Meet the conductor

WASO's new principal conductor (starting 2014) is in town and his concert on the weekend caused a sensation. Asher Fisch was introduced to the media at a banquet lunch today and the Perth Concert Hall was brimming with excitement.

"I could hear the difference in the orchestra from the first note in the cello section," declared Evan Kennea manager of artistic planning.

CEO Craig Whitehead enthused over Fisch's reputation for Romantic repertoire.

The orchestral players credited him with being a clear communicator and comparisons were made with Simone Young because of his fastidious rehearsal technique and vision for a specific sound and shape.

The ultimate compliment came from a wind player: "At the tea breaks everyone is smiling, there is no moaning - everyone is happy!"

And the feeling appears to be mutual. Fisch described WASO as a diamond. "And if you are someone who likes to polish diamonds - the diamonds in the UK and US are polished to death (there are some in Italy but they are very rough!) - if you hear about a diamond in Perth that is of great value, then you go there."

The Israeli conductor first conducted WASO 14 years ago and says any weaknesses have disappeared as players retired and replacements raised the bar.

"I hear no weaknesses, it is all a very high level. I want to create a profile for this orchestra where people will hear their sound and know this is WASO."

Slowly the enthusiasm began to rub off on me and my concerns about his lack of symphonic experience (see Fisch out of water?) began to fade. Fisch doesn't seem to be under any illusions; he described his arrival at WASO as 'graduating' to a symphonic position after many years as an opera conductor. His 'apprenticeship'  credentials are impressive (he has 85 operas in his repertoire and has done stints with Israeli Opera, Vienna Opera, Seattle Opera) and as a protégé of Daniel Barenboim he is brimming with ideas.

Fisch also seems to have a depth to him that the orchestral players are relishing after the effervescent but one-dimensional Paul Daniel.

However his repertoire is unashamedly 19th century. The 2014 season is packed full of German romantic repertoire: Wagner, Schuman, Schubert and a complete Beethoven symphonic cycle. As far as Fisch is concerned music starts with Haydn.

"I leave anything before that to the Baroque specialists," Fisch says. "And don't ask me to conduct modern music. I have a clear line, I will not conduct Shostakovich or Prokofiev, or Stravinsky."

Shostakovich is modern? Then Schoenberg must be space-age. Fisch's perspective seems limited but his fervour is welcome. In fact he is comfortable with music by his peers and Evan reassures me Fisch is referring to style; the sardonic irony of the 20th century Russian repertoire involves a degree of musical façade which doesn't suit Fisch's approach to communicating musically.

Lets not forget there is a reason the warhorse symphonies are core repertoire. When done with the red-blooded vitality and intellectual candour Fisch promises it could be a sensational year.

 For WASO's full 2014 season brochure go here.

For a  review of Asher's weekend concert go here.


Apologies for the 'selfie' but had to put it in despite the soft focus (poor form for a journalist/photographer Will Yeoman!!).

Women of Note now has classroom activities!

In twentieth century Australia being a female composer was a dangerous game. One composer was diagnosed as mentally insane by her psychiatrist husband, several achieved success only after their divorces, and for others the only way to get their music published was to lie about their gender. Still, the allure of writing music enticed women from all walks of life.
From the convent and the nappy-change table, women began to compose. Now 25% of Australia’s composers are women, more than almost any other country in the world.




SUGGESTED ACTIVITY
Listen to a selection of compositions at the following YouTube links:

Composer: Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Work: Drama for Orchestra

Listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I46BxEwavto

 

 

 

Composer: Elena Kats-Chernin, Work: Eliza’s Aria

Listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llTU538pA5g

 

 

 

Composer: Cat Hope, Work: In The Cut

Listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5faIOEO58

OR

http://cathope.bandcamp.com/track/in-the-cut-2009

 

 

Each of the women featured in this book was so passionate about their music that they pursued their goals to the detriment of their personal lives. They were Australian pioneers. Using chapters from the book Women of Note, consider the contribution they have made not only to twentieth-century music but also to the role of women in Australian society.

