New Music Days is a three-day festival that focuses on the importance of female composers in Australia, First Nations composers, voices and stories, and how musicians compose and respond to the environment.
The festival features five bold events that provide audiences with the opportunity to not only bask in the delight of live music, but to engage in public conversations through pre and post-concert talks.
Marshall McGuire, Melbourne Recital Centre’s Director of Programming, says that the festival aims to shine a spotlight on how composers and performers in contemporary composition are responding to the world around them.
Louise Devenish – Alluvial Gold
Dr Louise Devenish, a contemporary percussionist, performs a work with percussion, sculptural instruments, field recordings, electronics, and projection titled Alluvial Gold with Dr Stuart James, an award-winning Western Australian-based composer, performer, sound designer, audio engineer and producer, as well as with Erin Coates, a visual artist and creative producer.
The work draws audiences into the often-forgotten and changing worlds below river surfaces. It explores the confluence of multiple narratives connected to rivers, from the phenomenological and structural aspects of river systems and water, the devastating impact of industrialisation after European colonisation, the sonic ecology and chemistry of larger river systems, and a musical language derived from transcriptions of sounds of the river system itself.
Wednesday 19 April, 6pm at Melbourne Recital Centre’s Primrose Potter Salon, tickets here.
Ensemble Offspring – Ngarra-Burria
Initiated in 2016 by Indigenous composer Christopher Sainsbury, the Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers program exists to support and mentor emerging First Nations composers. Ensemble Offspring’s performance presents an ambitious First Nations showcase of new music, featuring an astonishing array of new and established voices.
Focusing on the emergence of First Nations composers in the classical music landscape, the program features notable composers Rhyan Clapham aka DOBBY, Brenda Gifford, James Henry, Aaron Wyatt, Eric Avery, Nardi Simpson, and Mark Ross, curated by Chris Sainsbury and Claire Edwardes.
Wednesday 19 April, 7.30pm at Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, tickets here.
The ANAM Set – Director’s Cut
Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) commenced a remarkable project in 2021, commissioning 67 new works for their 67 students. Each composer-student partnership demonstrates a true coming together of creation and performance.
The ANAM Set project disrupted the compositional landscape, commissioning 67 works in just eight months. The Director’s Cut is a unique program selected by ANAM Artistic Director Paavali Jumppanen, which selects just a handful of compositions from this broader project – chosen for their suitability within the broader New Music Days program – that combine to celebrate the breadth of ANAM as an organisation.
It shines a spotlight on some of the works that have proven to be audience favourites and are well on their way to becoming repertoire staples.
Thursday 20 April, 6pm at Primrose Potter Salon, tickets here.
ELISION – Extinction Events & Dawn Chorus
ELISION is celebrated for its unique instrumentation, close and long-term artistic relationships with composers, its virtuosity, and the deep commitment of its musicians to renegotiate and reinvent performance practice and technique.
Their performance at the festival is titled Extinction Events & Dawn Chorus, which is a large-scale, immersive work by Australian composer Liza Lim. The work is an ecological observance of more-than-human worlds. It seeks to move beyond the anthropocentric focus of Western art and music, and instead embrace the vibrancy, intelligence, and creativity of the natural world.
Thursday 20 April, 7.30pm at Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, tickets here.
Lisa Illean & ANAM – arcing, stilling, bending, gathering
Illean, a renowned composer of acoustic and acousmatic music, collaborates with pianist Aura Go, concertmaster Emma McGrath, ANAM and producer Tilman Robinson to create a musical journey that will take you to another dimension.
From the pristine beauty of cult contemporary pieces, to the clarity of renaissance music, arcing, stilling, bending, gathering is a new piece of work by Illean that offers a blend of dream-like elegies, enigmas, and odes to the ethereal that will leave you spellbound.
Friday 21 April, 7.30pm at Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, tickets here.
