Revelations aplenty

Revelation is a word I find I'm using frequently for this CIMF. Sadly I've attended too little due to conflicts, but what I've attended has been rich with the modern and somewhat unexpected. Movers and shakers was all contemporary and a great mix of styles. Two of four composers were not just contemporary but in attendance. The gig started with Brian Howard Full fathom five. Amusingly I sing FFF in a choir, but nothing like this version. This was scored for 15 players; a thrilling and powerful 2-feel; swelling notes and sudden stops (reversed envelopes); tones moving throughout; notable trombone and explosive bass drums. Apparently it's written in response to Jackson Pollock's response to Shakespeare. Next was our late local master, Peter Sculthorpe Island songs for saxophone and ensemble. This was two movements with Amy Dickson featuring on soprano and alto sax. More expansive than FFF, meditative, strings and sax interspersed with various percussion and the sounds of seagulls (sliding cello harmonics) and other (sliding violin harmonics). I felt hope and satisfaction and survival and a sense of location. Kate Moore Velvet followed as a cello/piano duet played by Roland Peelman and Geoffrey Gartner. It's described as a response to flowing garments and cloth in the paintings of Leonardo and others. It's a beautiful subject, all draped opulence and on canvas so real. The image was vivid. Firstly 5/4 broken 3-2 displaying free folds and falls of fabric. Then perhaps into 6 feel and perhaps 3 and a response to the emotions of the paintings and a delicate insistence. To finish, a famed work of minimalism, John Adams Shaker loops for strings. Four movements, intense, incessant despite dynamics, 4s and 2s, and even a feeling of trains (not sure I should hear trains!). Again, this was a survey of some excellent and inventive music over various contemporary styles and so well played. Look for it on ABCFM as a live concert: they were recording.

The composers were Brian Howard, Peter Sculthorpe, Kate Moore and John Adams. The performers were Amy Dickson (sax), Geoffrey Gartner (cello), Roland Peelman (piano, conductor), New Zealand String Quartet comprising Helen Pohl (violin), Douglas Beilman (violin), Gillian Ansell (viola) and Rolf Gjelsten (cello), Tinalley String Quartet comprising Eoin Andrerson (violin)Lerida Delbridge (violin), Justin Williams (viola) and Michelle Woods (cello) and Barbara Jane Gilby (violin), Anne Horton (violin) and the YAFF String Players comprising Emmanuel Cassimatis (oboe), Amy White (clarinet), Christopher Martin (bassoon), Ros Jorgensen and Nigel Croker (trombones), Gergele Malyusz (horn), Leanne Sullivan (trumpet), Kyle Daniel (double bass), Jim Nightingale (sax) and Claire Edwardes and Bree van Reyk (percussion).

A cold one

This was a cold one. We stood and shivered our way through a series of pieces on the Carillon. The wind blew through the recording I made. But the pieces were interesting, more so than some other Carillon gigs I've heard. A few locals were represented, people who know the carillon: Larry Sitsky, Leonard Weiss, Kate Moore. Kate's tune was commissioned for the carillon for this festival. One of Leonard's tunes was previously commissioned. There was a rag from Elena Kats-Chernin and she's sometimes in Canberra so may also know the carillon. Kate has lived in the Netherlands for the last 13 years and knows any number of carillons: they are a thing of the low countries and thereabouts. The Carillon plays with two hammered keyboards and a pedalboard. In action it looks heavy, played with clenched fists. Some sounds are deep and some light and airy. I warm to busier passages, where the harmonies become more evident with runs of notes. But pairs of notes are playable and Kate used them in her piece with cello. That was the only composition that was not solo bells. Kate's piece was For Elyse, with sustained cello played over regular harmonic accompaniment from the bells. Particularly mystical in that cold and falling darkness. Strangely, I am told the bells are only heard in the keyboard room, high but below several stories of bells, through speakers. Kate's cello was acoustic and processed and heard in the keys room, but heard over PA at ground level, with the bells sounding acoustically. Lennie played several of his own pieces; Lyn Fuller is the chief carillonist and played others; Thomas Laue and Anna Wong played others. It was a struggle against the elements, but intriguing and a pleasure.

