The Squid's Ear Magazine


Rose, Jon: State of Play [2 CDs] (Recommended Records)

An expansive double album from Australian violinist and mad genius Jon Rose, in solo, duo and odd orchestral settings, including tracks with Jim Denley, Clayton Thomas, Robbie Avenaim, &c.; a project with a 32-string automaton violin + string ensemble; a work for a casino-music driven player-piano; a dueling banjo and interactively bowed violin, &c. &c.; masterfully inexplicable!
 

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Personnel:



Jon Rose-tenor violin, invented violins,composer

Jim Denley-alto saxophone

Freya Schack-Arnott-Nyckelharpa

Clayton Thomas-double bass

Robbie Avenaim-percussion, invented percussion, web interface

Erkki Veltheim-violin

Elizabeth Welsh-violin

Rachael Kim-violin

Biddy Connor-viola

Judith Hamann-cello

Chloe Sobek-violone

Maria Moles-web interface

Michael McNab-web interface

Antony Pitts-conductor

Ilan Volkov-conductor

Zubin Kanga-distressed organ

Cor Fuhler-keyolin

Claire Edwardes-fence

Hollis Taylor-viola

Noam Yaffe-violin

Mary Rapp-violin


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Two CDs and a 44pp color booklet containing full track details, an illuminating essay and photographs of Rose's recent projects, various automata and invented instruments.

UPC: B095KH4BWV

Label: Recommended Records
Catalog ID: ReR JR8
Squidco Product Code: 32108

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2021
Country: Australia
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold w/ booklet
Recorded between 2015 and 2021.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Two CDs and a 44pp colour booklet containing full track details, an illuminating essay and nifty photographs of Rose's recent projects, various automata and invented instruments - you know what to expect by now; Jon is never short of ideas: 60 years and half a new world are packed into this release.

You may not warm to it all - there are no half-measures taken - and although it's (probably) tougher than listening to that Yes album again, it's also a mine of lightbulb moments, stimulation, unlikely combinations of psycho-somatic data and proper training for the ears.

On disc one, Jon - playing variously violin, Thai pumpkin soup violin, tenor violin, keyolin, el lubricato (a 20 litre oil-drum with wheel-bows), string clusterfuck violin, slow bow automaton and the St. Sebastian violin - duets with Jim Denley (alto sax), Freya Schack-Arnott (nyckelharpa), Clayton Thomas (double-bass) and Robbie Avenaim (automated and manual percussion). Stylistically diverse doesn't cover it.

Disc two features recent larger-scale projects including: 1) The Web - a 32 string automaton with rotating double plectrum, accompanied by a string ensemble (in tonal and microtonal tunings); 2) the Sydney Harbour Bridge (with choir), 3) a violin (with symphony orchestra), 4), an impossible real-time solo for two banjos, tenor violin, interactive bow and a lot of extremely complicated electronic technology, 5) a very intricate variant on the aolian harp, based on an Australian washing line device), 6) a player-piano driven by MIDI data derived from a recording of a La Vegas casino, duetting with an automated violin driven by data from 24 Wall Street traders and, 7) a classic, exquisite, composition for distressed organ, automatic strings, plectraphone, two violins, a viol, cello, guitar and monochord.

Jon doesn't keep the tills jingling and even I don't like every second of everything he does, so why do we keep releasing his records, you ask - because the man is Leonardo da Vinci."-Chris Cutler, ReR Megacorp


Two CDs and a 44pp color booklet containing full track details, an illuminating essay and photographs of Rose's recent projects, various automata and invented instruments.

Artist Biographies

"Jon Rose started playing the violin at 7 years old, after winning a music scholarship to King's School Rochester. He gave up formal music education at the age of 15 and from then on, was mostly self-taught.

Throughout the 1970's, first in England then in Australia, he played, composed and studied in a large variety of music genres - from sitar playing to country & western; from 'new music' composition to commercial studio session work; from Bebop to Italian club bands; from Big Band serial composition to Sound Installations. He became the central figure in the development of Free Improvisation in Australia, performing in almost every Art Gallery, Jazz and Rock club in the country - either solo or with an international pool of improvising musicians called The Relative Band.