Download the complete teaching activity.
For school presentations contact the author at rosalindappleby(at)gmail.com


AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM LINKS
History Year 10
The Modern World and Australia
Depth study 3: The globalising world Students investigate one major global influence that has shaped Australian society in depth, including the development of the global influence during the twentieth century. Students study ONE of these electives: Popular culture or
The environment movement or Migration experiences.
Popular culture (1945–present)The nature of popular culture in Australia at the end of World War II, including music, film and sport (ACDSEH027)
Australia’s contribution to international popular culture (music, film, television, sport) (ACDSEH123)
Continuity and change in beliefs and values that have influenced the Australian way of life (ACDSEH149)

 Source ACARA v5 2013

 Buy Women of Note                         Women of Note teaching activity

Totally Huge New Music Festival

The highlight of August is the biennial Totally Huge New Music Festival. This year the festival is something of an extravaganza because it is running alongside the 2013 International Computer Music Conference which is being hosted in Perth. It is worth downloading the program yourself but here are some highlights I have picked out:

·         Festival Opener Friday 9^th The Bakery 8pm. Melbourne new music mavericks Speak Percussion make their THNMF return with a set paying homage to British nightclub music from the nineties. They are joined by Japanese sonic artist Haco and avant-garde doom metal group Barn Owl.

·         Michael Kieran Harvey Sunday 11^th Government House Ballroom 3pm. Australia’s most provocative and exciting pianist in a concert of solo piano music that includes his own Psychosonata.

·         Club Huge 11^th-15^th  The Bakery 9:30pm onwards: Drop in at the festival nightclub and unwind with music curated by Sam Gillies and featuring live laptop, ambient and beats artists.

·         ICMC Concert Series Perth Cultural Centre various locations. Guitar, piano and cello interact with electronics in a series of three conference concerts. Surround Sound Events and Installations featuring electronic composers from around the world will also be in operation, the extensive program is available online.

·         Latitude Series: 14^th & 17^th Astor Theatre, 8pm. The WA Symphony Orchestra present two hip concerts featuring music by local composers Jared Yapp and Lachlan Skipworth. Also a Radiohead-inspired piece by the popular Steve Reich and a concerto for electric violin by Nico Muhly.

·         THNMF in Fremantle 17^th & 18^th Victoria Quay, 3pm. The heritage B Shed will resonate like never before in two free concerts by experimental music legend Alvin Curran. 35 musicians will perform the choreographed BEAMS and sampled ship sounds will fill the port in Maritime Rites.

 

 

Totally Huge New Music Festival August 9^th-18^th

More details tura.com.au

 

Alvin Curran composer in residence

As a child Alvin Curran would stay up late listening to the ship horns outside his bedroom window in the port town of Providence, Rhode Island. But instead of thinking of Moby Dick he dreamed of making music with the sounds. Curran is now renowned as one of America’s most eclectic composers. Based in Italy he continues to draw on sounds from the natural world in his compositions. Curran is composer-in-residence for the Totally Huge New MusicFestival (August 9^th-18^th) and several of his pieces will be performed across the ten-day new music extravaganza.

 

“Anything that is resonant is my instrument,” explains Curran. “It could be a primitive ram’s horn, electronics, walking through puddles or the sound of a thousand tubas. It is not a mash up or a remix, it has evolved out of my own DNA.”

Curran’s broad approach to contemporary classical music perfectly suits the experimental festival which is masterminded by the all-embracing Tura New Music. The headline artists include Italian electronics composer Agostino Di Scipio, Japanese deconstructed pop artist Haco, UK’s David Toop, Australia’s figurehead of experimental music Warren Burt, Robin Fox, Michael Kieran Harvey and ensembles Speak Percussion, Decibel and Clocked Out Duo.

The impressive list of international artists is thanks in part to the International Computer Music Conference which is being held in Perth this year. The conference is the pre-eminent annual gathering for computer music practitioners from around the world and is expected to attract hundreds of international artists to Perth during August.

