25 years of Halcyon - April Pt 2: House Music and Dreams and Dances

November 27, 2023 Jenny Duck-Chong

In a series of blogs in 2023, Halcyon’s Artist Director, mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong, considers highlights of the last 25 years. Shining a spotlight on performances month-by-month she shares insights and links to music performed across the years.

April: 2009 and 2012

Continuing to focus on April performances, alongside the Aurora Festival and multiple performances of Steve Reich (see April Pt 1) April also saw us featured in the House Concert series at Government House, Sydney and in a collaborative performance with Sydney Philharmonia's VOX at the Sydney Conservatorium.

19 April 2009 Government House - House Concert

One of several concerts we played at Sydney's Government House in its intimate House Concerts series, this one featured a collection of works for voices, flute, cello, piano - with Laura Chislett flute, Patrick Murphy cello and Sally Whitwell piano.

The lush program was a best-of collection with works by Claire Jordan, John Corigliano, Libby Larsen, John Tavener, Ross Edwards, Oliver Knussen, Joseph Schwantner and Anne Boyd drawn from previous performances.

Claire Jordan's Memory was our first ever commission, premiered in our first concert series in 2001. Inspired by the poetry of Christina Rossetti, it was a song cycle in five movements, soprano and mezzo alternating solos before a final shared duet.

Alison had performed the John Corigliano work in an early vocal chamber music program, devised by the two of us years before the start of Halcyon, way back in 1993. Take a look at the flyer and you can see the kernel of things to come... (and how far computer graphics have changed since then!)

Libby Larsen was another discovery through personal research - perhaps found through perusing publisher catalogues or even books of repertoire lists, like this one from my library. Knussen, Tavener and Schwantner were well established composers even then, who were known for their larger scale vocal music, but we wanted to showcase more of their intimate chamber music.

Finding this underperformed repertoire, especially viewing scores, was a challenge in those days but we worked with publisher representatives and music libraries around the world in the pursuit of high-calibre-but-new-to-us work to perform. There are so many composers who are well known in their own sphere but have less exposure outside their immediate or national reach. I am very proud of the number of composers we have been able to introduce to our audiences across the years and the number of Australian premieres we have presented through this sort of tenacious pursuit.

You can now listen to many of these pieces from our early recordings on YouTube - the Schwantner and Jordan from our very first Demo recording made back in 2002, the Knussen from Earth Jewels in 2003 and the Larsen from Close Ups in 2004.

I remember Larsen’s duo, Liebeslied, as one of those moments of equal partnership between voice and instrument, where each are so beautifully intertwined. The program was performed and recorded live at Trackdown Scoring Stage at Moore Park, Sydney. Our first introduction to the studio where many of our albums have since been recorded, it was the start of a long and productive relationship.

LISTENING LINKS
Claire Jordan Echo from Memory
Joseph Schwantner Black Anemones from Two poems of Aguedo Pizzaro
Oliver Knussen When First I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer from Whitman Songs
Libby Larsen Do You Know and Liebeslied from Beloved, Thou Hast Brought Me Many Flowers

21 April 2012 - Dreams and Dances with Sydney Philharmonia VOX

A wonderful chance to work with this enthusiastic ensemble of young voices and their conductor Elizabeth Scott. Presenting works for voice and choir, as well as featuring each ensemble individually, it was a world tour of the rare and the familiar - with works by Arvo Pärt, Katy Abbott, Elliott Gyger, Dan Walker, Kerry Andrew, and Kaija Saariaho. Percussionist Claire Edwards joined us for works by Jorge Vidales, Ross Edwards and a solo piece, Coil by Gerard Brophy (featured on her album of the same name)

Every program is full of wonderful works and stories but here are a few highlights.

By this stage we had performed quite a number of Kerry Andrew's solo and trio pieces. Herself a singer and a member of the female vocal trio, juice, she was already one of Halcyon's ten most performed composers (see the photos on the top of The Music page to discover the rest). We featured two works from her Dusk Songs - O Nata Lux for choir and Criosda liom a cadal for choir with mezzo soloist. The latter, an atmospheric and evocative work saw with the choir spread around the gallery in Verbrugghen Hall at the Sydney Conservatorium, surrounding the audience from above and singing back to me on stage. The choir's vocal entries are 'triggered' by my part. First reponding with my consonant sounds and then gradually with more and more pitches drawn from my melody the sound grows until they are sustaining chords beneath my repeated chant-like melody.

Mexican composer Jorge Vidales' Four Basho Haiku (2008) was another internet discovery as we looked for works to complete the program. For solo soprano and vibraphone, Halcyon performed the Australian premiere.

Kaija Saariaho, feted as "among the most prominent composers of the 21st century" was another of Halcyon's most programmed composers. She had such an exceptional understanding of the capacity of the human voice and loved to explore its textural possibilities, forming text collages and using sound as much for meaning to convey her intent.
She is quoted, in an interview with NPR, as saying,
"I think that sound and color are not completely detached from each other. That's maybe how it is in our brain. And I think that certain sounds, or certain kinds of music, can have even a specific smell. So I feel that all the senses are somehow present when I compose."

Read the full article here.
Sadly she passed away earlier this year and the world lost a unique and influential composer. In the 25th birthday program which featured her Ariel’s Hail (from The Tempest Songbook), I noted:

”A giant of contemporary vocal music, Saariaho’s distinctive work has featured in numerous Halcyon programs since we first performed Grammaire des Reves in 2002. Exploring the intricacies and timbres of that score and its vocal writing with my then co-director, Alison Morgan, was revelatory and viscerally exciting and solidified our vocal partnership as we wove words, phrases and even syllables together and merged with, or emerged from, the instrumental textures around us. Performing that work strongly influenced the repertoire we selected in the ensuing years and the vocal virtuosity that we wanted to challenge ourselves with in the future.”

By 2012 we had already presented six of her works in concert: Grammaire des Rêves (2002 & 2005) Du gick, flög and Nej och inte (2004), The (complete) Tempest Songbook (2007), Miranda's Lament from the Songbook (2008) Quatres messages (2010) and Nuits, Adieux (2010) with electronics. The instrumental work Cendres also featured in an early collaborative program with Ensemble Offspring.

Nuits, adieux originally featured in our atmospheres program, a collaborative program of electro-acoustic music with austraLYSIS as part of the New Music Network* concert series in 2010. When we were planning this program, we remembered that the piece, which we had so enjoyed performing, also existed in a version for solo voices and choir. As the program note states: "The mixed choir replaces and imitates the electronics of the original. The various echoes, delays and other effects have been transferred to the choir part."