In 1986, he moved to Berlin in order to more fully realise his on-going project (of some 25 years): The Relative Violin). This is the development of a Total Artform based around the one instrument. Necessary to this concept has been innovation in the fields of new instrument design (over 20 deconstructed violin instruments including the legendary double piston triple neck wheeling violin, environmental performance (eg. playing fences in the Australian outback using the violin as a bow), new instrumental techniques (tested sometimes in uninterrupted marathon concerts of up to 12 hours long), both analogue (built into the violins themselves) and the more recently inter-active electronics (3 bowing to Midi systems)... plus using the mediums of radio (over 20 major International productions for radio stations like ABC, BBC, WDR, SR, BR, Radio France, RAI, ORF, SFB, etc including 'Eine Violine für Valentin', 'The Long Sufferings of Anna Magdalena Bach' and 'Breadfruit'), live-performance-film, video and television to create a new, alternative, personal and revised history for THE VIOLIN.

Jon Rose performs his group projects and solo music in upwards of 50 concerts every year - in North America, Japan, Australia, South America, China, Scandinavia and just about every country in West & East Europe. He is featured regularly in the main festivals of New Music, Jazz and Sound Art e.g. Strasbourg New Music Festival; New Music America; Moers New Jazz Festival; European Media Festival; The Vienna Festival; Ars Elektronica; The Northsea Jazz Festival; Dokumenta; Roma-Europa Festival; Festival D'Automne; Festival Musique Actuelle; The Berlin Jazz Festival, etc. Rose has also been invited to curate Contemporary Music Festivals in Germany (e.g. Berlin Urbane Aboriginale) and Austria (e.g. Wels 'Unlimited'). He has curated his own festival "String 'em up" of radical string players and their instruments, taking place in Podewil, Berlin in 1998 and Dodorama and V2, Rotterdam in 1999 , Tonic, New York in 2000, Mains D'Oeuvres, Paris in 2002, and IPR, New york in 2010.

Jon Rose has appeared on over 100 records and CD's; He has worked with many of the innovators and mavericks in contemporary music such as The Kronos String Quartet, John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Butch Morris, Barry Guy, Fred Frith, Joelle Leandre, Connie Bauer, Johannes Bauer, Chris Cutler, Otomo Yoshihide, KK Null, Alex Von Schlippenbach, Toshinori Kondo, Francis-Marie Uitti, Alvin Curran, Evan Parker, Paul Lovens, Phil Minton, Shelley Hirsh, Mark Dresser, Ben Patterson, Emmett Williams, John Cage, Joel Ryan, Peter Kowald, Borah Borgmann, Tristan Honsinger, Mari Kimura, The Soldier String Quartet, Borah Bergman, Sainko, Tristan Honsinger, Tony Oxley, Cor Fuhler, Steve Beresford, Eugene Chadbourne, Bob Ostertag, Malcolm Goldstein, Jim Denley, David Moss, Miya Masaoka, Barre Phillips, Roger Turner, George Lewis, Gunter Christmann, Davy Williams, Misha Mengelberg, Elliott Sharpe, Elena Kats Chernin, Lauren Newton, Uli Gumpert, Christian Marclay, Richard Barret, Pierre Henry, etc).

In 1989, in co-operation with New Music Festival 'Inventionen' (Berlin), he directed the first 'Relative Violin Festival' with over 50 violinists from around the world.In 1991, he directed "Das Rosenberg Museum", a surrealist satire commissioned by German Television's ZDF, this piece later became the first interactive video ever to be controlled by a violin bow. Other films/videos include 'Café Central' and 'Shopping' (both made for ORF, Austria). The Rosenberg Museum does actually exist.

