Conducting Day for Night Image by Hospital Hill
Evan J Lawson (he/him)
composer, conductor & writer
artistic director / FOREST COLLECTIVE
Resident conductor / BK Opera
Musical director / monash UNIVERSITY choral society
evan on the music show
In the lead up to the world premiere season of Labyrinth in February I spoke with Andy Ford on the Music Show on ABC radio nation, along with piano soloist for the project Danaë Killian.
The sea nominated for a Green room award
I am delighted to share that my 2023 opera The Sea has been nominated for best New Australian opera.
What’s being said
“...his music is serene, deep, it’s even breathing the heritage of Mahler. ”
“...the sonorities that emerged often proved extraordinary...”
“Lawson’s haunting, impactful music and Szesiong Todd’s lucid and lyrical libretto are a complementary marriage. And the incorporation of pianist as Minotaur, whose ominous expression is sporadically heard but unseen until turning the corner into the final space, is an ingenious conceit.”
“Evan’s music straddles definitions and categorisations. It has a beauty and accessibility, and yet it does not in the least bit shy away from the innovative approaches to harmony, rhythm, and melody that people can, in other 20th- and 21st-century music, find daunting. When you listen to this music you find yourself carried along by it, before you have even noticed how adventurous and exploratory its composition is.”
“[In The Sea] Lawson conducts an evocative score that elicits feelings of freedom and exhilaration that being in a relationship and the sea can offer as well as the danger of becoming trapped and overpowered by said relationship and the sea. ”
“Lawson’s music is, bar to bar, beautiful. Making the most of his small ensemble, he was able to achieve a variety of surprising effects, displaying a keen knowledge of the limitations of his ensemble.”
“This is an opera [The Sea] that directly addresses difficult themes and explores notions of coercion, corruption, and seduction. This is conveyed by a range of melodies that begin gently but build to more intense tones and sounds. ”
“...Lawson found a striking compositional vein that promised a sort of catharsis; in this tragedy, you find a consolation that broadens out into a generous efflorescence before the inevitable descent to darkness.”