Leonard Weiss, Lyn Fuller, Thomas Laue and Anna Wong played carillon. Kate Moore (cello) also played at the Carillon for the CIMF.

Inside the whale

Kate Moore, resident composer at this CIMF and our house guest, gave a presentation at the School of Music. I've been hearing her contemporary classical music and chatting with her about it, but this was an overview of her composing as a profession and an introduction to a few of her compositions. It was truly fascinating. This new music is somewhat a new world to me. Hearing Kate's words clarifies many things. She opened with some background: her time at ANU; her experiences at the Royal Conservatorium of Music in the Netherlands; her commissions and her approaches and her colleagues. Just some of what she advised: work hard and do what you love; find people to work with; companionship is also important (I imagine it is especially so for the secluded composer); find your own philosophy/approach through comparison (not sure I express this well) or "try different things and leave some behind". She talked of her composition, Sensitive spot, and watched a video of it performed by pianist Saskia Lankhoorn at the Bimhaus. It's a work is in geometrical form, played and recorded several times as perfectly as possible, then overlaid, so perfection appears from errors, or perhaps, from divergence. I heard it as intense, mutating, hammered chords with a varying electronica drone.

Then questions. Program notes are important, they can be in various forms (not just words on paper) and are a "window on the composers' mind". The Dam was the piece composed as a commission for this festival (see CJBlog post Revelations of 14 May). It portrayed an Australian farm dam, a place, on her parent's property. I was impressed by her obvious careful listening, as she spoke of frogs chattering similar songs with different frequencies playing off each other, tremolo effects, drones, resonances, spatial implications ("You can hear the soundscape ... the horizon; imagine a picture through sounds". Picturing the horizon through sounds! This is excellent listening). Also of the challenges of this commission: old and new ensembles, separated by 50+ metres, tuned at 415 (baroque) and 440 (modern) so needing to be transposed a semitone, different techniques and tones and textures. Kate approached the ensembles as shadows of each other, different, self-sufficient but reinforcing (brilliant!). There was a question about schools of composition which I felt Kate queried with great self-awareness. We are all products of our time and place; she was influenced by indie rock and classical cello and Aussie composers too; we select labels also from our own knowledge and experience (so true!). Yes, she focuses on structure with rhythm as a driving force, but so do many composers from many backgrounds. Seek a truthful language, a language of our time, an honest voice. She writes on acoustic piano; she improvises to build / find material then chips away at this to refine it, perhaps to a geometric pattern or a process. It's a long process; one work can take a year. What of difficult commissions? This is your profession so deal with it. Work through it; remove self and break down then build back up; don't panic (!) A good mentor is a help, even one outside the field: composition is a solitary profession. You need a reason to write a piece, a question to solve. Pieces are isolated but also intertwined: they have their own narrative but together they build another narrative.

The end was a listen to Kate's composition, Fern, while following the score. The music reflects the form of a fern, branches on smaller branches. There's proportion, meter, duration, rhythm; one melodic snippet runs throughout, differently placed and stretched or shortened; "always the same, always different, but no direct repetition". The music really was quite beautiful and blossomed for me when known more closely. This was a further revelation. I am warming to this new music. Megan won't be impressed (but, don't worry, I still dig Bach and Beethoven ... and Miles and Mingus).

Kate Moore (composer in residence at CIMF) gave a public workshop at the ANU School of Music.

Sensitive spot, composed by Kate Moore, performed by Saskia Lankhoorn (YouTube)

Revelations

Bach's universe was the opening gala concert for CIMF 2015. It's not the first concert, residing as it is after the second concert of a series of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. I found this a hugely refreshing outing. We all love JS - he's central to our conception of the Western musical canon these days and everyone's fave - but this intermingling of his pieces with contemporary works was a revelation. The Bach was a full violin partita (Partita no2 D minor BWV1004; not sure this was expected, but it was welcomed), a trio sonata variously with harpsichord and baroque organ (Trio sonata G major BWV530) and a cantata (Jauchzet Gott BWV51). Intermingled in the program, although tellingly performed from a second stage at the other end of the longish hall, were Steve Reich Vermont Counterpoint, Alister Spence Time is time enough and Kate Moore The Dam (a Beaver Blaze commission). I loved the Bach, of course. I especially noted Rebecca Chan, who did a great job on the lengthy and virtuosic violin partita from a spot in the middle of the hall. The hall was unexpectedly laid out in two long but shallow rows of seating facing each other with a stage at each end, to right and left of the seated audience. Strange, but it worked, allowing quick transitions, varied instrumentation and a differing and more democratic experience of placement. We were right up against the southerly stage, so the Bach was distant and echoey. Interesting. Also noted, if distant, were Rosanne's Hunt's baroque cello and Alex Oomens' apt soprano and the ringing pleasure of Leanne Sullivan's occasional baroque trumpet.