Jon Rose is also the originator of 4 books - The Pink Violin and Violin Music in the Age of Shopping (both published by NMA, Melbourne); "Music of Place: Reclaiming A Practice", and rosenberg 3.0 - not violin music. Jon Rose is currently performing Palimpolin - Hyperstring 4, one of a number of highly acclaimed works for violin and inter-active software. In addition there are performances of Violin Factory featuring large string orchestras and interactive video in Europe and Australia. His group projects include Strung, Violin Music in the Age of Shopping (with the likes of Chris Cutler, Lauren Newton, Otomo Yoshihide, etc); the infamous Berlin Noise-Impro-Rock Band Slawterhaus (with Johannes Bauer, Dietmar Diesner & Peter Hollinger); The interactive 'Badminton' game Perks, based on the musical innovations and perversions of Australian freak composer Percy Grainger; and there are five established improvising trios which are currently available... The Exiles (with Tony Buck & Joe Williamson), and The Kryonics (with Aleks Kolkowski & Matthias Bauer), Artery (with Chris Abrahams and Clayton Thomas), Futch (with Thomas Lehn and Johannes Bauer), Strike (with Clayton Thomas and Mike Majkowski) and the bicycle-powered chamber orchestra composition Pursuit.

The duo Temperament was formed in 2000 with pianist Veryan Weston, specialising in improvisation with different tunings (Just, 19 tone, etc) for the keyboards and various scordatura for the violins.

Other on going projects are Australia Ad Lib which documents alternative music practice in Australia and the duo Great Fences of Australia, a collaboration with US violinist Hollis Taylor.

Since 2001 Jon Rose is again based full time in Australia: in 2005 he finished a major commission Pannikin for The Melbourne Festival, and was awarded a 2 year fellowship from The Australia Council to research and develop The Ball Project.

In 2009 The Kronos String Quartet and The Sydney Opera House commissioned Music from 4 Fences.

From 2008-2010 Jon Rose collaborated with Robin Fox on the Transmission Project and he received a further grant in 2009 from The Australia Council to work with KMI in the USA, on the K-Bow. He is also a member of the Advisory Council for The International Society for Improvised Music (ISIM).

The Music Board of The Australia Council has honored Jon Rose with its most prestigious award for life time achievement and contribution to Australian music, The Don Banks Prize 2012.

Currency House has recently published his call to action "Music of Place: Reclaiming A Practice". "

-Jon Rose Website (http://www.jonroseweb.com/a_jonrose_biography.html)
12/11/2024

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"Jim Denley was born in Bulli, Australia in January 1957. Wind instruments and electronics are core elements of his musical output.

An emphasis on spontaneity, site-specific work and collaboration has been central to his work. He sees no clear distinctions between his roles as instrumentalist, improviser and composer.

Collaborations, his radio feature for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, won the Prix Italia in 1989. His interest in radio has continued with the ABC over 17 years. In May 2006 he recorded a program for the ABC in the Budawang Mountains, south-west of Sydney, which has now been made into a CD, Through Fire, Crevice and the Hidden Valley. This received an Honorary Mention in the Digital Musics category of the Prix Ars Electronica 2008. He has been to the Budawangs again to record a new program for the ABC, Co-existence. The ABC will enter the 2006 recordings in Prix Italia 2009.

In 1990 he was a member of Derek Bailey's Company for a week of concerts in London. He co-founded the electroacoustic text/music group Machine for Making Sense.

In 2006 and 2007 he received a Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts to research and develop his concept of Meta instrument. As part of this he formed the group Metalog - they toured Australia July 2008.

He has played throughout Australia, Europe, Japan and the US with artists such as Chris Abrahams, Clare Cooper, Keith Rowe, Joel Stern, Robbie Avenaim, Jon Rose, John Butcher, Otomo Yoshide, Fred Frith, Phil Niblock, Trey Spruance, Clayton Thomas, Tess de Quincy, Axel Doerner, Adam Sussman, Ami Yoshida, Oren Ambarchi, Tony Buck, Ikue Mori, Satchiko M, Malcolm Goldstein and Annette Krebs."

-Australian Music Centre (http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/denley-jim)
12/11/2024

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"Double Bassist Clayton Thomas was born 1976, in Hobart, Australia. Inspired by the sound, velocity and social movements of jazz, Clayton has dedicated his musical life to finding a personal truth that links his own cultural life as a white Australian, with the radical, far reaching pursuits found within the creative music. What he can't find as a bass player, he searches for in the organisation of unreasonably large ensembles.

