Sikinnis

I haven’t been getting on the blog to often lately, so I thought I’d just drop in a quick post about a series of pieces that I wrote ages ago, but I’m thinking of revisiting in the future.

These works are 3 pieces called Sikinnis, starting with a piece from 2010 for solo flute, a trio for flute, viola and harp from 2013, and a piano solo in 2015, which went on to form a key part, in variation, in Orpheus and also has a version, titled Sikinnis IV for piano trio, that has yet to be premiered.

What follows here is the program note for Sikinnis III.

A sikinnis is a vigorous dance performed during a satyr play in ancient Greece theatre. These dances are strongly associated with the half-faun character of satyr’s and generally explore hyper-masculine, male fantasy.   

In my works titled “Sikinnis” I am generally exploring the idea of dance, joy and sexuality. In these pieces I generally contrast two musical ideas with different aural outcomes, and to me, emotional experiences. In this third Sikinnis I’m most interested in the muddy, almost overly resonant textures, as at the beginning of the piece. To me there is a fascinating melancholy in the sustained sounds available with use of the piano pedal.  

Generally these moments arise from the lower register of the piano to then focus on more hyperactive rhythms. 

This is contrasted with higher register material which is less rhythmically rapid and more focused on melody, line and a sense of sparkly-ness. 

There is a third element in block chords, which help form a basis for the ongoing resonance of the piece.

It fascinated me for a long time. There are a few other works with this title, the ones I most enjoy are by Hanz Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rhim.

I’ve always had the vision for a large scale orchestral work focusing on dance to have this title. Maybe in the future?

ClassicalQueer podcast August 2021

I was lucky enough to be a guest on ClassicalQueer's Podcast with Sammi Jane Smith & Jacob Caines.

I got the chance to talk about my music, my practice as a musician and programmer, and talk about the queer threads that influence my creativity.

ClassicalQueer is a space to highlight the lives of 2SLGBTQ artists working in the classical arts. CQ interviews musicians, poets, theatre workers, administrators, conductors, dancers, and anyone else that has an interesting story. Be sure to check out their Facebook and Instagram, and below is a link to all their other awesome podcasts.

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Australian Music - a video essay

My new video essay, a beginners guide to Australian Classical Music, is out!

In this video in my beginners guide to classical music I talk about Australian classical music for those who may have never listened before.

Playlist of suggested listening (YouTube & Spotify):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsHBMTNbR6edE3f6OgB-lBrxzJvJx_PgR https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YGpAJNlqFiWxAQdsCqhmq

The composers I mention: Brett Dean, Lisa Illean, Deborah Cheetham, Gurrumul Yunupingu (mentioned album is called Djarimirri), Percy Grainger, Richard Meale, Nigel Butterley, Peter Sculthorpe, Nigel Westlake, Elena Kats-Chernin, Kate Neale, Alfred Hill.

Rare Opera Club, vol. 12 - Georges Aperghis' Luna Park

I first heard the music of Greek (living and working mostly in France) composer Georges Aperghis at the Soundscape new music festival in 2015. I got hooked. I programmed some of his music with Forest Collective in 2016 and have followed his activities since.

He sits in this fantastic place of contemporary music, working a lot in theatre works (in what is often called Music Theatre, not to be confused with Musical Theatre…) , with both acoustic and electronic instruments in a sound world that has always struck me as being sophisticated and well crafted, but also sensuous, dramatic, theatrical and at times almost camp. There are moments of nonsense, sections that need a twinkle in their eye and a sense of theatre and fun.

This work, however, is very much a serious endeavour. It explores security and surveillance, through the performance by 4 people, two playing bass and contra-bass flutes and two actors. What I loved about this work is it walks the line between abstract interpretation of surveillance (and how that could be interpreted and reshaped by 4 performers on stage, with the various video, audio and lighting supports to enhance the performance) and literal ideas of surveillance. It isn’t just a story or set of images unfolding in front of you, or a series of morals into the issues or advantages of surveillance of society. It covers a wide range of feelings and emotional high points, sometimes silly, sometimes banal and dull, sometimes anxious and fearful. It was a fascinating work in that respect as it had a highly sophisticated emotional integration. Sections flowed by with ease, and my eye and ear took in a wild ride of different emotional high points. The issues I took with the experience were more cosmetic. Couldn’t there be some slight suggestion of the experience we are having. What I mean is, the experience came across more like a concert then a piece of theatre. The structure of the set and presentation of the performers (that is costume, engagement with audience etc) made it quite static. The video provided intrigue, and depth to the emotional pull of the music, but the presentation was very much caught in a traditional theatrical experience, which was a shame considering the variety and originality of the content. In our opera club meeting we spoke about it potentially having dance as an element, or being part of an installation or heightening the performance experience slightly with costuming and a more heightened audience experience. This made me think about New Music, and how it can be almost too reverential, cold and austere, or as is the case with this performance, self deprecating and casual. Say what you will about traditional opera, or should I said mainstream opera (or theatre) but you always know that you are in a space dedicated to providing you with an emotional (and intellectual) experience. In my work I aim to create a sense of wonder, delight and drama, while also, hopefully, being thought provoking and philosophical. I had high hopes for this piece, due to my love of the cheeky and capricious music of Aperghis. I’m not saying this work didn’t enthral me, it certainly did, but the presentation of it could have been more heightened to remind me I’m in a theatre, witnessing something with variety, depth, humour, emotion and politics.