It helps that we were close by, but on the night I was more excited by the contemporary music and this was a reminder to me after lots of recent, relatively earlier music. Contemporary is harder to sell so less common but when it's as good as this, it's exciting and vibrant and intimately expressive of our era (not that Bach and Beethoven have nothing to tell us; good is good, after all). The three works were that. Firstly, Stave Reich Vermont Counterpoint played brilliantly by Claire Edwards. She really was a star of my experience of this concert. Then a duo with Claire and Amy Dickson playing a work by Alister Spence on gongs and marimba and a busy and not overly jazz-influenced soprano sax. Then a finale with Kate Moore's The Dam which was commissioned for this festival. This was played by two ensembles, baroque and contemporary, one at each of the hall, led by Roland Peelman in the centre and Kate at the contemporary end. This was somewhere around minimalism, richly varying rhythms and time signatures beating in and out, regularity amongst change, conversations between eras and tones and colours and localised with William Barton's didj. I'm looking forward to a peek at the score, but suffice to say, lots of mutating counting required. Our experience was influenced by placement, but that's all part of it and it fits. But it's all relative and that's Einstein and the festival's theme.

JS Bach, Kate Moore, Alister Spence and Steve Reich were performed at the CIMF Gala concert entitled Bach's universe. At the south end were Kate Moore (conductor, composer), William Barton (didgeridoo), Amy Dickson (alto, soprano sax), Claire Edwardes (vibes and other percussion), Pete Harden (baritone guitar) and ??? (piano). In the middle were Rebecca Chan (vioin) and Roland Peelman (conductor). At the north end was the Festival Bach Ensemble comprising Alex Oomens (soprano), Leanne Sullivan (trumpet), Matt Greco (violin, director), Annie Gard (violin), Heather Lloyd (viola), Rosanne Hunt (cello) and Anthony Abouhamad (harpsichord, baroque organ, director).

Our CIMF

The Canberra International Music Festival remains a spark on the Canberra music horizon. It's somewhat changed this year. Roland Peelman has taken over as artistic director and the main venue is the Fitters Workshop. I read Roland's message in the program and it appeals to me in several ways: the recognition of Canberra as a place of "knowledge, science and ... fact-seeking" as well as the more obvious government and governance reference. Actually, we can claim a good bit of the governance, but much of the government actually comes to Canberra. We can't lay claim to Abbott or Hockey or Babs Stilton. But Roland admires the view of setting sun in hills and they have been spectacular recently. Perhaps for all this, the theme of this festival is Einstein. This year is the 100th anniversary of the Theory of Relativity. Amongst all the hoo-ha and expenditure on another recent centenary this one is easily forgotten, but it's a mark of this institution and of Canberra that Relativity that would be remembered here. It's a mark of genius, of awareness and broadening minds. Amongst this, Roland attests this CIMF as "unashamedly" celebrating the great Western classical tradition. But CIMF is not staid, for amongst the Bach and Beethoven there are the minimalists and the contemporaries and the commissions. This is nothing if not a refreshing and intelligent event. We are involved through attendance, of course, although not so much of that (it's a busy time otherwise). We are hosting a few of the visiting artists and this is a much deeper involvement in some ways as well as just plain good fun. Kate Moore is a visiting composer and Pete Harden is performing on baritone guitar. International visitors are a reminder of difference and this is great for a settled life. These two live in the Netherlands but are from Australia (Kate studied at the Canberra School of Music) and England. This visit is much fun, although maybe I should avoid too much chatter on music. There is more to life besides music even during this week. CIMF is looking great.