Clayton Thomas relocated in Sydney, Australia, in 2014. Clayton is currently not a regular member of the Splitter Orchester, but he was part of the 2014 concert @ MaerzMusik and he'll also take part in the 2015 concerts in Berlin and Huddersfield."

-Splitter Orchester Website (http://www.berlinsplitter.org/index.php?article_id=104)
12/11/2024

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"Robbie Avenaim is an innovative Australian musician, drummer, sound and installation artist with an international reputation for bold, sonic exploration. Avenaim has been at the forefront of the Australian experimental music scene both as a performer and a curator. Over the past 25 years Robbie has developed a unique and personal musical language on the drums, combining traditional and extended techniques with physical modification of the Drums. Modifications have included extending use of the instrument's, various motorised, robotic and kinetic percussive mechanisms and in so doing, provide greater scope for both composing and performing. As a musician / composer / instrument builder, Robbie's musical ideas are inseparable from the instruments he design's and a integral part of the compositional process. After returning from studies in New York with renowned composer John Zorn and observing the vibrant new music N.Y has to offer, Avenaim was inspired to foster a varied experimental music ecosystem in Australia by co-founding and organising the legendary WHAT IS MUSIC? Festival, Australia's premier annual touring showcase of local and international experimental music from 1994-2012 and has since organised many significant sound-based exhibitions, performances and festivals regionally and overseas, which have been essential for the local growth and international prestige of Australia's avant-garde musical reputation. Since 2017 Avenaim has developed an experimental music concert series specifically for housebound young people with disabilities, called "Safe in Sound"."

-Robbie Avenaim Website (http://www.robbieavenaim.com/index.php/biography-2/)
12/11/2024

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"Erkki Veltheim (b. 1976 Finland) is an Australian composer, improviser, performer and interdisciplinary artist.

Erkki has been commissioned by the Adelaide Festival, Vivid Festival, Australian Art Orchestra and Soundstream Collective, and his pieces have been performed by groups such as the London Sinfonietta, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Recent projects include Gawanjalkmi (Song for the fallen) for voices and large ensemble (2015), in collaboration with Gurrumul and Jonno Yunupingu, commissioned by Skinnyfish and Gone West, Belgium; audiovisual performance work Another Other (2014/2016), with co-creators Anthony Pateras, Natasha Anderson and Sabina Maselli, commissioned by Chamber Made Opera; and audiovisual installation Fusion of Tongues (2015), commissioned by Punctum and La Maison Folie, Belgium, for 'Mons 2015 - European Capital of Culture' program.

Erkki has performed with the Australian Art Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Elision and Ensemble Modern, and has featured as a soloist with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Opera and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He has long-standing collaborations with indigenous musician Gurrumul, improvising trumpet virtuoso Scott Tinkler, and composer-pianist Anthony Pateras.

Erkki is a recipient of a 2013 Myer Creative Fellowship, and in 2014 was appointed Artistic Associate of Chamber Made Opera. He holds a Master of Arts, for which he researched connections between music and ritual."

-Erkki Veltheim Website (http://erkkiveltheim.com/)
12/11/2024

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"Judith Hamann is an Australian-born cellist currently based between Melbourne and San Diego. Her performance practice stretches across various genres, encompassing elements of improvised, art, experimental, and popular music. Judith has studied contemporary repertoire with many cellists, including Charles Curtis and Séverine Ballon. She is developing a strong practice in improvisation through collaborative projects and performances, both in Australia and internationally, including Hammers Lake (with Carolyn Connors) and Golinski/Hamann/Dunscombe trio. She has worked with artists and ensembles, including Oren Ambarchi, ELISION Ensemble, Ellen Fullman, Graham Lambkin, Jon Rose, Not Yet It's Difficult, Ilan Volkov, and La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Judith is a founding member of Golden Fur and one-half of the immersive duo project Cello II (with Anthea Caddy).