There is a great interview with GA, as well as the link to the full video of the performance available here.

Rare Opera Club, vol. 11 - 7 Deaths of Maria Callas by Marko Nikodijević & devised and directed by Marina Abramović

This was an interesting operatic experience. I call it that, because the work wasn’t an opera, in the traditional sense. It was very much a piece of performative live art, Marina Abramovic’s milieu. I would recommend opera loves and lovers of Maria Callas to experience the work, but not to expect an operatic journey in the traditional sense. On it’s surface it seems straightforward, and rather simple - a series of arias from roles made famous by Maria Callas, sung by a series of excellent female singers, with a physical personification of Maria, played by Abramovic, lying in a bed for the entirety of their performances. Then the scene transitions to a sequence with an entirely new orchestra work by Marko Nikodijevic (who I posted in a previous blog post) where we see a mundane and sad image of Maria Callas'’ life at the end of her existence, in isolation and seclusion from the outside world. The story of the end of her life, the way she battled with the end of her singing career and the treatment of her by Onassis is devastatingly sad. It would be worth reading a bit about this before you experience the show.

Like many of Abramovic’s work it’s easy to say “I could do that” or “that seems easy,” or “it doesn’t make sense” or “why would you bother to do that!?” That’s the reason why I like her work. Like Robert Wilson, who I adore, you need to let the work absorb into you, take a journey with it and really think about the world and life you live and how this art can effect and inform you. Simple actions and moments presented to you comment on larger social forces. Simple symbols and ideas have huge philosophical concepts behind them, and it takes time, for me any way, to really absorb the ideas and the work. It’s not going sink into you after a few minuets of experiencing the work.

The extravagance of having a full opera company, orchestra and other resources at their disposal in this project, like film, boogie costumes from Burberry etc does tinge this work with a very decadent, entitled position. In our Rare Opera Club chat this came up a lot - perhaps a younger artist would do something more innovative? Perhaps the two half’s of the work could be more integrated? Perhaps this, perhaps that. It’s so easy to judge big established artists and say they have sold out, or lost touch and that they should always be creating masterpieces and finished worked of genius. I’ve been reading a lot of the work of Philip Ewell who touches on the idea that genius and masterpiece are not only gendered terms, and so we need to step with caution when using them and try and rethink this expression, but also that these words and the language systems they embrace comes from a long tradition of privilege, misogamy and racism. So with this in mind, my initial reaction to the piece, which was about the integration of the different aspects of the work seemed to fade. Abramovic is not interested in this, its time and immaterially of the performance that is key and so we need to allow a ourselves to go on a journey with the piece and to embrace the abstraction of the experience. If I was ever provided such a large canvas that she has for this work, I would absolutely embrace it. Wouldn’t you? The extravagance of telling a small and simple aspect of Maria Callas’ life through such a huge canvas might seem over the top and decadent, but Callas was decadent, volatile and a consummate artist dedicated to a higher expression and representation of herself.

Artists, great or small need to be given big and risky canvases, and they should be allowed the opportunity to take risks and to fail. What I find so wonderful about this work is it might not “succeed” (again, what does that word mean to us now, and how does is play into old stereotypes of art and hyraces at play in art?) in the traditional sense, but it is allowing visionary artists to create opera. An artist this isn’t know to create opera. Opera needs this most of all. It is so stuffy and backward, we need more and unorthodox visions from artists who haven’t been engaged with opera in the past, and we should do the upmost to see this vision be achieved, even if it fails.

“...I do things that I am afraid of…failure is important because if you experiment you fail. If you don’t go into that area you repeat yourself over and over”

— Marina Abramovic

If you are to engage with this work, I think you need to know a little about the sad life Maria Callas led after her career ended. I think you also need to have an idea of the misogamy that has existed in opera and how women characters are allowed only certain pathways through opera - death, lust, love or devotion to god or a man.

