Lisa Illean has composed a stunning soundscape of orchestral, electronic music and blended recordings that will bring together the talents of some of Australia's most innovative and talented musicians for Melbourne Recital Centre’s New Music Days.
The festival will feature the unique and haunting performance of a new piece by Australian composer Lisa Illean, performed with the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) ensemble. The acclaimed, UK-based composer premieres her new commission in Melbourne through Finding Our Voice — a celebration of Australia in sound – on Friday April 21 with an ensemble of musicians from the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM).
Beat Magazine had the opportunity to chat with Lisa about the inspiration behind her work and the creative process that led to the creation of her evocative piece; arcing, stilling, bending, gathering.
Lisa Illean & ANAM – Finding Our Voice
- Friday 21 April 2023 7.30pm at Elisabeth Murdoch Hall
- Buy tickets here.
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When asked about what the audience can expect from her performance, Lisa revealed that the project was a dream commission. Australian musician and composer Genevieve Lacey approached Lisa with the offer to create a performance of her choice.
“A really important component of my work, the last five to ten years, has been combining acoustic and electronic sounds,” Lisa explained.
She remarked how much she enjoys moving sounds that we are familiar with into slightly more abstract orbits. Using pre-recordings of a string quartet, Lisa has created a hyper-real world that moves the familiar sound of a string quartet into a speculative realm, drawing on years of experimentation.
“You can do a lot with the recordings, which you can’t exactly do with a live string quartet, such as starting from absolute silence and returning to absolute silence, or playing the recordings very, very softly so that they mingle with the piano resonance.”
The result is a collection of sounds that are mysterious, radiant and evocative of music heard partially, and far away.
Lisa also considered the relationship between her composition and the space it would be heard in, saying that the intimacy of her piece would work well in Melbourne Recital Centre’s Elisabeth Murdoch Hall.
“The piece features a piano played by Aura Go, twelve string players from ANAM led by Emma McGrath, and six speakers looked after by Tilman Robinson,” she said
The ensemble is complex and made up of five smaller ensembles within it. The pianist is one element, then the twelve strings are divided into three quartets forming three separate elements, and finally the pre-recorded quartet provides the final ensemble, “all constantly exchanging foreground and background with musical fragments that evoke the idea of sound being heard but only in part,” enthuses Lisa.
Her composition uses different tuning systems and fragments of sound to create an unexpected sonic palate. “In terms of a palate of sound, I think for me a lot of that comes from places that are not musical,” Lisa said.
“I can think immediately of sounds that have a very strong sensation to me that don’t necessarily come from musical language. For example, the sound of the ocean as it draws away, or traffic as it moves in different directions. Sounds in flux and sounds heard only partially. These form a very strong part of my aural imagination.”
Lisa also enjoys playing with unusual tuning systems, such as the one she employed in this piece by asking one of the string quartets to tune their strings differently than usual.
Her upcoming performance at Melbourne Recital Centre as part of New Music Days promises to be a unique and haunting experience. Her use of both acoustic and electronic sound creates a hyper-real world, and her incorporation of the arcing, stilling, bending, and gathering themes will allow audiences to experience the tension between the vast and the intimate.
Meanwhile, her intricate creative process, including her unique ensemble and use of unusual tuning systems, ensures that this performance will be one to remember.
The world premiere of Lisa Illean’s arcing, stilling, bending, gathering takes place on Friday 21 April, 7.30pm. Book tickets here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre.