She has performed widely with festivals including Tectonics (Glasgow, Adelaide), UnSound (NYC), Adelaide Festival of Arts, Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Now Now (Sydney), Dark Mona (Hobart), Extremities: Japanese Australian Festival (Tokyo), Tokyo Experimental Festival, SiDance Festival (Seoul), Ausland Summer Festival (Berlin), and Liquid Architecture (Australia).

She is a champion of new and rarely performed music and immersive approaches to concert presentation and engages with a range of interdisciplinary and experimental projects, including the Amper&nd project (Korea/Australia) and collaborative work with the visual artists Keith Deverell and Sabina Marselli. She has worked with many composers directly in presenting their work, including Natasha Anderson, Richard Barrett, Wojtek Blecharz, David Chisholm, Marco Fusinato, Liza Lim, Anthony Pateras, Timothy McCormack and Tashi Wada."

-Bifem (http://www.bifem.com.au/2015/musicians/judith-hamann)
12/11/2024

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"Chloë Sobek is a composer-performer based in Naarm, Australia. Her work is currently centred on the development of a post-anthropocentric sonic practice that encompasses a diversity of enquiry from acoustemology through to noise music. She is invested in what creative practice can do to deconstruct and reshape the way we conceptualise our collective futures.

Chloë's practice is built around the Renaissance precursor to the double bass, the violone. Her creative process couples maximalist and musique concrète sensibilities such as audio-montage and electronic processing, with a handling of sound as a senate object, unlinked and undefined by its source.

Chloë has won the 2022 Allan Zavod Performers' Award, the Monash Jazz and Improvisation postgraduate award (2021), the Marten Bequest Scholarship (2020) and the RMIT Vice Chancellor's Award (2019). Chloë has also been awarded funding from the Australia Council of the Arts, the City of Melbourne, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and was a scholarship student at the Australian National Academy of Music.

She has presented research and work at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, at TENOR2022 and is co-editor of Recent Networked Music: Performing in and Composing for the Ether issue of Contemporary Music Review (Taylor and Francis). Recent composition and performance highlights include, with the support of the Australia Council of the Arts, the commission to write, record and perform a work for Outlier (Lizzy Welsh and Chloë Sobek) and Tilman Robinson at Melbourne Recital Centre and The Theatre Royal (2021). With the support of the Marten Bequest, the commission to compose and perform a contemporary work for violone (2020) and with the support of the Castlemaine State Festival, the commission to compose and perform an animated score for Outlier (2019)."

-Chloe Sobek Website (https://www.chloesobek.com/biography)
12/11/2024

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"Maria Moles is a drummer/educator based in Melbourne. After completing a Bachelor of Music Performance at Victorian College of the Arts in 2013, she currently performs extensively around Melbourne both solo and with various ensembles, including bands/artists such as Jaala, Ajak Kwai, Jonnine Standish (HTRK), On Diamond, and Doroth.

Maria has been the drummer for some of Melbourne's most renowned artists, such as Mildlife, Jess Ribeiro, Francis Plagne, and Horatio Luna. As an improviser, she has collaborated with The Australian Art Orchestra, Anthony Pateras, Krakatau, The Sicilian Improvisers Orchestra, Ernie Althoff, Carolyn Connors, Jim Denley, Jenny Barnes, Scott Tinkler, Adam Halliwell, Lucas Abela, Rohan Drape, Kota Yamauchi (JPN), Bonnie Stewart, Marcus Mckenzie, Robbie Aveneim, and the Hobart Improvisers Collective. She has also worked as a session drummer for Sui Zhen, Gena Rose Bruce, Jess Cornelius, Darren Hanlen, Chitra, Max Sharam, Ryan Downey, Grace Turner, Low Talk, and The General Assembly.

Maria's solo project explores the use of layering sounds/rhythms played on either drum kit/percussion which are then electronically manipulated through the use of filters and pitch modulators. Her self-titled EP was released in 2016 through Tonelist, and was listed on Avant Music News under Best Albums of the Year 2016. In her short time performing solo, Maria has supported Clever Austin (Hiatus Kaiyote) and Chris Corsano (Bjork, Thurston Moore, Evan Parker), and has performed an improvised score to Ben Christensen's 1922 silent film at Dark Mofo Festival 2017."