Joined by the two male soloists from the first performance - tenor Andrei Laptev and bass Clive Birch - it was fascinating for us all to return to a piece that was the same… but different. Instead of microphones and electronics, we had the choristers, magnifying and extending sonorities from the solo parts. For them, it was really an exercise in both reading and listening intently, responding to their corresponding solo voice.

You can read Saariaho's full program note and texts here

LISTENING LINKS
Jorge Vidales Four Basho Haiku
Kaija Saariaho Nuits Adieux (with Sydney Philharmonia's VOX)
Kerry Andrew Criosda liom a cadal performed by the Ebor Singers

* For those of you who don't know about the New Music Network, you can read a bit more about what it was in this article, written in 2014 by James Nightingale for The Music Trust's Music in Australia Knowledge Base when he was President of the Network. The concert series was an important connection point for members and we were often encouraged to collaborate in our programs for the series which led to the 2013 project with austraLYSIS and one of our few forays beyond the realm of purely acoustic performance.

25 years of Halcyon - April Pt 1: Aurora Festival and Reich

November 9, 2023 Jenny Duck-Chong

As I reflect on the past 25 years I continue to muse about how much life has changed for performers and promotions across the decades. Ensembles and venues have come and gone, and media is a whole new animal since the early days of hard copy mailouts and mailing lists! As I delve into our archives and seek out information again about the performances and events, I realise how much easier it is to access some information and how difficult it is to discover other material which is no longer 'active' in this digital age. And I am fascinated by how much more I am discovering along the way, even about works I have performed and researched before. While the internet can be a perennial rabbit hole of diversion or distraction to fall into, there is also a wealth of fascinating material to discover that makes our understanding richer and deeper.

April - 2008, 2009, 2012

In this blog we’ll be taking a look at highlights of April performances from 2008, 2009 and 2012. The month of April saw us at the second Aurora Festival in Western Sydney in Campbelltown and Penrith and in multiple performances of the music of Steve Reich.

12, 18, 20 April 2008 - Aurora Festival

The Aurora Festival in Western Sydney was the brainchild of composer Matthew Hindson who wanted to create a festival for contemporary art music in Sydney, featuring 'new music by living composers'.

In his introductory message to the first festival in 2006 he wrote:
" In 2003 I was the featured composer of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival in Wales. Curated by John Metcalf, this festival of new music focuses on contemporary chamber music written by living composers, taking place over a week in predominantly regional centres of Southern Wales.
Upon my return to Sydney I realised that there was no regular festival of contemporary art music in Sydney - a strange situation given a city of our size."

So he set out to create one. Established as a biennial event, the inaugural Festival took place in 2006 (more on that in the May blog). Read the original program here.

The second Aurora Festival (subheaded 'Living Music') in 2008, sought to highlight 'cross-cultural influences' in national and international works and included 19 premieres, discussions, workshops and forums alongside the performances. The featured composers were Chinary Ung (US/Cambodia) and Michael Atherton (Australia). Although much of the online material is no longer available, you can still read the two e-forums that were part of the event on AMC's resonate: Forum 1: Music of the Spirit - Acoustic Music (panel: Diana Blom (moderator), Chinary Ung, Michael Atherton, Anne Boyd and Bruce Crossman) and Forum 2: Music of the Spirit - Electroacoustic Music and Beyond (panel: Houston Dunleavy, Chinary Ung, Michael Atherton, Andrian Pertout, Garth Paine and Roger Dean). The first contains some references to the pieces described below. These online discussions contain some forthright commentary and make for interesting reading fifteen years on. There was also a book produced in collaboration with the festival, Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific musical identity, edited by Michael Atherton and Bruce Crossman. View the program list here.

12 April 2008

Aurora Festival Aura/Aurora: Heavenly Music inspired by water and light
Halcyon performed in two programs in the Festival and performed works by both the featured composers. The first concert included Australian premieres by Chinary Ung, and Gavin Bryars alongside Ross Edward's Maninya I and the world premiere of Songs of Stone and Silence by Michael Atherton, commissioned for Halcyon by the Festival . Both featured works resonated with the idea of place - Michael’s with the ancient art of Australia’s First Peoples and Chinary’s Aura with echoes of his Cambodian homeland. Here’s a bit more about the works.

Michael Atherton - Songs of Stone and Silence
With poetry by David Campbell, Michael Atherton’s new piece featured an integrated visual projection behind the performers (which we sadly never got to witness). Comprising of a series of interconnected and named sections, the composer notes, “Each title comprises a series of four-line poems that depict Aboriginal rock engravings, mainly in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, Sydney, and NSW - Ku-ring-gai Rock Carvings; Sydney Sandstone (Rock Carvings); and Devil's Rock and Other Carvings.”

I remember working extensively with Michael in the preparation of this work, as he tailored it to fit. He described it like this in a Festival e-forum that followed the performance:
"my song cycle... is largely a through-composed work. I spent a long time listening to the singers and tried to imagine the embodiment of their voices and the link between the poetry and the rock engravings. The spoken text of David Campbell's poetry was scored on single line staves with instructions that were used as a dialogue for discussion in rehearsal. Specific stage movements are specified in the score but space did not permit us to include this. The bass clarinet and cello have some outlining here and there in the parts, which we workshopped. I wanted to capture the individual bodily responses of the musicians in the soundworld of the piece, also having poetry to be felt as moving between speech and song."

Each short section flashes with a distinctive colour as it depicts the flora and fauna embedded in the Australian landscape. For this performance, Alison Morgan and I were joined by Jason Noble clarinet, Julia Ryder cello and Sally Whitwell piano.

Chinary Ung - Aura
This massive work of around 45 minutes was by one of the festival's featured composers, the Cambodian-born American-based Chinary Ung who was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2020. Takemitsu is quoted as saying,
“[Ung’s] music is a combination of Eastern Philosophy and Western innovation. It is not a product of pure technical solution but it is a creation of deep spiritual aspiration.”

The largest work Halcyon has ever undertaken on their own, it is scored for 2 soprano voices, flute, oboe/cor anglais, clarinet/bass clarinet, percussion, 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and double bass. What that information does NOT tell you is that many of the players also bow water-filled wine glasses and/or play crotales and other hand percussion as well as vocalising!

