The concept for this playlist came from the idea of the human relationships that underpin all creative practices. How we interact with one another is the foundation of live performance and inherent to the process of creating new music. This month’s playlist was curated by Making Waves team member Marlēné Claudine Radice @marlene-claudine-pringle-radice 

The pieces featured in this month’s playlist explicitly highlight what it means to to relate to ones humanity through music. Whether it be through the physical body such as Caerwen Martin’s exploration of the relationship between mother and child or Mark Holdsworth’s musical depictions of Frida Kahlo’s self portraits.

A fundamental part pf human relationships and identity stems from our ability to act and think autonomously. The notion of what it means to be an autonomous individual is examined by Rishin Singh and Sophie Van Dijk. Both pieces by these composers explore how individuals react to one another in various situations, how the human and an individual can shape and mould their performance.

Aaron Pelle and Antonia Zappia’s works depict a subtler aspect of the humanity inherent to music composition, the ideas expressed though emotion and how these ideas form, reform and collapse into each other. These ideas are extended further in Joseph Tabua’s work as he depicts our relationship between what it means to be human and how we as humans relate to the idea of consciousness within our creations.

Take some time to delve into adventure, art, the self and robots.

Enjoy!

Human Waves (October 2018)

2018 Waves

The 'Frida Kahlo Portraits' was premiered by the Australian String Quartet at the National Composers Forum (Adelaide) in 2010. The work is comprised of 5 miniatures, each based on a self-portrait by Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo. The collection musically emulates the forlorn autobiographical themes that Kahlo explores throughout her artistic oeuvre. 

'Frida Kahlo Portraits' for String Quartet (2010)

This is the 2nd movement of a work written for my mother's 80th birthday, this work explores the complex relationships between mother and child.

The Beauty Of Now Movt 2 Mix 1

In​/​Her​/​Him​/​Raining​/​Phosphorous​/​Gardens - for 7 Spatialised Flutes

First performance on May the 9th, 2017 in the Barr Smith Library Reading Room as part of the New Sounds for an Old Room Vol. 3 Concert.

Performers:

Flute - Madeleine Stewart
Oboe - Hannah Kovilpillai
Bb Clarinet - Eric Begley
F Horn - Natalie Williams
Bassoon - Chris Buckley

Copyright Aaron Pelle (c) 2017

Kindred Spirits

The Robot was inspired by English writer and philosopher Colin Wilson. Interestingly, Wilson’s oeuvre explores the heights and depths of consciousness. "The robot is a servant, a valet. A type of servant who does things for you. So you learn something like talking French, driving a car or skiing, painfully and consciously, step by step. Then the robot takes it over and does it far more quickly and efficiently than you could do it consciously. However, the important thing is not to interfere with the robot once he has learned it because you'll completely screw him up if you do. Now the problem is the robot does all these valuable things like talking French and so on for us. The trouble is that he also does the things we do not want him to do."

The Robot (For Colin Wilson)by Joseph Tabua (2018)

1st movement of "An Australian Backyard Suite". This 6-part composition depicts various flora and fauna commonly found in Australian gardens.

The movements are:
Lorikeet
Fire Ant
Tree Fern
Blue Tongue Lizard
Cicada
Poinciana

This piece received 2nd Prize in the Franz Schubert International Composition Competition in Vienna in 2012.
It was also selected for performance by the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company in 2014.

Lorikeet (Live)

5th movement of "An Australian Backyard Suite". This 6-part composition depicts various flora and fauna commonly found in Australian gardens.

The movements are:
Lorikeet
Fire Ant
Tree Fern
Blue Tongue Lizard
Cicada
Poinciana

This piece received 2nd Prize in the Franz Schubert International Composition Competition in Vienna in 2012.
It was also selected for performance by the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company in 2014.

Cicada (Live)

"Towards Adventure" is a 'choose-your-own-adventure' style structured improvisation. Performers make their own way through the piece by following different paths. One leads to a pit of spiders while the other leads to a crystal cave. The goal for this piece was to give performers the freedom to respond to one another, and to explore how sound travels through the performance space.

This is a live recording of the premiere of the arrangement at 'Aftersound' at the Verge Gallery, 2 June 2018.
Performed by Marcus Whale, Rainbow Chan, Isabella Fiorentino and Oscar Saran.

June 2018.

Towards Adventure

Towards Adventure | Saxophone Quartet

Also known as "Sol Tempest", if you want the more pretentious title. Written in December 2011, revised January 2012 at National Music Camp.

Summer Thunderstorm

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)

Mark Holdsworth [BMus, BA (Hons), MMus] is an Australian composer and researcher currently based in Perth, Western Australia. Holdsworth is a graduate of the University of Western Australia's Conservatorium of Music; he received first class honours for his Bachelor of Arts (2015) and was awarded the coveted Rupert Thackray Prize for Music Education,  he was also the recipient of a full Australian Postgraduate Award for his Master of Music (2018). Holdsworth studied primarily under renowned Australian composers James Ledger and Dr. Christopher Tonkin.

Holdsworth's current projects include four new commissions for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2018-19 Australian Composers School, and 2 new commissions for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as part of Holdsworth's appointment as the MSO Young Composer in Residence for 2019.

... Holdsworth's works have been premiered by some of Australia's most prestigious musicians. In 2010, he was selected for the National Composers Forum (Adelaide) where he received tutelage under composer Carl Vine. The event culminated in the premiere of his Frida Kahlo Portraits by the Australian String Quartet. In 2014, he was selected for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra's Young & Emerging Artists: Composition Project, culminating in the premiere of his Chamber Symphony: A Broken Vow (further information and podcasts may be accessed through the official ABC and Australian Music Centre websites). Holdsworth was subsequently commissioned by Ted Snell and the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery to compose Primrose for the 2014 Momento Mori Exhibition. In 2015, Holdsworth was selected to attend the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra's Composer's School culminating in a performance of Odyssey, Holdsworth's symphonic overture, for which he was awarded the Dorothy Ellen Ransom Prize in the previous year. His relationship with the TSO has since led to the collaborative education project Songbook. Holdsworth has also worked on various film projects including the FTI WA short film Outline directed by Cody Cameron-Brown, which premiered at the Festival de Cannes Short Film Corner in 2016. The short was nominated for 5 Western Australian Screen Awards including Best Original Music. In 2016, he was commissioned by Andrew Foote and the School of Music at the University of Western Australia to compose Komm Du a work for solo soprano, mixed choir and wind symphony. Komm Du was premiered by Gemma McNamee, the UWA Symphony Chorus and Wind Orchestra. Holdsworth was accepted into the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's 2016 Composition Summer School where he received tutelage under Sir James MacMillan, Gordon McPherson, Oliver Searle, Rory Boyle and David Fennessey. His work for sextet, The Ashes of Time was performed and recorded by the RCS's ensemble in residence, Musiclab. Following his involvement at the RCS, cellist Krista Low gave the world premiere of Holdsworth's latest solo cello work The Crucible at Academie Voix Nouvelles, Royaumont Abbey, north of Paris, France. In 2017, Holdsworth was among four composers selected nationwide to attend the Australian Youth Orchestra's National Music Camp where his second chamber symphony, A Fool's Prayer, was premiered by an ensemble comprising tutors of the AYO NMC. Holdsworth was subsequently commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to compose a new work for the 2017 Cybec Composition Program. L'appel du vide was premiered by a subset of the MSO in February 2018. Holdsworth was consequently appointed the MSO Cybec Young Composer in Residence for 2019. Holdsworth has also been chosen to return to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra's Composer's School for their new two-year reformatted program involving the commission of four new works across 2018-19.