-Maria Mo Website (https://www.mariamoles.com/about/)
12/11/2024

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"Antony Pitts is a composer, conductor, producer, and winner of the Prix Italia, Cannes Classical, and Radio Academy BT Awards. From Hampton Court Chapel Royal treble, New College Oxford Academic and Honorary Senior Scholar, TONUS PEREGRINUS founder-director, Royal Academy of Music Senior Lecturer, BBC Radio 3 Senior Producer to Artistic Director of The Song Company, his music has been heard at London's Wigmore Hall and Westminster Cathedral, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Berlin's Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal, and Sydney Opera House.

Antony Pitts was born in 1969 and is a composer, conductor, sound designer, lecturer, developer, broadcaster, recording producer, and keyboard player, and recipient of the Radio Academy BT Award, the Cannes Classical Award, and the Prix Italia. One of several composers in his family, he sang as a treble in the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, and wrote his first pieces down at the age of 8. At New College, Oxford he was an Academic Scholar and later an Honorary Senior Scholar; he gained the joint highest mark in Moderations and First-Class Honours in Music. His career since has combined academic, industry, and professional experience at world-class levels: a decade-long association with the Royal Academy of Music culminating in an internationally-recognized research project as Senior Lecturer; a rich and varied output as a BBC Senior Producer marked by ground-breaking practice and an exceptional catalogue of awards and nominations; and a creative record as a composer, scholar, and performer with an acclaimed series of recordings of "milestones of early Western music" on Naxos, and commissions for leading ensembles and festivals in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East, including the Cheltenham Music Festival, The Clerks, Dal'Ouna, Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy, Festival of the Voice, King's College London, the Netherlands' Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap, London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, the Choir of New College Oxford, Oxford Camerata, Oxford Festival of Contemporary Music, Rundfunkchor Berlin, The Swingle Singers, and the Choir of Westminster Cathedral. While still at New College he founded TONUS PEREGRINUS and in 2004 won a Cannes Classical Award for his interpretation of Arvo Pärt's Passio with the ensemble. He joined Radio 3 in 1992, and in 1995 received the Radio Academy BT Award for a pioneering webcast; he has been nominated no fewer than eight times for the premier international radio award, the Prix Italia, winning in 2004 with A Pebble in the Pond. He devised new courses in Composition and Creative Technology for the Royal Academy of Music, and is patron of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music and an honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Church Music. As a performer, he made his Glastonbury debut in 2014.

Antony's music has been premiered at Wigmore Hall and Westminster Cathedral in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal in Berlin, as well as at more unusual venues and occasions such as Crossness Engines Pumping Station and the memorial events for former Soviet agent Alexander Litvinenko; his scores are published by 1equalmusic and Faber Music - notably XL, the companion 40-part motet to Tallis's Spem in alium - and recordings of his music, including several complete albums, are available on Delphian, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Signum, and Unknown Public, and he has a considerable output of radiophonic works and acoustic art commissioned by and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and across the EBU. He was commissioned by Klaus Heymann to create The Naxos Book of Carols, also published by Faber Music and circulated to millions of homes in the UK; his double-choir mass setting for the Dutch Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap was the first to be commissioned by the foundation for almost 500 years and was premiered complete and recorded in 2016 in The Netherlands under the direction of Stephen Layton for release in 2017; his cantata for string quartet and traditional Arab ensemble - Who is my neighbour? - was the focus of an Aldeburgh residency at Snape, as well as a teaching week for Aldeburgh Young Musicians and workshops at the Al Kamandjâti music centre in Ramallah, and he conducted its premiere at the opening night of the Spitalfields Summer Festival; his oratorio-musical Jerusalem-Yerushalayim received a standing ovation both at its first performance in Northern Ireland and at its U.S. premiere in May 2012, and a studio recording under his direction was released as a double album in 2013 and has been remixed for release with narration by David Suchet in 2017. Commissions in 2016 included pieces for the Choir of New College, Oxford and an ensemble Antiphony for Syria. In 2016 Antony took over the direction of Australia's leading vocal ensemble, The Song Company - succeeding Roland Peelman as the first new Artistic Director for a quarter of a century."