"Aura utilizes two sopranos, singing high-flying passages in Pali and Khmer, floating over a chamber orchestra in which nearly everyone is required to play additional percussion instruments, including bowed crotales, little cymbals common to the ancient world. Current events figure into Ung's texts and music as well; a portion of Aura is a commemoration of the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina."

You can read Allmusic’s full album review here and listen to another recording of Aura here performed by Southwest Chamber Music (Cambria Master Recordings, 2008)

I still remember the piece vividly and recall the co-ordination challenges of singing while playing hand-percussion. Doing something that you are highly-trained in while simulataneously performing on another instrument as a non-professional takes different fortitude as a performer. Many of the instrumentalists initially also felt out-of-their-depth when asked to engage in singing and chanting, hand-percussion and whistling, all of which were a feature of the work, above and beyond their instrumental involvement - though I’ve had many chances across the years to rise to the challenge!

If you look closely at the photos you can see the players have head mics in place for the ABC broadcast recording. It was definitely a feat for the whole ensemble. But it was a visceral one and created such a rich array of colour and human responsiveness as speech and percussion meshed with melodic contour and emotional arc.

Ung scholar Adam Greene describes this well -
"musicians are asked to perform vocal behaviours and their instrumental parts simultaneously—no small feat considering that the combination of acrobatic gestures and subtle timbral shadings that populate Ung’s scores is enough to engage the abilities of most performers. To ask them to do something for which they have not studied and practiced to perfection—singing, humming, whistling, chanting—requires a leap of faith on the part of the composer and the performer. In some ways this alludes to folk music, in which it is common to play and sing simultaneously. In Ung’s music, the demands are heightened, and there is enough independence in both tasks that one does not hear the situation as one of melody and accompaniment."

The work had such a distinctive sound-world that so clearly straddled the influence of different traditions and cultures embracing all whole-heartedly. The festival gave us a wonderful opportunity to experience and engage with the composer and his music.

For the Ung, Halcyon was Roland Peelman conductor Alison Morgan soprano Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano Steven Meyer flute/piccolo/alto flute David Papp oboe/cor anglais Jason Noble clarinet/bass clarinet Claire Edwardes percussion Sophie Cole violin Thomas Talmacs violin Nicole Forsyth viola Julia Ryder cello Mardi Chillingworth double bass. His wife, violist Susan Ung, who has premiered and recorded many of his works, also played in the ensemble and brought us further insights through the process too.

The program was the sort of thing you take on when you are younger and crazier. Aura is a 45 minute epic in six movements which we performed after a full first half of about the same length with the Bryars, Edwards and the Atherton premiere.

18 and 20 April 2008

Aurora Festival: Daniel Variations with Sydney Conservatorium Modern Music Ensemble

In the second program, Halcyon and the Sydney Conservatorium Modern Music Ensemble, directed by Daryl Pratt, gave the Australian premiere of Steve Reich's Daniel Variations for 2 sopranos, 2 tenors, 2 clarinets, 4 pianos and 6 percussion. An intense piece, drawing together the Biblical writing of the prophet Daniel and the writing of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, you can read more on the work here. Alison and I were joined in this performance by tenors Andrei Laptev and Dan Walker.

At this point it was Halcyon’s third piece of Reich so, his was a musical 'language' we felt very familiar with. As well as Tehillim performances, Halcyon had performed the Australian premiere of his small work Know What is Above You (for four female voices and percussion) at the first Aurora Festival in 2006. Despite being au fait with his work, it is still music that requires absolute rhythmic accuracy so the ensemble can lock together seamlessly and yet you need to 'relax' into so it is not just a piece of frenetic counting; it needs to be ‘felt’ together. Very much a piece for being absolutely grounded in the present moment and not thinking about the past or future!

You can listen to the Nonesuch studio recording featuring the choral version here and read more about it here and here

OTHER REICH PERFORMANCES

9 April 2009 also saw another performance of Tehillim - Halcyon’s third in two years - with Ensemble Offspring and a standout line up of percussionists and projections for Melbourne Recital Centre.

On 29 April 2012 we also performed Music for 18 Musicians in Synergy Percussion’s program Steve Reich: A Celebration at the Opera House in the presence of the composer. Extracts of the concert were featured in Sydney Opera House’s 50/50: Celebrating 50 iconic years streaming playlist.

25 years of Halcyon - February and March

July 21, 2023 Jenny Duck-Chong

In a series of blogs in 2023, Halcyon’s Artist Director, mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong, reflects on highlights of the last 25 years.

It does not feel like twenty-five years since soprano Alison Morgan and I formed Halcyon ‘to promote and champion new and recent music for voice and instruments’. It was a bit of a mouthful to describe, but it is exactly what we did then, and Halcyon has continued to do over all these years. Looking back over a quarter of a century of creative practice, there are many extraordinary experiences, achievements and works I’d love to shine a light on. So in this irregular blog I’ll be looking at Halcyon’s history month-by-month - sharing stories and pointing you to works, videos and recordings from our now substantial catalogue along the way. You can also take a look at the online Concert Archive where you will find details of every major performance across the ensemble’s lifespan.

FEBRUARY - 1998 and 2014

With no January performances on record, across all the months of February there were only ever two programs.

14/2/1998 MVI & SYDNEY ALPHA ENSEMBLE

This was Halcyon's first ever concert - we launched Halcyon in a collaborative program with acclaimed new music giants Sydney Alpha Ensemble (we were imaginatively called MVI at the time). Recorded by ABC Classic FM, it was one of the largest programs we ever staged with works by George Crumb, Luciano Berio, Maurice Ravel and Maurice Delage.

I've already written about this special night on a previous blog here.
LISTEN: to the full archival program here

Find the full program details, including links to reviews by Fred Blanks and John Carmody on the Concert Archive program page here

18/2/2014 HALCYON at the DELMAR GALLERY

Presented in conjunction with the annual Blake Art Prize touring exhibition, it featured solo and duo works for voice and cello by Ross Edwards, John Tavener, Michael Finnissey, Gavin Bryars, Peter Sculthorpe, John Cage and Libby Larsen.

LISTEN to two of these pieces: Ross Edwards’ Maninya I and Libby Larsen’s Liebeslied

VOICE AND CELLO

The combination of voice/s and cello has been in our programming since our very first concert series in 2001 which included my first performance of Ross Edwards' Maninya I with cellist Geoffrey Gartner in the distinctively named Concert 2 (which we recorded years later on Waves II). It was the featured combination of the most recent trilogy of programs in 2020-22 - Holding Light, After Dark and Autobiochemistry - with cellists Geoffrey Gartner, James Larsen and Rosanne Hunt and soprano Jane Sheldon.

