 The 2021 HiberNATION Festival is coming to a close, and I am delighted to be part of the grand finale. SoundSERVER is a multi-artist installation happening exclusively in Minecraft on Saturday 2nd October, running from 12pm - 8pm. I wrote a work for a room called “The Lonely Plain” - and despite a few glitches with the looping, I’m happy to be experimenting with this new sounding space! I plan to release the loop as a standalone piece on my Bandcamp very soon.
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Some exciting news! I have been accepted to study a PhD at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand in 2022. I will be continuing my research into the accessibility of modern electroacoustic music culture, and how we can change our aesthetic goals to be more inclusive and perhaps more resourceful. I am so excited to begin this new journey and ever hopeful that the borders will open up soon enough for me to begin next March.
Sadly, this also means I will be leaving behind the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, which has nurtured my skills and encouraged my creativity for almost a decade. I do hope that I can return to this vibrant community some time in future and share what I learn over the Tasman.  Album artwork by Nicholas Astill. In Semester 1 of 2021, I was honoured to be asked to coordinate a second undergraduate unit at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music: Digital Composition 2. I was initially very nervous about re-designing the course content, assessments and running a 3-hour seminar every week (and more than one sleepless night was had as a result!). It was, of course, completely worth it; not least because I got to bear witness to some amazing music being made. The result of my students’ hard work can now be heard as a double compilation album on Bandcamp. Entitled Asunder/Aligned, this collection features raw, raucous and exploratory music of all genres and charts the artistic growth of each student over the course of Semester. Please enjoy!
 Despite Sydney's latest lockdown, June 27th wasn't too gloomy. SHARING SPACES, a beautiful virtual concert conceptualised by Naarm-based composer Kezia Yap, was premiered to a live audience on YouTube. Opening the concert was Tessellata, a semi-improvised work performed and composed by flautist Jessica Scott and myself. This piece has been in development for over a year and several lockdowns; so nice to have it out in the world! Jessica and I decided to record a pared-back version of this soundscape for the concert, and filmed the video in my room along with all of our favourite houseplants. It only seemed fitting, as the piece is based on the life cycle of the Caladenia Tessellata Spider Orchid! You can re-watch Tessellata on my YouTube channel, where I am hoping to pop a lot of my works in future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahh_5wotcW0
Today the Australian news podcast Old Boys Club has reached the No. 1 slot for Australian News podcasts on iTunes. While all the credit goes to the fantastic team of editors, and brilliant presenters Justine and Matilda...I'm going to piggyback on this success all the way. Very proud and grateful to have been involved in this project!  Just a few days ago I had the immense pleasure of putting together a sound story/talk/performance for Sydney-based theatre company, Living Room Theatre. My piece centred around the violence of sound design, and was titled "I Make What I Don't Want to Hear." The piece focused on my own anxieties and how this comes through in the sound materials and manipulations I use.
I plan to create a recorded version of the performance, coming soon to Soundcloud! A few weeks back I had the pleasure of composing the theme tune for new Australian podcast Old Boys Club, a much-needed breath of fresh air in the realm of political commentary. Written by young women for young women, Old Boys Club is fun, energetic and downright hilarious to listen to.
The brief was "fun, electronic pop." A lot of the elements were recorded in the back of my wardrobe with a hand-held mic, and putting this together felt fairly effortless as the vision of Justine, Matilda and Alex was so clear. The first two episodes of the podcast are out now and you can listen to them here, and the one-minute theme tune is also available for listening on my Soundcloud! After quite a long break from this work, my 2020 Radiophrenia Festival commission, Mineral Disobedience, is finally on my Bandcamp! I spent a long time agonising over tiny details of this piece. It took a period of 4 months or so to see the bigger picture, and make sure that the piece was at its best. Newly mixed, with some sounds replaced, revised or erased, I hope you will enjoy this slightly more polished version. Listen here.
 Beautiful artwork from Ellen Bird, now re-purposed for Vertigo Oasis. I've just released my first show for CAMP Radio, a prolific and amazingly cool initiative from CAMP, an artist residence located high in the French Pyrenees. This first show is a bit myopic, showcasing new and old works from myself only. Next time, I plan to expand the net much wider to showcase diverse sound works from young Australian artists. Keep your ears peeled for April! If you're interested in listening to a tangle of new, rhythmic works and old acousmatic ones from me, listen here.
Mark and Barry from Radiophrenia have been perennial presences in my composing life. I have never met these two, but every year I submit my latest works to their Radiophrenia Festival call-out, by humble email. I have come to really value these small interactions, the hints of friendly humour that I’ve caught from their replies, as well as the offerings of the Festival itself. Naturally, I was overjoyed when the pair asked me whether I would write an original work for the 2020 Festival in March (and again in August, when their delayed funding had been received)! This commission was a sign of hope that 2020 would not be a creative waste for me. Teaching others to compose and enjoy electroacoustic music was a joy, but I wasn’t doing much of my own writing. The Radiophrenia deadline was a few months away, floating like a lighthouse beam across the hazy future of August, September, and most of October. Plenty of time to think up a groundbreaking work!
After carefully mapping out the work, selecting my field recordings to work with and composing an excellent, light-hearted story to shape the music around…I began the work once, twice, and then a third time. Each time, up to ten minutes of music was scrapped as I loaded up the same field recordings anew, and tried to take them in a different direction. Another day of work, and only 20 seconds of new music to show for it. Why was this so hard? It wasn’t a motivational problem. I’d spent the better half of a year teaching my students methods to deal with creative block, exercises they can do with any field recording to get their minds flowing. I think rather than a lack of inspiration, what I felt was pressure - a need to get this right for the people who had been generous enough to believe in me. This was for money, after all. Another source of frustration came from the fact that my normal approach to composition wasn’t enough for me this time around. I had just finished teaching a course which taught students multiple ways to approach composing with sound - including techniques which I wouldn’t normally adopt in my practice. But when you get to know a concept or practice well enough to teach it, it stands to reason that you begin to appreciate it. Things I never thought I would be interested in within my own music, like organised tonality, chord progressions and melodies (if you’ve heard my work before, you’d understand how a musician can somehow avoid these things). But now I knew too much; could see how things like sampling, pitch, harmony could apply to my work and enhance it. I couldn’t adopt the same approaches without feeling like I was missing out on my full potential; but as the deadline rushed forward, I didn’t have the time I needed to adequately experiment with my newfound voice. I was stuck in limbo! Not content to remain the same, but too green to pull something totally rhythmic and tonal. Finally, I found my footing by sampling an old recording of a tubular bell, using this to construct a melody which reflected the resonance of my ambient field recordings. A foot hold! I clawed my way through the work, becoming surer of my steps as I was able to form a structure, walk away, come back later and fill it out. I turned in that piece last Friday - 10 minutes shorter than anticipated, but complete. I was at least proud of what I’d done, but I knew it was a first step toward a new, evolved voice. Now, I’m excited for what it signifies: growth! But I need time to figure out what that looks like, and sounds like. I think I need a few months to experiment with my new sensibilities, and hopefully I will know when it’s time to start something in earnest; when I can confidently embrace the new. If you’d like to hear the product of these struggles, and tune in to the ALWAYS amazing Radiophrenia Festival, you can find out more here! |
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