Seven Times Around the Sun

Commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) as part The ANAM Set 2024 and written for Aditya Bhat, with its world premiere during ANAM’s 2024 recital season at the Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne. 

The ANAM Set 2024 has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body and generously supported by the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation.

The ANAM Set 2024 was recorded in the Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre by ABC Classic - Duncan Yardley, Producer and Alexander Stinson, Audio Engineer.

Aditya Bhat, percussion.

Victor Arul's 'Disconcerts Of Large Structures' performed by Aditya Bhat | The ANAM Set

Fish and Balloons (2024) - Duo XAMP

Source: "The Termite Song" (https://soodoonymm.bandcamp.com/album/tempura-reborn) 

This composition was made in part with the use of FluCoMa software (https://www.flucoma.org/download/). Thanks to all those who made FluCoMa!

Re_Thermosetting

Excerpts from Wire and Pine (2025).

Wire and Pine pays tribute to the small, homemade Celtic harp that was fashioned, without any plan or blueprint, by my grandfather. Guided only by his intuition and knack for woodworking, he created an instrument that fostered my love of harp folk music and ultimately set me on my future career path (albeit in an indirect way).

Made from the materials he had to hand - soft pine wood and fishing wire – the instrument can no longer be tuned; the hard metal tuning pegs (read: washers and bolts) having sunk into the pale wood. However, its musical life has taken on a new dimension in Wire and Pine.

One recent summer in my childhood garage (not the most pristine of recording conditions), I sampled each of the harp's strings, naming the pitches one by one as I plucked and recorded. These recorded notes - transformed, re-tuned and for the most part transported from the context of that dusty garage – comprise the backbone of this electroacoustic work, which aims to set free the music inherent in this beloved little instrument. Now and again, the sonic dust of the garage makes it into the tail of a harp note. The sounds cannot be clinically separated from their real-world context without losing some of their spirit.

The work moves from exploring its recognisable sound source to a dense and reverent sound world. The harp’s plucks and scratches are joined by a chorus of morose voices. Finally, fishing wire flies as the notes become unbound from any semblance of Western tuning.

Full track on Bandcamp. 

Listen in full

Wire and Pine - Part I

Armchair (2025) - catinblack ensemble

Underwater Toothpaste and Quantum Skateboard (2025) - Yarn/Wire

Too excited to share this special excerpt of Sensitive Instruments with performer, poet and chemist Geosmin Turpin. Performed live in July 2024 at Local Edition, Glebe.

Seven Times Around the Sun

Sophie Van Dijk - Composer

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