Halcyon is now responsible for a signficant increase in the repertoire for voice and cello. The 2020-2022 programs alone contained a dozen world premieres for this combination - from full-blown song cycles to short vignettes - by Andrew Ford, Elliott Gyger, Gordon Kerry, Sadie Harrison, Cameron Lam, Nicola LeFanu, Nicole Murphy, Alisha Redmond, Kate Reid, Andrew Schultz, Larry Sitsky and Luke Styles. Further premieres across the years include works by Katy Abbott, Moya Henderson and Brad Taylor-Newling. You can find them all listed here.

Beyond adding new work to the repertoire, Halcyon is actively engaging with new generations of composers and students in practical settings with this compact combination, presenting composer workshops and performances in secondary and tertiary institutions in Sydney and Melbourne as well as our vocal intensive program, First Stones 2022.

MARCH - 2008, 2010 and 2014

26/3/2010 SIRENS@CARRIAGEWORKS
21-22/3/2008 SIRENS at the FOUR WINDS FESTIVAL

SIRENS

Normally Halcyon is what I call a chameleonic ensemble. The ensemble is built based on the needs of the program and excellent artists are drawn together to work collaboratively on each project. Sirens was different. This vocal quartet and harp combination first performed together in 2004 and went on to perform major commissions by Elliott Gyger, Dan Walker and Raffaele Marcellino and a world premiere and Australian premiere by Graham Hair. Composers recognised the skill of this elite group and wanted to write for us.

For 'Sirens' (the name came from the 2004 concert title), then co-director Alison Morgan and myself were joined by soprano Belinda Montgomery, mezzo-soprano Jo Burton and harpist Genevieve Lang. By 2010, six years after our first one-off gig, this group of amazing women had performed 7 different programs in 3 capital cities including the inaugural Aurora Festival of Western Sydney in 2006 (which featured the premiere of Elliott Gyger’s From the Hungry Waiting Country). The Sirens singers also featured in the landmark performance of Steve Reich's Tehillim staged by Halcyon, Ensemble Offspring and Synergy Percussion at City Recital Hall and Riverside Theatres attracting audiences of over 1000 to hear music by Reich, Ligeti, Vivier and Ricketson. But more on that another time…

The singers had also undertaken performances of Gillian Whitehead's epic Nga Haerenga for voices, percussion and narrator and two further performances of Tehillim. At the Four Winds Festival in Bermagui over the Easter Weekend in 2008 Sirens singers performed Reich’s Tehillim, Vivaldi’s Gloria (in a version for 4 female voices and ensemble) and a new work for voices and ensemble by Ross Edwards in the stunning outdoor ampitheatre.

Sirens@Carriageworks in 2010 was a celebration of this wonderful off-shoot ensemble of Halcyon and the long and fruitful creative relationship that had developed. The concert included the premiere of Raffaele Marcellino's A Strange Kind of Paradise (which became the first movement of the cycle of the same name, recorded on Waves III) and the completion of Dan Walker's song cycle King Ludwig’s Swans, with Movements IV and V created especially for this occasion.

The program also featured the singers in duos and trio combinations in works by Kaija Saariaho, Kerry Andrew, Roxanna Panufnik, Nicola LeFanu, Gordon Kerry and Gillian Whitehead and two solo performances of Ross Edwards and Younghi Pagh-Paan by our instrumentalists - flautist Laura Chislett and harpist Genevieve Lang.

LISTEN to these pieces from the live recording: Sappho’s reply, The Song of Doves, Dreisam-Nore and the premiere of A Strange Kind of Paradise.
You can hear more of Sirens in performance and recording in the Sirens playlist including the complete five-movement version of Dan Walker’s song cycle (as recorded on Waves II) and live performances of much more.

15 and 29/3/2014 KINGFISHER: SONGS FOR HALCYON

Over two programs we performed 21 new pieces composed for our 15th birthday. This delayed 15th birthday celebration took place early in 2014 (though our actual birthday was in 2013). I had spent the previous year recovering from cancer and we wanted to be match fit for this program of bespoke new works so we delayed these concerts until 2014. We did hold a wonderful celebratory birthday party at the MCA in October 2013 which saw us preview six of these pieces with introductions by our compere for the evening, Genevieve Lang. But the full program, which became the Kingfisher album, did not take place until six months later (and gave time for those last few pieces, which were still being penned, to be delivered for the March performances!).

From two solo voices to the full ensemble of soprano, mezzo, flute, clarinet, cello and vibraphone, the program was a fantastic showcase of the diversity of contemporary vocal writing from composers of many generations who we had formed connections with across our history and who we had asked to write for the project: Katy Abbott, Stephen Adams, Nigel Butterley, Sharon Calcraft, Ross Edwards, Andrew Ford, Stuart Greenbaum, Elliott Gyger, Graham Hair, Moya Henderson, Gordon Kerry, Raffaele Marcellino, Kevin March, Rosalind Page, John Peterson, Andrew Schultz, Paul Stanhope, Jane Stanley, Nicholas Vines, Dan Walker and Gillian Whitehead. It included the last work that Nigel Butterley was to complete, Nature Changes at the Speed of Life..., featuring text by one of his favourite poets, Kathleen Raine.
The whole program was recorded on the Kingfisher: Songs for Halcyon album released throughTall Poppies in 2015 .

LISTEN to many songs from the Kingfisher album here and hear short clips about the works by each of the composers here

25 years of Halcyon: The first concert - 14 February 1998

February 14, 2023 Jenny Duck-Chong

On this day, twenty-five years ago, Halcyon staged its first performance - Valentine's Day, 1998. Co-founders, soprano Alison Morgan and mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong had previously presented their first vocal chamber music together back in 1993. They had been working and performing together for some years at this point and an early review had already pronounced them as "two of Sydney's most enterprising and mellifluous singers" (Fred Blanks, Sydney Morning Herald), but this was their debut as a named ensemble.

With their inventive ensemble name, Music For Voices and Instruments (MVI for short) and a newly crafted logo, the budding singer/directors employed the services of new music heavyweights Sydney Alpha Ensemble for this inaugural concert, under the baton of Jenny’s University colleague, conductor Antony Walker. The last piece also featured the very young voice of Jane Sheldon, who they found for this program while she was still in high school.