-Antony Pitts Website (http://antonypitts.com/biography/)
12/11/2024

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"Born in Israel in September 1976, Ilan Volkov began his conducting career at the age of nineteen. Following studies at London's Royal College of Music, he secured positions as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony. In 2003 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and subsequently became its Principal Guest Conductor in 2009.

Between 2011 and 2014 he held the post of Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Volkov's arrival coincided with the opening of Harpa, Reykjavík's visually striking new concert hall. During his tenure in Iceland, he created the Tectonics Festival, which features programmes of classical modern music combined with other new music genres such as improvisation, electronics and rock. Since then, Tectonics has expanded around the world with residencies in cities like Glasgow, Adelaide, Oslo, New York and Tel Aviv."

-MaestroArts (http://maestroarts.com/artists/ilan-volkov)
12/11/2024

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"Zubin Kanga is a pianist, composer, improviser and technologist. Over the last decade he has established his reputation in Europe and Australia as a leading innovator of new approaches to the piano. His work in recent years has focused on new models of interaction between a live musician and new technologies, including motion-sensor-controlled live electronics, AI, reinterpretations of cinema history, live-generated 3D visuals, analogue synthesizers, keyboard samplers, magnetic resonators, stop-motion animation, audio scores, keyboards as video-game-style controllers, multi-keyboard virtuosity, interactions with live-video, and internet-based scores.

Zubin has performed at many international festivals and international venues including the BBC Proms, London Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) Melbourne Festival, Sydney Festival (Australia), Festival Présences (France), Klang Festival (Denmark), Darmstadt, Podium Festival (Germany), Resonator Festival (Sweden), Gaudeamus Festival, November Music (Netherlands), CUBE, Graz (Austria) and Borealis Festival (Norway). He has performed several concerti under the composer's baton, including with Thomas Adès and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and with Beat Furrer and the London Sinfonietta. He is a member of Ensemble Offspring and has performed duos with Brett Dean, Rolf Hind, Thomas Adès and Jack Liebeck.

Zubin has collaborated with many of the world's leading composers including Michael Finnissy, George Benjamin, Nicole Lizée, Steve Reich, and Liza Lim and premiered more than 120 new works. His collaboration with Alexander Schubert on WIKI-PIANO.NET is being performed in a 25 city international tour and has been covered by The Times (UK), WDR (Germany National Radio), Limelight Magazine, Sydney Morning Herald, German national television, BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service.

Zubin is a graduate of the University of Sydney (Arts and Science degrees), and a Masters and PhD graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London. He went on to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nice and IRCAM, Paris before becoming a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has written widely on music and new technologies and composer-performer dynamics, and was the Guest Editor of a Special Issue of Contemporary Music Review. He was recently appointed as Lecturer in Performance and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London."

-Zubin Kanga Website (http://www.zubinkanga.com/bio)
12/11/2024

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"Cor Fuhler, described by the ABC as 'A Modern Day Renaissance Man', is an interdisciplinary eclectic musician, improviser, composer, sound artist, multi instrumentalist, instrument builder, inventor, visual artist, researcher and scholar whose practice crosses into installation, visual art, dance, puppetry, comic strip, music theatre and site-specific performance. He is a conservatorium trained pianist, guitarist and experimental electronics player, and is renowned for his pioneering extended piano techniques and his invention the keyolin, a hybrid violin and piano. He often functions as axle between various art forms: he has written scripts, choreographies and music for theatre, radio plays, dance and puppetry. Cor has a preference for juxtaposing old and new technologies (from super 8 film to the latest digital software) and he has composed for ethnic instruments, western instruments, self built devices and various electronic media. In his work, he puts a strong emphasis on awareness of acoustic and visual phenomena at a specific time and place.

