Carriageworks and Ensemble Offspring present Lone Hemispheres on 7 November, 2019 featuring chamber musicians as soloists in works inspired by masterpieces of the European avant-garde. Flautist Lamorna Nightingale, clarinettist Jason Noble and percussionist Claire Edwardes will explore harmonious solitude in world premieres by Damien Ricketson and 2017 Noisy Women Commission recipient Elizabeth Younan, and a recent piece by local composer, Tristan Coelho. These new Australian works comment on classics of the genre by Franco Donatoni and Luciano Berio.
Ensemble Offspring founding member Claire Edwardes says, “Lone Hemispheres at Carriageworks last year was a real highlight – it isn’t often that Ensemble Offspring members are featured as soloists, so in this sense it is a special opportunity for us to highlight the virtuosic performance skills of our players in such an intimate environment.”
Carriageworks CEO Blair French said “Carriageworks is committed to supporting new work. We’re delighted to partner with Ensemble Offspring to present the latest contemporary Australian music centred on commissions from local composers.”
2019 Lone Hemispheres program will include world premiere and recent works by Australian composers:
Borderlines (2019) by Damien Ricketson will be performed by clarinettist Jason Noble (world premiere)
- Borderlines is quintessential Ricketson whose music is characterised by exotic sound-worlds, novel forms and is often multisensory in nature. When describing the composition, Ricketson offered the following insight: ‘A thought twists and frays, tangling in a lump. Knotted like a skein, the line coils against itself in search of open passage only to grind its body into wisp-like filaments. Permeable, formless and free.’
- Damien Ricketson is a Sydney-based composer who studied with Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and has a PhD from the University of Sydney. Ricketson co-founded, and for 20 years was Co-Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring. He is currently Head of Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His award-winning work with Sydney Chamber Opera, The Howling Girls, premiered at Carriageworks in 2018 as part of Sydney Festival and was presented earlier this year at Tokyo Festival.
Fantasia (2019) by Elizabeth Younan will be performed by flautist Lamorna Nightingale (world premiere)
- This flute solo is titled Fantasia due to the nature of its free and improvisatory construction. The manipulation of small musical cells and their gradual development form the modus operandi of this work. Younan composed this work after receiving Ensemble Offspring’s 2018 Noisy Women Commission, an annual award given to an emerging female composer to promote creative freedom and foster artistic development.
- Elizabeth Younan is a composer from Sydney currently living in the United States of America. She was a featured composer of Musica Viva’s 2018 International Concert Season, where her Piano Sonata was premiered by Joyce Yang. Elizabeth obtained Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she studied with Carl Vine AO. Elizabeth currently studies under full scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
A line is a dot that went for a walk (2018) by Tristan Coelho will be performed by percussionist Claire Edwardes:
- A line is a dot that went for a walk is inspired by a quote from artist Paul Klee: Coelho found the idea both playful and immediately appealing from a musical perspective. The piece, in two movements, counterposes a meditative and spacious style of music linked with nature against a groove/loop-based feel, playing with glitches and ‘hard cuts’, aligned with technology. This work is a nod to the classic vibraphone solo, Omar, by Italian composer Franco Donatoni.
- Tristan Coelho is an award-winning Sydney-based composer who specialises in art music and film. His music draws inspiration largely from either nature, especially the idea of amplifying the otherwise soft and delicate sounds around us, or conversely our digital, data-driven world.
And
- Franco Donatani’s – Omar (movt 1) (1985), exploring the different colour combinations and possibilities of the vibraphone and Soft (1989), which intricately explores both the dynamics and sound-range of the bass clarinet and articulates its many themes. Franco Donatoni (1927-2000) is among the most prominent Italian composers of his generation, along with his contemporaries Berio and Nono. A noted pedagogue, he has taught at the Bologna Conservatory, the Verdi conservatories of Turin and Milan, and from 1960 at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. Donatoni’s later work is characterized by driven rhythms, quick-cut changes in texture, and compulsive development of constrained melodic material.
- Luciano Berio – Sequenza 1 (1958) was composed for the legendary Italian flautist Severino Gazzelloni. Berio composed a series of virtuoso works for solo instruments under the name Sequenza. The first, Sequenza Icame in 1958 and is for flute; the last, Sequenza XIV (2002) is for cello. These works explore the full possibilities of each instrument, often calling for extended techniques. Luciano Berio (1925-2003) was an Italian composer, known today for his virtuosic solo and ensemble works, as well as his pioneering pieces in early electronic music. Berio’s music is typically lyrical, difficult and filled with extended techniques.
Presented by Carriageworks and Ensemble Offspring. Supported by Australia Council for The Arts and Create NSW.
Learn more about Lone Hemispheres 2 here.
For further information and interviews please contact Julia Barnes, julia@articulatepr.com.au 0402 678 589 or Kym Elphinstone, kym@articulatepr.com.au 0421 106 139.