Jenny notes:
The history of Sydney Alpha Ensemble is not easily found on the internet so I wanted to give some background for those who do not remember their influence. When Halcyon was forming, they were regarded as one of the stellar new music groups of the time - virtuosic solo and chamber music performers who presented and championed new repertoire of the highest calibre. Basically what we wanted to be when we grew up! You can read their bio in the program link below and learn more about the scope of the work they had been presenting as Halcyon was emerging. They were an ensemble at the height of their powers.

It is a shame that ensembles of this period - groups such as Roger Woodward’s Alpha Centauri Ensemble (which was the precursor to SAE), Seymour Group, Flederman, Symeron and many others - are not well-documented on the internet. While material on composers of this period is generally available, there is little material on the ensembles that were such forces for commissioning and performing contemporary repertoire of their era. I hope more work will be done to make their history and influence more widely known.

Halcyon started as they planned to go on - working with great musicians (both established and emerging) to present high calibre and rarely heard works. A courageous and challenging program, they presented four masterworks - Maurice Delage's Quatre Poèmes hindous (1913), Luciano Berio's Folksongs, Maurice Ravel's Trois Poèmes de Stephane Mallarmé and George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children (1970).

In this first program they wrote:

"MVI is dedicated to the performance of vocal chamber music spanning the twentieth century. The music for voice and instruments is rich and varied in its combinations and the written word when set to music can be powerfully compelling.
MVI envisages this as the first of a series of concerts which will provide the opportunity to perform a broad spectrum of works rarely heard in Australia, ranging from earlier in the century to recent works and new commissions."

Though the time span has narrowed (the 'earliest' works now presented are generally only a handful of decades in the past and the composers are primarily living) this still rings true across 25 years as the model for their practice. What has evolved is the inclusion of a far greater component of newly-created and commissioned work as relationships with composers have developed and deepened over the years. However, large ensembles works like these have been rare, with only a handful of programs equalling the number of players on the stage at this first performance.

Recorded by ABC Classic FM and attended by an audience of around 250 people (on the same night that The Song Company was performing Stockhausen’s Stimmung nearby) it was a memorable beginning for the ensemble that celebrates a quarter of a century today!

The performers were:
Conductor: Antony Walker
Soprano/Co-Artistic Director of Halcyon: Alison Morgan
Mezzo-soprano/ Co-Artistic Director of Halcyon: Jenny Duck-Chong
and soprano Jane Sheldon (Crumb)

with Sydney Alpha Ensemble:
Flutes: Geoff Collins, Emma Sholl; Oboe: Linda Walsh; Clarinets: Peter Jenkin, Philip Arkinstall; Violins Tony Gault, Alexandra D'Elia; Viola: Esther van Strahlen; Cello: Zoltan Szabo; Percussion: Daryl Pratt, Phil South, Greg Sully; Harp: Jane Rosenson; Piano Stephanie McCallum; Mandolin: Paul Hooper

Nigel Butterley 1935-2022

April 11, 2022 Jenny Duck-Chong

Image @ Robert MacFarlane. Used with permission.

Music is grown through relationships. One of Halcyon's aims has always been to connect you to the music of our time and the composers who create it. In this post, I would like to focus in on the work of one significant Australian composer, Nigel Butterley, who passed away in February.

Butterley was a masterful composer, drawn to the power of poetry and the human voice, who wrote beautiful and uncompromising vocal work throughout his career. He was also a skilled performer who was involved in presenting new international works to Australian audiences including the first Australian performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire in 1959 (Richard Meale was the conductor). How I would have loved to have seen that.

IN OTHERS WORDS

Admired by composers and students alike, he was an influential voice across several generations. There have been many insightful articles, broadcasts and tributes written about his work and musical legacy. Click on the links below to read more.

Andrew Ford - Nigel Butterley Remembered (ABC, The Music Show podcast)
Vincent Plush - Nigel Butterley has died (Limelight)
Stephen Adams - Vale composer Nigel Butterley, who has died aged 86 (ABC Classic)
Elliott Gyger - Obituary: Composer’s music celebrated opening of Opera House and Captain Cook (Sydney Morning Herald)
Australian Music Centre - Farewell Nigel Butterley (includes links to three earlier articles by Elliott Gyger and Chris Williams: Nigel Butterley at 80 - A Reading and Seven Listenings; Nigel Butterley's music, decade by decade and Nigel Butterley and the Problem that Wasn't)
Jack Carmody - Eulogy delivered at the funeral service

ABC Classic FM has also reposted an old interview he did with Margaret Throsby around his 60th birthday here

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

As a young University student and singer I took part in performances of Butterley's choral work, such as The True Samaritan (recorded with The Contemporary Singers on Tall Poppies' album of Butterley's chamber music, There Came a Wind Like a Bugle) and was drawn to the intricacy and intelligence of his vocal writing, his delight in both text setting and pure sonorities. Each vocal line was satisfying and challenging to engage with - the clever and surprising interplay between voices, which were often woven deftly around each other (even between voices of the same type), the biting close dissonances - his writing shaped my own vocal development as I was starting out on my career path as a freelance singer.

CARMINA

Halcyon's closer relationship with Nigel and his work did not develop until his later years. In July 2005 we collaborated with Ensemble Offsping on a program called Floof!(after Esa-Pekka Salonen's wild piece of the same name), which included Butterley's Carmina: Four Latin Poems of Spring. First performed by Lauris Elms and the New Sydney Wind Quintet in 1968 it was wonderful to work with Nigel on this piece many decades later. We performed it again in September that year as part of New Music Network's Nigel Butterley 70th Birthday Festival which also featured programs by The Song Company and the Seymour Group.

ORPHEI MYSTERIA

With a grant from the Australia Council, Halcyon commissioned Nigel to write Orphei Mysteria and premiered the work in 2008 as part of the B3 program in Halcyon's tenth birthday year. The live performance was recorded and broadcast by ABC Classic. You can listen to this performance as part of ABC Classic FM’s 90 for 90 series here.

We staged it twice more in later years, performing and recording it in 2014 (for Giving Voice and Waves III respectively) and again in Melbourne in 2017 with Inventi Ensemble in A Child of Earth and Heaven.