Who can make opera and why do they create opera?

For another piece by Marko Nikodijevic I’ve been getting into Gesualdo dub / room with erased figure (recording above).

A composer a week: Thea Musgrave

I’ve always loved Thea Musgrave’s music. I discovered her music through her fantastic Horn Concerto, written for the late amazing Barry Tuckwell. I heard it probably in the late 90s, on Andrew Ford’s stalwart, The Music Show.

Her idea of “dramatic abstract” has been really influential on my work, and her exploration of the individual against the crowd, in her operas and concertos, has been really influential on my work. One example I’ve explored and been kind of obsessed with is the amazing moment in the Horn Concerto where the 8 Horn players of the orchestra go around the auditorium and the room is enveloped in the sound of the horn. It’s a really cool moment!

My suggested listening - Horn Concerto & Clarinet Concerto.

Virtuosity

I was thinking the other day about this idea of virtuosity. Someone who is a complete maverick in what they do. When it comes to music so often we obsess over these figures, with super-human abilities who wow us, transport us and at times scare us in their abilities. I think we all have certain musicians and virtuosos that we love and go to first more then others, but I am especially interested in this phenomena of Diva worship so common in the history of gay men. It under pins a lot of queer culture, from the beginnings of Drag performance, definition and distinction of the community in terms like “a friend of Dorothy,” the story of Judy Garlands influence on the Stonewall riots and gay men meeting and sharing an intimate moment at the over.

I started to think about virtuosi, of varying types, that inspire me. Hopefully this blog post doesn’t just read as a boring old list of performers and performances that I adore, but it is certainly a really interesting cross section of virtuosic performances.

Jennifer Holiday was the first name I thought of. Her iconic debut as Effie in Dreamgirls when she was 21 has gone into legend. The role requires a singer who can capture that amazing flashpoint in popular music where gospel singing, soul, RnB and even a bit of jazz intersected together into the pop mainstream of 1960s girl groups. Her singing is hands down incredible. It’s so big, brash and the twists and turns she imbues on the music is almost comical, but she hits it out of the park so well that we don’t care what wild and crazy noise she makes or shape she makes with her mouth. The sound is awesome. And she has performed this song her whole career. It’s basically her song, and she rips it to shreds every time without fail.

Here are three performances from the 80s around the time of her Broadway debut, 1998 and then 2018. Faultless every time. Camp, yes. Technically so proficient - to be able to make some of the sounds she does without destroying your vocal chords IS AMAZING. I’ll stop here, because I could talk about Jennifer Holiday (and also the various wild stories about the premiere of Dreamgirls) for ever.

My next thought was to include an instrumentalist, because my mind went racing with singers when I first thought about virtuosity.

Mitsuko Uchida is a german pianist who is my go to pianist. She performs german classical music with impeccable dedication, technical proficiency, with a wide repertoire (which I think is the virtuosos’ obligation to broaden the repertoire) and a deep commitment, as you see in the below interview about her awe inspiring performance of the Arnold Schoenberg concerto along with a stunning Mozart concerto performance. I adore this last one because she is also directing the orchestra from the keyboard, a skill that blows my mind.

Sometimes you get the right mix of performers performing the right piece which is exemplary and virtuosic. Some examples of ensembles with amazing virtuosic performances are the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra performing Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night from memory, the Arora Chamber Orchestra performing the entire Beethoven Eroica Symphony also from memory WTF and this amazing performance of Pierre Boulez Pli selon pli combined forces of Ensemble Intercontemporain, Paris Conservatoire, Matthias Pintscher and the amazing vocal stylings of Marisol Montalvo.

My ability to memorise music is getting better as I practice it, but the idea of everyone involved playing from memory terrifies the bajeeeeebuz out of me. But, the level of playing, the depth of sound and quality of sound of course escalates the moment you remove the printed instructions, and it results in these two amazing performances.

The performance of the Boulez is special to me because I was there when this video was taken. Seeing the huge orchestra deliver such difficult music with ease, not to mention the spot on singing from Marisol, and of course I must acknowledge Matthias’ perfect conducting. This was the night we met, after the performance, which lead to me working with Matthias at Grafenegg Festival in 2015.

Speaking of Pierre Boulez and conducting, I have to mention his work as a conductor and composer, virtuosic to the max! Here is a video rehearsing his Notation. His mastery of every aspect of the rehearsal, the sound world and potentials and his physical gesture is in my opinion the best you can get with conductors. He can pick a wrong note out of the cacophony of sound going on, explain his exact intentions with precision and be war and inviting at all time.

