was taken at the premiere performance of Lisa Cheney's 'Everything is Illuminated' (2016) for Percussion, Harp, Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass.

Conducted by: Julian Pellicano 
Performed by: Joe Rebman (Harp), Alfonso Fernandez (Viola), Anne Wybenga (Cello), Chris Salvito (Perc.), Lili Sarayrah (Violin), Nicoletta Favari (Piano), Sam Bobinski (D. Bass).

The performance and premiere took place during the Yale Norfolk New Music Workshop, Norfolk, Connecticut, USA on the July 2nd, 2016.

Recorded by: Matthew LeFevre

Program Note:
Everything is Illuminated is work deeply rooted in the composer’s preoccupation with colour and timbre. In this work bright, metallic, plucked or struck sounds often dominate the foreground in a consistent quintuplet figure. Throughout the piece the musician’s voices are also utilized as a largely percussive technique - stage whispering works and syllables of the title. Many of the metre choices and revolving sense of pulse can also be traced back to the syllables within the work title. 

Note: 'Everything is Illuminated' is not related to the work of author, Jonathan Safran Foer, this is just a happy coincidence.

Everything is Illuminated (chamber ensemble)

Commissioned by the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) for flute and reduced orchestra, this is a live recording of the premiere performance.
Premiered by soloist, Jonathan Henderson (flute) and the BPO, conducted by Michael Keen on the 23rd of July, 2017 at the Old Museum, Brisbane, QLD. 
Recording courtesy of the BPO.

Inst: Solo Fl and 0, ca, 1+1, 1+1, - 0, 2, 2, 0, timp, perc, hp, cel, str.

Program Notes:

The Flute Concerto invites the listener to journey with the flute soloist as they navigate a unique, atmospheric orchestral sound-world. The landscape is still, but never stagnant and slowly expands in energy, textural shapes, momentum and transforming beauty. The harmonic language is an organic and colourful blend of diatonic and non-diatonic harmonies; blurring sonorities, chromatic flute lines and shifting perspectives of light and dark that each seek out a strange kind of harmonic beauty. There is no programmatic narrative to the Flute Concerto; its concerns are purely musical, creating an interesting relationship between soloist and orchestra. The audience is encouraged to listen for the shifting colours and isolation of timbres in the reduced instrumentation, with saturating divided strings, condensed woodwind and brass and very few tutti passages.  

Is the musical world at its chore: dark, beautiful, haunting, serene, at peace, unstable, in flux or all of the above? Where does the flute exist and how does it progress and transform? Does the orchestra influence the flute development or does the flute change the direction of the orchestra? Questioning is at the heart of the musical material. The work begins with closely related intervals often led by the divided high strings and auxiliary percussion filling the space as the flute slowly emerges from the atmospheric world, blurring the traditional concerto roles of orchestra and soloist as the material blends in the space or rises to the foreground. Framed and influenced by a virtuosic cadenza, the work is changed as the flute leads the orchestra towards new ground.

BPO - Pictures at an Exhibition and Bolero

Flute Concerto [live](flute & orchestra)

For Chamber Orchestra, written and performed at the 2012 AYO National Music Camp in Canberra. This piece explores the notion of 'forces at play' and is not afraid to get dark and crunchy :-)

Turbulence (chamber orchestra)

Black on White (2008) was composed for/performed by talented Concert Pianist, Philip Eames. The work is centered around the melding of the white and black keys on the piano.

This recording is of the premiere performance at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University: Pre-graduation Concert in late 2008.

Graphite hand sketch image by Philip Eames.

Black on White (solo piano)

Written in 2010 for inclusion in: 'A pedagogical survey of Australian bassoon repertoire' by Sophia Rhee. Specifically created for the young to intermediate Bassoon player, Jazzoon aims to add a fun cross-genre piece to the small existing pool of contemporary Bassoon repertoire.

Score and publication available through the AMC here: http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/product/a-pedagogical-survey-of-australian-bassoon-repertoire-for-solo-bassoon-bassoon-piano-bassoon-with-one-other-instrument

Jazzoon (solo bassoon: for the early performer)

This is a live recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Tiyani Lu. Recorded by the ABC on February 5, 2019 at the Iwaki Auditorium in Melbourne and shared with permission.

Penumbral Shadow was commissioned by the MSO for the 2018 Cybec 21st Century Composers' Program.