A substantial and haunting work in seven parts, it features a rich ensemble of mezzo-soprano, soprano, piccolo/flute/alto flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, oboe/cor anglais, guitar, violin, viola and cello. With its delicate and evocative text setting, sensitively shifting sonorities and delicate intermingling of vocal and instrumental phrases (as the colours of one frequently merge into the other), this true ensemble work was a deep joy to study and perform. It was also written with a clear understanding of Halcyon's artistic directors honed abilities as ensemble singers. In performance, the soprano is placed behind the ensemble and only joins with the mezzo soloist at key points in the work - acting rather like a Greek chorus as commentator - and yet the voices are required to sing an intricately intertwined duet, minimally accompanied, which needs to sound to the audience as though it is in tune, well-balanced and completely in sync despite the physical distance. No small feat to achieve but a challenge we embraced.

"Poetry stands behind everything of Nigel Butterley's, vocal or instrumental. But though he has a mastery of images, his music can seem diffident, withholding meaning until second or third hearing. Orphei Mysteria breaks constraint and communicates immediately."
From Graeme Skinner's review of B3 for the Sydney Morning Herald

KINGFISHER

As we approached our 15th birthday, we again spoke to composers we had worked with over the years about writing a work for our Kingfisher project. We were thrilled when Nigel, along with 20 other composers, agreed to celebrate the occasion with us. He wrote a beautifully sparse work for soprano and cello, Nature Changes At the Speed of Life... to text by one of his favourite poets, Kathleen Raine. He was finding writing harder by this point and it took him some months to produce this delicate work. I remember him expressing his frustration several times, as he said that he could hear it all in his head but was finding it more difficult to capture those ideas on the page. Though we did not know it at the time, it turned out to be the last work he completed.

I spent some time last year researching his work in the archives of the National Library where I read transcripts of interviews and information about his early travels, experiences and the development of works. I will conclude with some words Nigel himself wrote in 1969, which still seem to reflect the essence of his work.

"...Music is a means of contact between one person and another. On the one hand I know that my relationships with people play a large part in forming the music I write. I hope that on the other hand my music may evoke some personal response in someone who hears it."
from the Australian Composers Survey No. 1

Vale Nigel.

LISTENING

You can listen to a playlist of all these works and a brief interview we did with him in 2014 for our Kingfisher project here.

You can also listen to the premiere of Orphei Mysteria , as part of ABC Classic FM’s 90 for 90 series here. The program features our B3 concert from 2008 and includes works by Gavin Bryars, George Benjamin and Nigel Butterley performed by Halcyon as well as performances by The Song Company and Nigel Butterley himself.

What's so special about First Stones?

June 10, 2021 Jenny Duck-Chong

We all have a natural voice. But the trained voice, and its capabilities, is not an instrument that young composers often have much experience with. For many, the vocal instrument - and its abilities - are not still a mystery. Additionally, the way the purely musical characteristics of the instrument interact with the added layer of text expression is a fascinating and critical area of study for anyone serious in working with singers.

Halcyon's aim has always been to connect audiences with great vocal writing and to help them engage with the composers of our time. Almost twenty-five years later, I look back at a performance history full of stellar works (both famous and obscure) featuring a wealth of contemporary composers (some highly regarded, some growing in stature) and a litany of colleagues and lasting friendships gained along the way.

Showcasing the voice as an ensemble instrument – not simply a soloist with an instrumental accompaniment – has always been a key focus of Halcyon’s work. For me this is what makes vocal chamber music so engaging. Being in an equal musical partnership, sharing timbres and textures with the instruments, and being challenged to continually listen and adapt to each other responsively - all this is what makes the repertoire so thrilling and rewarding to perform.

As a singer I have spent more than three decades immersed in scores, analysing composer's ideas, along with the poets (or other text materials) they set, and creating an interpretation informed by both. In essence, as an interpreter I spend time 'decoding' the score, noticing the unique aspects that define each composer's writing style. This musical 'language' for me becomes as critical as any text they may source. The variety of thought and expression I have encountered across many years (and hundreds of scores!) continues to inform my approach to each new work I prepare.

Ten years ago, Alison Morgan (co-founder of Halcyon) and I created the original First Stones project. We wanted to share our expertise with emerging composers and give them a chance to get 'up close and personal' with us, to try to demystify the voice, to connect a new generation to the work of experienced vocal composers and to help them learn how to convey their ideas more clearly.

Elliott Gyger was our composer-mentor in 2011 and I am thrilled he will be returning to work alongside me this year. Since that time Halcyon has premiered four more of his works, our collaborative output growing in those years from two works to seven (with one still to be premiered) and including Halcyon's highly regarded album From the Hungry Waiting Country.

First Stones 2021 is a two-stage project, across two weekends in July (10-11 and 24-25). At different times over the two weekends, Elliott and I will be joined by composer Cameron Lam, bass-baritone Andrew O'Connor and cellist James Larsen. You can read more about all the personnel on the First Stones page.

Stage 1 presents the foundations - with conversations about the voice and vocal writing, and practical examples drawn from contemporary vocal repertoire from both composer and performer perspectives.

While valuable for all emerging composers, I hope it serves another equally important role - that of demystifying contemporary classical vocal repertoire for students and teachers of singing. The joy of discovering new work and composers who are unknown to me, but who say something musically that I respond to, is a great joy. I was encouraged by my teacher to explore the widest cross-section of repertoire - from early Baroque music to the present day - and to seek meaning in music of every era. Those who have worked with me know I will always have something to say when it comes to vocal line, text setting, poetic or musical intent and expression!

This inquisitiveness is something I would love to encourage in others and I welcome any singer or teacher to join us for Stage 1 if they are curious to know more about new vocal music and to meet some living composers and hear them talk about their work.

Stage 2 is a vital practical workshop for emerging composers. It will give the selected applicants access to skilled practitioners, to constructive feedback and a chance to explore the best ways to express their ideas clearly for performers.

All music was newly created once. Works that are now regarded as 'canon' were once world premieres, being heard for the first time by an expectant audience. How rewarding it has been to be a performer of music that is being created in the present day, engaging with living composers and bringing to life their thoughts and ideas. As I have said in a previous blog, "Music is built on relationships - it is not created or performed in a vacuum." I'm looking forward to sharing some of these insights and engaging with all those curious to learn more about the voice and the composers who write for it. And to starting more conversations.

FIRST STONES 2021
Stage 1 July 10-11 BUY TICKETS here
Stage 2 July 24-25 APPLY here

**Applications for Stage 2 close on June 18

Presented in association with the Australian Music Centre

New in 2021 - In Focus

April 1, 2021 Jenny Duck-Chong

2020 was a year full of sharp contrasts. It brought times of enforced isolation and silence but it also gave us more time for reflection, helping us observe and listen more attentively to the world immediately around us. In keeping with this spirit of renewed awareness, I’m creating a new curated ‘close listening’ experience in 2021, In Focus.

