Date: 4 September 2015
Venue: Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Presented in collaboration with the New Music Network
Asian culture has captivated the artistic mind for centuries; the elegance and concise restraint of Oriental visual art, music and writing have been an ongoing inspiration for composers around the globe. Winter Moon Secrets brings together chamber music inspired by a world behind closed doors, where courtly life, love and secrets form the centrepiece of existence, a place where inner thoughts remain concealed, whispered only to the night air or written on a page in a private room.
In Andrew Schultz's I am writing in this book (2011), fragments of 10th century writer Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book have been threaded together to trace the life of a young woman from naive youth to old age. Sohmon III (1988), by eminent Japanese composer Minoru Miki, sets poetry from the oldest anthology of Japanese poetry, the Man'Yoshi (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves) dated from the seventh and eight centuries. Miki believes that music and culture are deeply intertwined and that peace between nations can be achieved through the blending of diverse cultures. Larry Sitsky's newly penned work A Feast of Lanterns II (2015) draws texts from a collection of ancient Chinese poets and writers, employing voice and instruments to render delicate brushstrokes of colour. Joining Halcyon for this program is koto virtuoso Satsuki Odamura, performing solo works composed for her by Australians Ross Edwards and Rosalind Page.
PROGRAM
Ross Edwards Interlude from Koto Dreaming (2003)
Minoru Miki Sohmon III (1988)
Larry Sitsky A Feast of Lanterns II: 7 Songs from Chinese Sources (2015) (WP)
Rosalind Page Garden (2006)
Andrew Schultz I am writing in this book Op. 88 (2011)
WP WORLD PREMIERE
ARTISTS
Luke Spicer conductor Alison Morgan soprano Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano Ewan Foster violin Anna Martin-Scrase cello Jenny Druery double bass Rowan Phemister harp Sally Whitwell piano William Jackson percussion Satsuki Odamura koto