Over the course of his career Curran – who is one of the keynote speakers at the conference - has witnessed the overwhelming impact the electronics and computer music has made on music culture.

“I have bridged nearly fifty years in electronic music making from the early synthesiser and tape to this brave new world of digital electronics. You know, I’m sick of learning new machines,” he laughs.

He believes electronics has become the meeting place of popular and unpopular (experimental) music and is forming a new musical genre. Curran’s keynote address for the conference will explore the history of electronics and make some daring predictions about the future.

“Soon there will be internet concert halls and microchip enhancement of musicians,” he says. “I’m serious!”

And Curran could well be the one to make it happen. His latest commission is a double piano concerto which draws on music contributed form the iPhones of people in the audience. Curran’s extensive catalogue of works defies categorisation and includes pieces for radio, solo works, large scale choreographed pieces, sound installations and theatre works.

Yet for all his eclecticism Curran’s entry into music making was fairly traditional. He played trombone in jazz bands and studied composition at Yale School of Music with Elliott Carter. He then moved his base to Europe and ended up co-founding, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, the radical collective Musica Elettronica Viva. He counts as colleagues people like John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Earl Brown, Milton Babbit, Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Robert Moog, La Monte Young and Giacinto Scelsi.

Curran has had several teaching posts around the world but he and his wife have remained based in Rome where Curran’s rooftop vegetable garden overlooks the Colosseum.

“Culturally, politically and economically Italy has been in a continuous and dangerous slide for the last 25 years. But I don’t have anything to lose anymore, I’ve done my career. And this city has been here 2000 years which gives a sense of permanence to the chaos and change.”

These days when he composes Curran’s inspiration comes from simply being alive and having work to do.

“I want to continue making music that makes me happy and that others can enjoy. Music can transport you; it’s like a transport system.” He continues the analogy with a chuckle: “You pay a ticket and get on and if it’s good you go with it. That’s what I do, I transport people and things!”

He has written a piece for Decibel ensemble which he describes as Alvin Curran minimalism, “a kind of virtuoso chamber piece”. Way Out Back will be premiered Sunday 11^th August at Hacket Hall alongside works by other ICMC keynote speakers.

Curran is a keen exponent of taking music out of the concert hall and performances of two of his works will take place at Victoria Quay, Fremantle in the final weekend of the festival. BEAMS (2005) is Curran at his most avant-garde and requires 35 musicians, a chorus, basketballs, bass drums and metal objects.

“This piece is a form of provocation that leads to delight,” Curran says mysteriously. “For example the instrumentalists have to roll on the floor while playing. It is written in the spirit of randomness and pure fun and invites the public to be part of it.”

 

Maritime Rites is an iconic outdoor piece which has been performed in rivers, lakes and ports around the world since it was first created in 1979. The Fremantle version will feature Curran performing a sixty minute midi-keyboard improvisation in the Victoria Quay B Shed. He has also requested a ‘sail by’ of a rock band on a boat. Curran will be drawing on thousands of digital samples of ship horns, signal bells and other related sounds including recordings of the ship horns outside his bedroom window that first inspired him all those years ago.

 

Totally Huge New Music Festival August 9^th-18^th

More details tura.com.au

 

Gender Inbalance: it just won't go away

An article in the New York Times is generating debate about the nagging issue of gender imbalance among composers. The issue just won't go away and, as I discovered while researching Women of Note, composers have many different responses.

In the article below American composer Kristin Kuster describes how her perspective on feminism has changed.

I found it interesting that the statistics for women are much more dire in the US. We have a higher percentage of women composers in Australia and they are better represented in university departments. Something to celebrate? Read on and enter the debate for yourself:

Taking Off My Pants

 by Kristin Kuster, The New York Times

July 17 2013 

The Season of My Denial and Evasion lasted nearly two decades — from the age of 18 to 36. During this season, I wore pants for premieres of my music, while performing as a pianist and teaching, for all important composerly things. I hated the “What’s it like to be a woman composer” question at pre-concert talks, on panels and in interviews. If I couldn’t evade this question, I rattled off something dismissive: How could I possibly know any different? That’s like asking me what if I had grown up in Alaska. I refused to enter any competitions exclusively for female composers or to have my music presented at women-only concerts.