This new blog series will explore some of the composers most featured across Halcyon’s long performing history. Alongside a YouTube playlist of their music and other media, I’ll take a look here at some of the pieces Halcyon has brought to life in performance.

Halcyon’s audiences have always amazed me with their curiosity and desire to explore new works. Often they have turned up to hear a program, sometimes knowing little about the composers or pieces at all, but coming along anyway. They are keen to hear our performance of music which may be as yet unknown to them and to find their own responses to our eclectic repertoire.

One of the particular joys of performing the music of living composers is getting to know them - both their individual musical personalities and the ideas that inform their music. While curating programs is an extremely rewarding part of the role of a director - working out how one piece sits alongside another, how the words, gestures and colours interplay and have ‘conversations’ - there is also something wonderful about becoming immersed in one subject. When I speak about delving into a composer’s work, it’s what I call ‘learning their language’ or hearing their ‘voice’ - spending time listening to their work and observing them directly so you can begin to understand their defining traits and individualities.

With In Focus you will get to spend time with just one composer as you read about and listen to tracks, interviews and performances from Halcyon’s archive. I hope it may help you get better acquainted with these composers and spur you on to explore more of their music on other platforms and via their own websites. There are so many wonderful rabbit holes to fall down when you start exploring! And so much great music to experience.

Two years of Conversation

June 17, 2020 Jenny Duck-Chong

Music is built on relationships - it is not created or performed in a vacuum. As performers of contemporary music, we have the opportunity to work alongside living composers - to question, connect and interact with them about their music. The works we have commissioned and performed are not just interesting items curated into programs, but are brought to life through these conversations as we learn more about the composers and their own specific musical languages and personalities. This dialogue has also allowed us to experience the fascinating intersection between composer and performer in the birthing of new work and to forge long-standing relationships with a significant number of composers over the years (you can see the long list of performed composers here but there are dozens more we’ve worked with in workshop and individual mentoring sessions).

Halcyon created the series In Conversation With…. in June 2018 to shine a light on Australian composers who work in vocal music, to explore their thoughts and provide insights into works that Halcyon has performed. Filmed in conversation with artistic director Jenny Duck-Chong, each interview is edited into bite-sized topical clips and hosted on YouTube. The project has been supported by the Australian Music Centre, and the clips are also embedded on composer or work pages on their site.

In Conversation With…. has been a largely self-funded project to help audiences, students and self-confessed ‘composer-nerds’ learn more about the process and practicalities of composition and the very different ways that composers can approach writing for voice. While it is a valuable educational tool, we hope it also appeals to those who just want to gain a better understanding of the person behind the music and gives them new ways to listen to their work. It features both long-established composers and younger generations to provide a snapshot of composition today. Back in November 2018 Jenny wrote an article for Resonate about the series and the first four featured composers which you can read here.

On the June long weekend, In Conversation With…. turned two. The playlist now features 10 composers - Katy Abbott, Ross Edwards, Andrew Ford, Elliott Gyger, Matthew Hindson, Gordon Kerry, Raffaele Marcellino, Kevin March, Nicole Murphy and Andrew Schultz - and 35+ clips covering topics including Writing for Voice, Setting Text, Composition, Recording, Collaboration, Being an Australian Composer and more. Three more composers are in production and more interviews are planned when travel restrictions ease.

Take some time to explore the series here and discover something new today. We have been uploading a new clip each week in June so subscribe if you don’t want to miss any new installments.

Two years on, if you have enjoyed the resource and would like to support the creation of more videos, please consider making a donation to support Halcyon in growing this resource.

The Arts in 2020 and the COVID-19 Crisis

April 27, 2020 Jenny Duck-Chong

Who could have predicted the year that we now find ourselves in?

At the start of the year as the bushfires raged, artists across the nation stepped in to raise much needed funds; only a few months later and it is the artists who are now in dire need, as venues have closed, festivals and events have been cancelled for the foreseeable future, and the creative economy has slowed to a halt.

The new challenges brought on by COVID-19 will threaten the future of the arts in Australia, but the crisis in the arts and the struggle for visibility for many artists and organisations started coming came to a head late last year when the word Arts was literally removed from the Minister’s portfolio (now entitled the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, and Communications).

Now many of us find ourselves recalibrating and looking for ways to simply survive the coming months, let alone how to remain vibrant and vital, and to engage with audiences or to create in a meaningful way while live face-to-face performance is on hold.

Since March, many many insightful articles have been written on the impact of the shutdown for both the present and for the industry's long term future with headlines like:

• Australia's arts have been hardest hit by coronavirus. So why aren't they getting support?

• Coronavirus has shut down Australia's arts industry but artists say the Government has ignored them

• We are witnessing a cultural bloodbath in Australia that has been years in the making

• Degraded and demoralised: the arts companies left behind

• Coronavirus: 3 in 4 Australians employed in the creative and performing arts could lose their jobs

• Artists shouldn’t endlessly have to demonstrate their value. Coalition leaders used to know it.

But while writing is still able to be shared and accessed in the privacy of our isolation, live performance, which is at the heart of what we do, is not as easy to transpose into our homes. In The paradoxes of trying to make art during a pandemic, Alice Saville touches on the magic of live performance, which is one of the things I am finding myself missing most.

"When a big group of people sit in a room together to watch a performance, magic happens. Their heartbeats synchronise, according to scientists. There’s a quality of attention and focus it’s hard to find anywhere else … Liveness is what makes theatre [or music] life-affirming, special, and dangerous in a metaphorical sense – it’s ephemeral, hard to censor, predict or control.”

Playing to empty venues and streaming concerts is a temporary answer to fill a gap while its still possible but it can't replace being at a live performance for either audience or performer. As Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker, "Music is at heart a social medium, and it desperately needs contact."

So how do we maintain contact in this time of lockdown?

Many of us have found ourselves channelling energy into advocacy, and sharing the plights and stories of those who are suffering. Live Performance, NAVA, MEAA and I Lost My Gig have all published media releases which detailed the specific needs of the sector, and the community hasn’t been quiet either, with the hashtag #CreateAustraliasFuture generating over 900,000 responses earlier this month.

