News
News
2011-12-12
I've just finishing three short works for piano based on Satie's Gnossiennes which I love to play. The only problem with I've found with Satie's is that there just isn't enough - so I thought I'd compose another three just for fun over January. Well my new CD 'A Vision of Wildflowers' is well and truly finished and I'm just starting to send it out to various radio station and choir directors. I'm really happy with the CD and the sound is really lovely thanks to Trackdown Studio, Peter Wakely, and mastering engineer Kathy Naunton of dB Mastering. The CD sets poetry by Kevin Hart in the Wimmera Song Cycle for Halcyon (two female voices - Jenny Duck-Chong, Alison Morgan), piano (Sally Whitwell), Cello (Geoffrey Gartner), flute (Sally Walker)), and there are also six new sacred choral works performed by Trinity College Choir in Melbourne, conducted by Michael Leighton Jones. You can purchase the CD on this website. At the moment I'm just finishing a book called Paradise Imagined: Scots Gaelic Songs from Australia. This has been an enormous amount of work and has required several trips to Scotland for research (but I'm not complaining). I really hope to get this finished over January.
Latest News: Early January 2011
2011-01-10
January 5th and 7th I was in the recording studio with Niven Stines at the School of Music editing the final touches to the Trinity College Choir recordings for my soon to be completed CD 'A Vision of Wild Flowers'. This CD has a focus on my vocal writing and will feature Trinity Choir and Halcyon performing some of the new works I composed as the ArtsACT Creative Arts Fellow. The cover is ready to go (well almost) and I just need to tweak a few more things before the mastering begins.
I have just finished a solo piano work "The Winter it is Past' for pianist Joanne Polk from the Manhattan School of Music, New York. This work will be premiered in April in both New York and Canberra at the same time via videoconference link. If you want to know more about this work, go to my blog where I've written quite a bit about it.
I'll be performing with my folk fusion band Eilean Mòr in Adelaide as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. So if you are around Adelaide on the 19th February go to the Mt Barker oval where we'll be performing at the Celts on the Green event.
News: for the year 2010
2010-12-15
The year 2010 was a very busy one with lots of teaching, loads of admin, plenty of composing (snatched whenever possible), research and recording. Performance took a back seat which allowed me time to push forward with my composing.
31 April was a wonderful lecture-recital at the Research School of the Humanities with Gaelic singer Christine Primrose all the way from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. This event sparked an idea which has led to Ethnomusicologist Stephen Wild and I planning a colloquium on laments to be held this around Easter this year (2011).
A work of mine for Chinese Lute (ruan) was performed on the 29th May at the Singapore Embassy by Pei Qian Chow. She is such a great player.
A spin-off from Eilean Mòr — Eilean Beag — was formed with me, and Bill Grose and Ian Stewart and we did several performances of some new Gaelic repertoire at the National Celtic Festival from 12–14 June. This festival has to be one of my all time favourite festivals. It has a terrific atmosphere and lots of good music and food — what more could you ask for? I also did a couple of Gaelic song workshops and I have to thank Christine Primrose for all of her coaching.
May 9th and I was in Brisbane for the New Encounters event that saw the commissioning of 18 Australian composers, including myself for short works drawing on the Harvest of Endurance Scroll held in the National Museum of Australia. My piece was a setting of a poem by Australian poet Alan Gould 'The Return of Cheng-Ho's Sixth Voyage'. The Song Company performed this work and did a lovely job of interpreting my music.
September saw some performances of my sacred choral works in Melbourne with the Trinity College Choir under the very able direction of Michael Leighton Jones. They performed 'I Heard a Loud Voice from Heaven', my Magnificat, Gloria, and Nunc Dimittis. Fortunately I was able to go along and hear the choir.
On September 7th Halcyon premiered by Wimmera Song Cycle that set a poetry cycle by Australian poet Kevin Hart about the landscape around the Wimmera in Victoria. The concert was held in Llewellyn Hall. It's been almost ten years since my last work was performed there by Alison Morgan and Jenny Duck-Chong so it was great to be working with them again.
On the I was involved with one of Australia's finest composers, Mary Finsterer, in her project called the Living Instrument. This year the emphasis was on Japan and my choir sang some songs I had arranged for them along with some new material composed for them by Mary. It was such a successful concert and really drew in a whole new set of people to hear something very unusual that worked beautifully musically.
On the 20th I began recording the Wimmera Song Cycle with Halcyon at Trackdown Studios in Sydney. Very efficient studio that does a really fine job. And at the end of September it was down to Melbourne to record six of my new sacred works with Michael Leighton- Jones directing Trinity College Choir. A most eventful day that was and one which I'll never forget! What with rumbling trams, trucks and helicopters plus the fact that Michael was decidedly unwell. But despite all he plowed on and we got the job done.
November saw me in Sydney again working on the Wimmera Song Cycle with myself, Jenny and Alison. This recording is looking very promising and many thanks go to all the players for their input into this work.
December and time to head off to the Musicology Society of Australia's conference in Dunedin, New Zealand where I gave a paper on Marjory Kennedy's two concert tours of Australia. Finished another paper on the film Orlando for a British journal and began work on my book on Gaelic Songs of Australia, which I hope to have finished by the end of this year.
10th December I was back in the studio — this time at the School of Music with the talented engineer Niven Stines editing the Trinity College Choir recordings. Some great takes here despite the distant rumble of the Melbourne trams on Royal Parade, but the acoustic in the chapel is so amazing it's worth the extraneous noise.
Finally time to head back to Melbourne as my old dad graduates with his PhD from Melbourne University at the tender age of 88! He's so inspiring.
Christmas and New Year and I don't do anything except take the dogs to the beach and read novels (Georgette Heyer for the hundreth time — I think I know them all of by heart but I never get sick of them for pure relaxation).
That was 2010.
Premiere of new work
2009-09-25
Then I Heard a Great Voice from Heaven …
will be premiered at Evensong, 6.00pm, at the Newcastle Cathedral, Newcastle NSW, on the 27th of September 2009.
New works
2009-09-16
My new works — Magnificat, Nunc Dimittas, and Gloria were recently completed.
Creative Arts Fellow
2009-01-01
Awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship funded by ArtsACT, Canberra for 2009.
I will be composing a series of vocal works including:
- Three children's songs for Canberra Children's Voices, directed by Dr Susan West.
- Wimmera Songs a song cycle for Halcyon, a Sydney based chamber ensemble. Scored for two female voices (Jenny Duck-Chong and Alison Morgan), piano, and clarinet — a setting of the evocative texts of the Victorian desert region by Australian poet Kevin Hart, from the book Wicked Heat.
- A Fold in the Light a cycle of three works premiered in Canberra by the SCUNA choir conducted by Dr Jonathan Powles. Texts by Australian poet, Alan Gould.
- A choral cycle of five pieces for children's choir Gondwana Voices (Sydney) directed by Lyn Williams.
- Song cycle based on religious texts written by Prof. Dorothy Lee (poet and Doctor of Theology at Trinity College Melbourne). The theme of the cycle will be the Annunciation and the religious and symbolic significance of Mary.
- A series of sacred choral works for SATB including Magnificat, Nunc Dimittas, Gloria and Then I Heard a Great Voice from Heaven …