I learned this attitude. I learned it from a handful of female composers 5 to 10 years my senior. They believed that talking about our gender in relation to our work would perpetuate the distinction between male and female composers, and therefore pave right over all the ground we had gained in our efforts to break through the gender normative white-male hegemony that is this field.

O.K. I agreed, and for years I perpetuated a non-perpetuation of gender distinction. Today, I vehemently disagree with the notion that if we stop talking about something, it ceases to exist. Today, I believe we must cast a spotlight on facts and evidence that illuminate the gender imbalance of composers with visibly active presences in our field.

read the rest of the article here

Decibel at PICA

How to cover eight brand new pieces of music in one review? A happy dilemma.

 

CONCERT REVIEW The West Australian Newspaper

July 8th 2013

 

Eight West Australian composers, six musicians, one room, and one mandate: the music must include electronics. The result was a fascinating concert that featured jazz composers, WAAPA graduates and seasoned electronics composers, revealing the breadth of creativity in the local new music scene.

Brad Serls

Decibel was ensemble in residence for two weeks at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art which allowed composers to attend rehearsals and incorporate the distinctive reverb of the performance space into the music.

Henry Anderson’s Resident Frequencies ‘introduced’ the performance space with a composition that responded to a recording of the ‘sound’ of the room. The resonant frequencies were layered to create an electronic hum while the ensemble of flute, bass clarinet, violin cello and percussion picked out pitches to mimic the recording.

The distinct rhythmic groove in Johannes Luebbers work The past is never far behind contrasted with a section of free improvisation. Luebbers utilised computer software to create electronic ‘responses’ to the live sounds, resulting in a fairly dense electro-acoustic ensemble sound.

Stuart James’ N-dimension was more free-form and the performers used ear pieces to maintain independent tempos. Snippets of instrumental sounds were refracted between the surround-sound speakers creating the effect of chaotic multi-layering.

The political overtones in Lindsay Vickery’s Silent Revolution and Rachael Dease’s The Perils of Obedience came from images projected on the wall. Footage of waste dumps and psychology experiments literally shaped the scores and musical responses of the respective pieces, creating macabre, decaying soundworlds.

In Chris Tonkin’s Rapid Same Question the crackles and beeps of computer sounds dialogued with the instruments with orchestral precision. The seamless integration continued to the end where the hum of a wine glass blended with the gentle whine of electronic overtones.

Cat Hope’s The Lowest Drawer continued her exploration of the bottom end of the sound spectrum with a ponderous decline in pitch from bass flute, bass clarinet and bass drum contrasting with the ringing almost irritating brightness of a sine wave pitch.

Sam Gillies’ The Aura Implicit was a stimulating contrast. Electronic static was joined by lively instrumental sounds which ricocheted between the speakers and to create a busy soundscape. 

The two well-attended concerts on the weekend demonstrated what many of us already know: Decibel has become a vital institution in the generation and performance of new music in WA.

 

This review copyright The West Australian newspaper 2013

 

 

 

 

 

Music Monday July

It is mid-winter and finally chilly in Perth. I'm looking forward to a lusty Don Giovanni (WA Opera) to stir the blood. The season runs July 16-23 at Perth Concert Hall and stars Teddy Tahu Rhodes in the role that really made him (and his bare chest) famous.

 Jian Wang (cello) and Bernadette Harvey (piano) are touring Australia with a beautiful recital program which arrives in Perth Thursday (11th),

 

On Saturday (13th) Beethoven's Ninth is being performed by the WA Youth Orchestra and UWA Choral Society. I'm a little over this work - WASO have done it twice recently - but I have to admit it will be exciting for the young musicians to perform such a monster piece.

On Friday 19th July the WA Symphony Orchestra celebrate the West End with David Shannon (think Phantom, Les Mis).