In mid April around 2000 people also took part in a great webinar put on by the Australia Institute, entitled ‘The Role of Artists & the Arts in Rescuing the Economy’ with Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, playwright Melanie Tait and Richard Denniss. I found it incredibly heartening to hear articulate voices speaking up for our sector and to see so many like-minded people in the same virtual space raising and discussing the issues at the heart of the crisis for the creative arts community. You can watch the webinar on the link above or you can read more about at The Monthly. Then NAVA began a series of weekly online workshops on Advocacy to talk about ‘arts, policy, media, political and public engagement’ which are generating some great ideas and conversation.

As for you as individuals, while you may not be able to see live performance right now, there are still ways you can show your support. There is much you can do to help and encourage music creators right now, including:

Listen to your favourite artists (and like, follow and share them) AND find a few new ones
Buy a track or an album to give some much-needed financial support
Make connections - find other ensembles, musicians, fans, supporters, or music community to talk and share with while we can’t share space
If you can afford to, don’t seek reimbursement for a concert cancellation and help offset performers’ and ensembles’ debt
Donate via Support Act or offer resources to support specific artists and ensembles who will be without work as the pandemic continues. If you know someone in need, ask what you can do.
In this time of isolation, take time to contact your favourite groups and artists and tell them why you value what they do or which tracks you love
Contact someone about commissioning a new work and give them a focus and creative project in these very lean months. If you've never done it before, that doesn't matter. Just start a conversation!
You can read some helpful words from Andy Ford about commissioning (and other ways to support artists) here and a reflection on his own first COVID commission). If you need more incentive, he has also put up a short video about what he’s doing to support Australian art-makers.

You can also be an advocate and write to your local members, the Arts Minister, the Treasurer or the PM to express your concerns. They need to hear why it affects you. Now, while we are all turning to the arts - music, film, theatre, writing, visual arts and more - to get us through this crisis, is a great time to remind those in government that the arts matter to a healthy percentage of the voting public, and that a strong arts community helps us create a more engaged and vibrant society.

In the midst of this crisis, I am thankful for the many who are standing up and speaking out strongly for artists and advocating and assisting those in real need, those reaching out in so many ways to support each other and those finding new ways to create and develop art in new ways (often learning a bunch of new skills on the fly to do so) despite our physical isolation. It is great to see a series of online performance initiatives such as the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall that have sprung up. Limelight, Artshub, ABC and others have been generating great online content lists to help you keep track of what is available to see and hear. Many new commissioning initiatives have also been established such as Australian Music Centre’s Peggy Glanville-Hicks commissions and the ABC Fresh Start Fund.

While there have been so many positives, I have also been deeply saddened to read so many personal stories of hardship and loss in recent weeks (including those organisations who lost their 4-year funding in the most recent Australia Council grants round), of despondency, anger and shock as the ramifications of the shutdown of our industry are unfolding. The difficult reality is the sector - and especially those individuals who are casual, freelancing, on short-term contracts or small groups who were already functioning on shoestring budgets - will not make it through this crisis without the support of government and community.

We don’t know how long this crisis will last but we do know that the arts will return, in one form or another. Throughout this time, I keep returning to the article by Alice Saville:

"Finding the headspace to be truly creative feels impossible at the moment, especially when the target is as massive as ‘replicating liveness online’. It feels like everyone I know is simultaneously experiencing the kind of crises you only get once a decade, all at once, encompassing employment, family, anxiety, housing, sickness. Everyone’s coping mechanisms are suddenly uncomfortably visible as they scramble to distract themselves with frantic activity, or retreat into quiet mourning."

We are all experiencing this time differently, and while I am amazed by some of the fantastic and creative work that has been produced in response or in spite of this crisis, there are also those who are quietly reflecting and taking stock as we consider what may be next.

The best way I have felt able to stay connected recently is through writing short social media posts and if you head to Halcyon’s Facebook page you can catch up with the many thoughts and articles I’ve been sharing there. Or use your time of isolation to dive into the concert archive and curated playlists (including the In Conversation With… interview series) on Youtube or take a look around the website and explore recordings, resources and more.

Remember and treasure the art and art-makers that have been significant for you during this lockdown, and show your support by tuning in, listening, buying and encouraging them, as well as feeding yourself with art that inspires you.

Postscript - 14th May

Since this was posted there have been other excellent and sobering articles on this topic. Click on the links to read more.

Arts funding: a survey of destruction

NSW must protect its crucial arts institutions

As young artists watch their dreams vanish, our cultural democracy is in peril

2020 - A new year

February 28, 2020 Jenny Duck-Chong

The last few months, with the horrific summer that many have had to endure, has seen devastation to life, properties, businesses, infrastructure and the environment. We have also witnessed a damaging political climate develop, with the visibility of the arts threatened through recent ministry amalgamation announcements which has provoked much response from the sector and its artists.

Despite the lack of arts recognition by the government, artists themselves continue to create and encourage others through their work and to demonstrate the important role the arts play in our everyday lives and in reflecting the contemporary world. We do it in such diverse ways, from a loud shout to the gentlest whisper, in a wide variety of media, but we all do it because we believe in connecting with our contemporary world.

As the MEAA said in a recent statement:

“Art matters. The arts play a crucial role in our society. Art connects us as humans and shapes how we think about ourselves and the world. Participation in the arts forms community, expresses our humanity, and tells stories about who we are and who we want to be.”

_____________________________________________________________

The YouTube channel is growing and our popular In Conversation With…interview playlist, a series that provides a dedicated focus to the words and thoughts of Australian composers, now features 33 videos and includes nine composers so far with more new faces to come this year.

To start the year off we’ve added a bunch of new clips to the series and regular additions will follow every fortnight.
Katy Abbott On Collaboration
Andrew Ford On Inspiration
Andrew Schultz on Recording
Elliott Gyger on Vocal Chamber Music

You’ll also find a very short clip of Gordon Kerry talking about his fascination with chamber music on our facebook page here.

This month we’re introducing a new composer, Kevin March, to the series with his first clip on Composition I: Finding Your Voice. Kevin has written two beautiful works for Halcyon over the years, including Sea-blue Bird for our Kingfisher 15th birthday project (which you can listen to here) and is passionate about vocal music and poetry - which is clearly why we have so much in common!

These relationships with composers, developed over years of working together, are at the heart of what we do. Bringing any composer’s intentions to life and interpreting them through performance is a great joy, but when you can also ask them questions, debate their ideas, learn their particular language and be part of the creation of a new piece, it is a unique privilege. We hope, through these conversations, that you are able to share some of that experience. Click here to subscribe.

In 2020 I urge you to take all this to heart and to seek out and engage with living arts and artists; be moved, uplifted, provoked, challenged and changed!