Program Note:
There are many types of shadows. The most famous shadows are witnessed during a solar and lunar eclipse when the moon’s shadow is cast on the earth, or the earth’s shadow falls on the moon. The ‘penumbra’ is the term for the special shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object. I have recently begun to find shadows a musical inspiration, an occasion for awe and gratitude. Where does a shadow begin and end? I am fascinated by the beauty that emerges from a shadows ‘perishability’, its fleeting moment in the spotlight, forever moving away from and towards light and darkness. The Japanese have a saying, ‘Mono no aware’, literally ‘the pathos of things’. It is used to describe an awareness of the sad or tragic beauty of impermanence and perishability, and it was present in my mind throughout the composition process. The Penumbral Shadow draws its inspiration from this notion of shadows, of light, darkness and fleeting beauty and seeks to explore this in music.

For more information or to contact the composer visit: www.lisacheney.com.au

Penumbral Shadow [chamber orchestra]

Collaborative performance between Bass Clarinet, Percussion, Electronic Track and delay. Recorded in 2008 at the QLD Conservatorium. The collaboration also included a street artist who responded to the sounds he heard on the night on a canvas.

Musicians: Percussion - Shane McPherson, Bass Clarinet - Alex Morris.

In the Deep (electroacoustic+live musicians)

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)

World premiere at the SOUNDING OUT Composers' Collective Concert on April 6th, 2011. Sound and Unsound for Electronic Track, Erhu and Percussion. Featuring Nicholas Ng on Erhu, Vanessa Tomlinson on Percussion and Lisa Cheney on Electronic Track.

Sound and Unsound (erhu, percussion & electronic track)

Instrumentation: Oboe, Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Piano.

Notes:
Growing up I spent most of my time with my nose in a fiction novel. It wasn’t unusual for me to sneak a book along when we went out to dinner as a family or to be reading on the way to and from school. I am still passionate about fictional stories and love the ways in which an author can conjure such vivid magical lands and images that capture, inspire and challenge my imagination. Therefore I guess one could say that writing music was a natural progression for me. Through sounds, rather than words I began to find my own ways to create soundworlds that could capture the imagination, just like the books I loved so much. A Bridge Between represents the middle ground between two such creative worlds. Rather than describing the worlds that I imagined, I ask the listener to use their imaginations to ponder where this music might be coming from and going to. After all, I have always found that what happens in the bridging units, in that magical space somewhere in the middle, to be the most captivating.

Recorded & Composed: 2013

A Bridge Between (chamber ensemble)

Lisa Cheney is an emerging Australian composer currently based in Melbourne. Her music has been performed by the Southern Cross Soloists, The Australian Voices, The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Ady Ensemble, Belladiva, Ensemble Fabrique, Syzygy and The Australian Ballet, amongst others. She studied her undergraduate and Master degrees at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (QCGU) with Gerard Brophy and Gerardo Dirie, and has also received lessons from renowned composers William Duckworth, Philip Bracanin, Iain Grandage, Robert Aldridge and David Dzubay.

Lisa has written for a variety of mediums including orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, ballet, theatre, film, animation and electronic tracks for live performance collaborations. Her composition accolades include being the recipient of the Glen-Carter Varney Award for Composition (2009), first places at the MTAQ Gold Coast Composer’s Competition and the ASME Young Composer’s Competition (2004-2010), the Bill Murray Encouragement Award for Composition (2009), first prize at the Keys Festival for Australian Music (2006), the Griffith University Owen Fletcher Postgraduate Award (2008), an Australia-Korea Foundation Scholarship (2011) and the Silver Harris and Jeff Peck Composition Prize (2014). She has participated in the 2010 Atlantic Music Festival (Maine, USA), the 2012 Australian Youth Orchestra National Music Camp, the 2013 Brevard Music Centre Institute (North Carolina, USA) and the 2013 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Cybec 21ST Century Composers’ Program. Her work The Pool and the Star, written at part of the Cybec Program, was most recently selected by the MSO for performance at the Metropolis New Music Festival under the baton of Finnish maestro Olli Mustonen.

As part of her Master of Music research Lisa has written papers exploring various experiences of other early career female composers in Australia.  In late 2014 Lisa will commence a PhD in composition at the University of Melbourne with prominent Australian composers Elliott Gyger and Stuart Greenbaum.
	
 In addition to a busy writing schedule, Cheney enjoys supporting the careers of other emerging composers and artists as the founder of the Brisbane Composers’ Forum, enjoys singing as a member of The Australian Voices and through private music tuition at her home on the Gold Coast.  She is currently working on commissions for The Ady Ensemble, The Melbourne Metropolitan Sinfonietta and The Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra.

Lisa Cheney is available to consider commissions and collaborations. Orders for scores and personal contact can be made through e-mail - lisajcheney@gmail.com

Follow on Facebook @ : http://www.facebook.com/composerlisacheney
Website: www.lisacheney.com.au
Or Twitter @ComposerCheney

Lisa Cheney

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