Born 1964 in the Netherlands in a multi-cultural family (he is partly Romani), after travelling and since 2010 living in Australia, Cor is influenced by several creative cultures. He took his first lessons on organ at the age of 10, but disillusioned by the complete lack of understanding from his teachers (he mostly changed compositions and instruments to his personal preference), he soon became autodidact. Again disillusioned, but now by his own lack of instrumental technique and general knowledge, in 1983 he decided to go to the highly esteemed Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam to study piano and teaching methodology (his main teachers were Nico Langenhuijsen - piano and Misha Mengelberg - composition). During this time he spent much of his time in libraries, museums and on his bicycle in order to avoid musical tunnel vision. After finishing his studies in 1989, a year earlier than planned, he travelled around in Indonesia and went back to his natural state of following his own intuition. Since then he has been the artistic leader of his own ensembles (e.g., Corkestra, Wayang Detective, Fuhler/Bennink/de Joode, Cortet and solo), he toured internationally (Europe, Canada, USA, Japan, etc.) and released over 50 CDs, mostly with his own works and artistic concepts.

After a two-year research period Cor attained his PhD in composition in 2016 at the University of Sydney (with supervision by composer Damien Ricketson) and is now an active researcher with special interest in the relationship improvisation-composition, compositional multiplicity, corporeal kinetic installations, Fluxus, magic and mystery in art, and acoustic ecology. In 2017 he published his book Disperse and Display (which demonstrates a holistic approach to his research on modular compositional techniques and extended instrumental techniques) and he started working at the Conservatorium of Music in Hobart and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music; here he partly lectures composition, improvisation and ensemble as well as marks composition students' essays. In 2018 Cor started a position as senior lecturer in sound and creative media studies at the SAE Creative Media Institute in Sydney."

-Cor Fuhler Website (https://www.corfuhler.com/bio-1)
12/11/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Claire Edwardes is an internationally acclaimed Australian percussion soloist, chamber musician and artistic director of Sydney based innovative new music group, Ensemble Offspring. She has been described by the press as a 'sorceress of percussion' and is well known for her powerhouse style of playing and inimitable stage presence. Claire is the only Australian musician to win the 'APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Individual' three times (2016, 2012, 2007), was the recipient of a recent Australia Council and a Freedman Fellowship and the winner of numerous European (resident there for seven years) instrumental and percussion competitions as well as 1999 Australian Young Performer of the Year. Recently appearing as soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Myer Music Bowl and on Play School to an audience of thousands of children, Claire is passionate about percussion and new sounds being widely disseminated."

-Claire Edwardes Website (http://www.claireedwardes.com/biographies/)
12/11/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Hollis Taylor is an Australian/US citizen, a musicologist, ornithologist, violinist, composer, and author. She is a Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University. She has published several books, and recorded and released 3 CDs with violinist Jon Rose."

-Hollis Taylor Website (http://www.hollistaylor.com/)
12/11/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



CD1



1. Carpets 2:33

2. Lawson's Loss 4:56

3. As It Is 12:34

4. Asian Centuries 3:32

5. The Clattering 3:52

6. Whistle While You Wonder 2:08

7. The Spring In Wood 2:20

8. Quartertone Requiem 3:00

9. Forecast Of Fire 1:39

10. Northlandia 3:02

11. The Large Pocket 3:34

12. Turnings 6:03

13. And Then Some 5:10

14. Valley Heights 6:28

15. Finger Twisters 2:37

16. Rumble in the Jungle 3:07

17. Sebastien And Co 3:31

18. Fluck 5:11

19. Wheel Gems 1:21

CD2



1. Music In A Time Of Dysfunction 3 10:35

2. Singing Up The Harbour Bridge 7:20

3.Elastic Band 18:56

4. Duelling Banjos And Banjo Duality 7:45

5. Hills Hoist Music 7:06

6. The Gamble 8:49

7. Music In A Time Of Dysfunction 1 17:37

Related Categories of Interest:


Recommended Records
Improvised Music
Compositional Forms
Stringed Instruments
Australian Improvisers, Composers and Experimenters
Rose, Jon
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
Solo Artist Recordings
Duo Recordings
New in Improvised Music
New in Experimental & Electronic Music
New in Compositional Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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Recommended Records.


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