Decibel ensemble with student composers
WA Academy of Performing Arts
The conductor cued the beginning and the members of
Decibel ensemble simultaneously pressed the space bar on their computers. This almost-comic
choreographed moment demonstrated the relationship between electronic and
acoustic instruments which is now a big part of contemporary composition.
Decibel ensemble was performing a program of music created
by WAAPA students in response to the philosophies of musical revolutionary John
Cage. The piece in question was Chance Images by Kevin Penkin which required
performers to play cells of music as they appeared randomly on the computer screen.
Jack Moriarty used chance to determine the construction of Music for Digital
Spaces. His 3D score – potentially the first of its kind in music history – was
projected on a screen and the spinning mobile of blocks and circles interpreted
by bass clarinet, bass flute, cello and electronics. Meg Travers updated Cage’s
fascination with radio to the medium of twitter, using message feeds from CNN
and related Morse code rhythms as the basis for Breaking News. Jake Steele’s
Bleep Test extrapolated Cage’s interest in games into a sprint test for the
performers who had to deliver their passage of music before the next beep.
Henry Andersen’s Pulmonary Sketches was a standout with its throbbing
rhythms and eerie ending. The sounds were derived from the recording of a
heartbeat, the sound Cage couldn’t escape when he famously visited an anechoic
chamber to listen to silence.
The award for best composition went to Samuel Gillies for
Music of Transitions which, in contrast to Cage’s preference of listening to
sounds as isolated entities, explored the properties of music as it moved
between sounds. The performers followed a graphic score and their contributions
were looped and played through opposing speakers. The darker timbres of bass
clarinet, viola and bass flute muttered conversationally while tom-tom drums thudded
and the manipulated electronic sounds added an industrial and sometime bird-like
quality to the soundscape.
The depth and diversity of works paid tribute not only to
the innovations of Cage but also indirectly to the vibrant composition program currently
running at the academy under Lindsay Vickery.
copyright The West Australian May 2012
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