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

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)

'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

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

MultiSonics

Performed by Krista Low.

Bloodlust for solo cello, refers to the primal and instinctual urge to kill or cause harm. It's about bacchanalian freedom and surrendering oneself to darker kinds of desire. The piece was conceived in terms of performative gesture and is consequently structured around bellicose physical gestures such as large aggressive bow strokes, sections of rapid snap pizzicato and rapid off the string passages.

The piece wrestles with dualities in a Nietzsche inspired struggle between the Dionysian and the Apollonian; mans inner struggle to reconcile emotion and carnality with rationality and logic. 

Bloodlust

Making Waves is a monthly series of curated playlists streaming one hour of quality, new composed music.  Founded in 2015, Making Waves shines a spotlight on the music of Australian composers. Fresh playlists are released on the first day of each month and older playlists are made available all year round via our archives; perfect for those with just a few minutes to explore one track or for hours perusing a myriad of diverse sound-worlds.


The project offers wider exposure to emerging composers, their music and the talented performers who champion it. We also provide an easy-to-access platform for listeners to sit back and enjoy a curated hour of exciting new music or explore our living composers more actively.  The playlist themes (and media through which they’re shared eg. Soundcloud, YouTube) evolve each month depending on the content received directly from our talented composers.

At its core Making Waves is a curated listening space. In 2016 we branched into producing our own content through a special project, Making Conversation, thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign. Making Conversation: Australian Composers Project is a series of podcasts and vodcasts presenting the human side of living Australian composers, released on popular audiovisual and social platforms mid-2017.
Composers Lisa Cheney (Melbourne) and Peggy Polias (Sydney) are curating this project.

 Listeners, we encourage you to explore current and past playlists and discover more about our featured composers. 

Composers, we encourage you to send us links to your streamable audio via our website. Visit: www.makingwavesnewmusic.com for more information.

Solo Waves - April 2016

Making Waves New Music