I can’t talk about virtuosic conductors without mentioning the conductors-conductor, Carlos Kleiber. The stories of his eccentricity have surrvived almost better then his musical achievements. He inhibits all of the above I said about Boulez, but in a far more eccentric and romantic way. He was often very difficult to work with, and perhaps couldn’t work in the modern scene I explore and talk about in this previous blog post. about artistic tyrants.

My Blog on Artistic Tyrants

An equal director of music comparable to the above is James Brown. Michael Tilson Thomas, an American conductor whose work in new music and orchestral music is unsurpassable, interviewed James Brown at the end of his life talking about when he was a student working diligently on these intense and complex 1970s new music scores by Boulez, Stockhausen et al, but listening to James Brown. He says that he launch the tightness, power and precision needed for this music from James Brown and his band. From this interview I delved into Browns music, and I’ve been hooked on the energy and precision ever since.

Apparently he was a complete tyrant, and foul to work with, but he certainly get results!

The flip side of the tyrannical master would be baroque music maser Jordi Savall. A virtuoso of many stringed instruments, his world famous for his performances of some of the most loved music written before 1750. However, his recordings and performances of lesser known work is exemplar in the idea of the leader in their field broadening and enlightening audiences to new music.

Okay, now I’ve gotten the instrumentalists and directors out of the way, I can just talk about singers till I’m blue in the face.

I like opera singers who sing high. I always have. The first time I heard a high voiced soprano warm up when I was in the chorus of an opera when I was 16 blew my mind that someone could make those noises. The higher the better, while making a beautiful sound, please.

Two such diva’s would be Diana Damrau and Kristen Chenoweth.

What I love about looking at these two killer voices is Kristen comes from the American musical theatre world (with a firm classical training) and Diana the central European opera tradition, but bother perform Glitter and be gay from Candide (basically a gay anthem). Its so cool to see what training and background as diverse as these two brings to this piece. I of course had to throw in Diana doing Queen of the Night from Magic Flute, as it’s her performances of the second aria that is the number one YouTube video when you search for opera. However, I include the first aria here, my personal fav.

I am going to finish my love affaire with the female voice with 4 divas. If you know me well, you know that these 4 voices are 4 I listen to pretty much on a daily basis and could talk about till blue in the face.

They also happen to inhabit my 4 fav music genres - new art music, contemporary pop music, 80s pop-soul-RnB and musical theatre.

They all poses a deep dedication to their craft, and almost titanic dedication to the lyric and the song. The virtuosity shows itself in different ways for each: Barbara Hannigan in her colour, range, memory skills as she conducts the band and sings Ligetti from memory (!!!);

Bernadette Peters, an impeccable diva and actress whose emotional connection is so touching that it peppers each word in the lyric perfectly. Also to perform Sondheim, perfectly in a room full of the cream of Hollywood….amazing!;

Lady Gaga who holds a commitment and dedication to her craft and communication of songs as strong and power and the above;

Special shout out to her performing at the Muppets Christmas special a few years ago. The muppets are easily in my top art experiences with the TV shows 30 Rock, X Files and The West Wing, the movies Sunset Boulevard and Network, Brett Dean’s opera’s Bliss and Hamlet, Benjamin Britten’s opera Death in Venice, Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park with George and so many more…..

But of course the real queen of my heart, Whitney Houston.

Who else could perform the notoriously hard USA national anthem with ease and brevity across her whole range. But also get it to become one of the highest selling singles of all time!?

It was of course pre recorded, but apparently she looked at the arrangement for this performance about 15 mins before they recorded it and get it down in one take.

A friend was explaining a tough day at work to me one day, and was complaining about the tone of a colleague at the beginning of the working day, and said “I wasn’t even one Whitney song into the day yet!” Which totally speaks to me! I have to get a few Whitney songs in, just like my morning coffee, just to get started. One such recording a listen to at least weekly, if not daily sometimes is her debut on the Merv Griffen show when she’s around 19 singing Home from The Wiz.

I’ll end my love fest toward female singers here. There are SO MANY more vertuosi I could have mentioned - Itzak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline du Pre, Patti LaBelle, Sutton Foster, Jonas Kaufmann, Simon Tedeschi, Leonard Bernstein, Simon Rattle, Birgit Neilson, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Peter Allen, Bette Middler, Diana Doherty, Ashley Smith….but I’ll just leave it here! Happy listening.