Australian music

“My grandparents lived with permits and curfews for decades under the tyranny of the Aboriginal Protection Board…I wrote an opera about it, but it was not until I experienced a taste of the deprivation they lived with that I truly understood. All I can do is respond in music.” – Deborah Cheetham AO, composer

Kate Moore is an internationally acclaimed composer. Her works are performed by among others Asko|Schönberg, Bang on a Can, Icebreker, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble Offspring, The Australian String Quartet and The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Groot Omroepkoor.

“Viridian is the work in which Meale decisively turned his back on modernism,” writes James Koehne.

Australian composer Holly Harrison’s genre-defying “Fizzin’ Fury” is inspired by musical genres associated with moshing and upbeat movement. The fury side embraces the heaviness of doom metal, punk, and progressive rock, while the fizz captures the energy of electronic dance music, disco, and dixieland.

“Music and imagination go hand in hand, be it composing, performing or conducting.” Jessica Cottis discusses the compositional process with Elena Kats-Chernin.

Jessica Cottis asks Australian composer Holly Harrison about inspiration and limitation of ‘genre’ and humour in the compositional process.

Ahead of the Australian premiere of his work LOGOS, Jessica asks composer Benjamin de Murashkin about improvisation in classical music and the role of the arts in science.

Christopher Sainsbury writes songs, choral pieces, chamber pieces, orchestral pieces, jazz and surf music, and enjoys it all. He might explore regional identity through his work, or Indigenous narratives, contemporary guitar techniques, and at times jazz influences may be found articulating through his work.

“Distant Solo was commissioned by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra soon after the start of the COVID-19 lockdown in Australia. It forms part of the online Australian Miniseries, a collection of 15 new works for solo instrument. Amid concert cancellations, this project was a sign of hope for composers, performers, listeners, music makers and facilitators behind the scenes.” – Elena Kats-Chernin AO, composer

“…the conceit of the piece takes the form of Beethoven himself being subjected to a present-day audiology test. [The composer famously wrote about his diminishing hearing in the Heiligenstadt Testament (1802).] In his head, the blips and blurts of the test compete with a melody that strains to emerge, but never quite manages to do so, no matter how hard Beethoven pushes to the limits of the bassoon’s uppermost register.”