You can now hear the podcast from Ensemble Offspring's Kontiki Racket Festival in November last year. The podcast features the world premiere of my piece Vibe Rant, as well as premieres of Lachlan Skipworth's Intercurrent, Alex Pozniak's Extract, and Juan Felipe Waller's Detone Retune.
Vibe Rant has another outing; this time at Ensemble Offspring's 'Sizzle', Petersham Bowling Club, April 23:
In Ensemble Offspring's words:
'Sizzle is contemporary classical music at the local bowlo. Now in it’s seventh year, Sizzle has become a fixture in the Inner West arts calendar.
With the usual mix of art-meets-popular culture-meets-family fun, this year promises an all female composer line-up; special guest artists and jazz super-collective, Sirens Big Band; an interactive music installation for contrabass clarinet and ping pong balls by Melbourne-based Aviva Endean; and an eco-friendly instrument-building workshop with a twist for all ages by Liz Jigalin. Add a dash of chaos for good measure! It’s free and family-friendly as usual.'
Plus...
PART 3 – ENSEMBLE OFFSPRING & VERONIQUE SERRET (6 String Electric Violin)
Holly Harrison – Vibe Rant 6′ (flute/piccolo, bass clarinet, vibraphone)
Pauline Oliveros – Wind Horse 5’ (percussion, clarinet, flute)
Bree van Reyk – Light for the first time WP 9′ (keyboard, flute, clarinet, vibraphone, violin)
Ivana Radovanovic – October Morning 7’ (electric violin solo)
Sarah Kirkland-Snider – Pale as Centuries 6’ (keyboard, flute, vibraphone, double bass, clarinet)
Ensemble Offspring will play two of my pieces, Frogstomp and Vibe Rant, as part of their 'Birdsong at Dawn' concert at Western Sydney University's Playhouse Theatre, March 30. The concert features works by female composers with a connection to WSU, and a theme of birdsong and croaks and creaks of native Australian fauna. Come along to see my squeaky frog toy back in action! Click here for more details.
I've had a blast on tour with the delightful Eighth Blackbird. Many thanks to Musica Viva, the Hildegard Project, and Geoff Stearn for making it possible! From Perth beaches, Newcastle camels, Melbourne negronis, Brisbane Koalas, to hometown Sydney (+ rain). I'm a little sad I couldn't make it to Canberra or Adelaide!
Here are some words about Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup:
‘exploded off the page with a quirky energy that had the audience in raptures’
Rosalind Appleby, Writer, 21/2/2017
‘Swarms with detail, hot jazzy moments of furious fiddling, some astonishing virtuosic percussion, a cellist at the top of his game and calm, mellow tones from the flute as well as peeping piccolo, gave us a fascinating potpourri of sounds’
Neville Cohn, The West Australian, 24/2/2017
‘a work of riotous energy, eclectic rhythmic complexity and inventive instrumentation drawing on instrumental extremes of range and tone with good humour and vitality’
Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald, 27/2/2017
‘Harrison’s work opens with a jazzy cacophony….The mood changes on a dime, with a sighing duet from violin and piano giving way to vigorous bass clarinet grooves and percussive flute rhythms accompanied by blue grassy pizzicato cello’
Angus McPherson, Limelight Magazine, 28/2/2017
‘Irrepressible, this was a piece of contemporary art music for god’s sake – that had a concert hall smiling throughout. Go and listen to Holly’s music! Better yet, commission her! She’s a great composer and can do public speaking well. She is a programmer’s dream! Do it, do it now!’
Ian Whitney, Composer, 3/3/2017
‘Dazzling riffs and solos are punctuated by fragments of text interjected by the musicians. The piece is driven by a powerful groove that has it’s apotheosis in an unlikely and spectacular bass clarinet and flute duo .’
Matthew Lorenzon, Partial Durations, 19/3/2017
While in Melbourne, I met up with Megan Steller of Rehearsal Magazine for a quick chat about Lobster Tales and composer-y things.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Radio Adelaide's Grahame Dudley about Musica Viva's Eighth Blackbird tour, my new work Lobster Tales, and all things Lewis Carroll a few days ago. You can listen again [here] under 'Classical Connection'.
Yesterday afternoon I appeared on Fine Music's 'In Conversation' program with Michael Morton-Evans. You can listen to the interview (here), including songs/pieces of my choosing!
Eighth Blackbird and I after out first rehearsal. Check out that trashy cymbal stack in the foreground!
The inimitable Eighth Blackbird gave the world premiere of my Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup on Monday night. Their Australian tour with Musica Viva kicked off in Perth, as part of the Perth International Arts Festival - the first of a string of dates across the country. The program includes Muhly's Doublespeak, Dessner's Murder Ballades, Hearne's By-By Huey and Andres' Checkered Shade. Lobster Tales was commissioned for Musica Viva with the support of Geoff Stearn and the Hildegard Project.
Some words (and hand actions) from me about the story behind Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup:
Looking as though I'm about to perform an impromptu 'Lobster Quadrille' after the premiere!
And some words about Eighth Blackbird's Perth show:
The score and parts for my trio Frogstomp (flute/picc, bass clarinet & percussion) and percussion duo Tweedledrum are now available via the Australian Music Centre.
An e-book written by Tristan Coelho, in preparation for MLC School's Australian Music Day 2016, is also available. It includes analysis of my Tweedledrum, Melody Eotvos's The King in Yellow, and Andrew Ford's Lullaby and Fire Dance, along with composition activities for senior high school students.
Australian Music Centre's online Resonate Magazine features my blog about Vibe Rant, detailing part of my compositional process. Find it here!
You can hear more about Kontiki Racket on The Music Show with Andrew Ford, November 12, featuring Ensemble Offspring's artistic director and percussionist, Claire Edwardes, and I. Follow the link to download the audio here.
My latest trio Vibe Rant (flute/picc., bass clarinet/clarinet, & vibraphone) is for Ensemble Offspring's micro-festival Kontiki Racket, 12-13th of November. Come along!
The inaugural Creativity Unlimited Festival will be held at Western Sydney University on September 1-2. Timothy Phillips and Michael Kieran Harvey will give the premiere of my new percussion and piano duo, Brake Dance, on September 2 at 3pm, alongside works by Bruce Crossman, Clare Maclean, Eve Duncan, Tomoyuki Hisatome and Akira Kobayahsi.
Earlier in the day (12pm), I'll be improvising (drum kit/percussion) with Joey Tabua (electric guitar/guzheng) as our rock duo, Tabua-Harrison, as well as with Jess Graham (violin/vocals) and Lizzie Graham (piano) as Tabua-Harrison-Wren.
For more info, the program for both days is available here and here. There's loads more, including improvising trio Espadrille and prog-rock trio Three Wise Monkeys.
Orkest de Ereprijs will perform my Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax at Gaudeamus Muziekweek, 11 September, TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax was commissioned by Orkest de Ereprijs for 2015 after receiving first place at the 2014 Young Composers Meeting with Cabbages and Kings.
My paper 'A Musical Portmanteau: Rock Viscerality, Juxtaposition and Modernist Textures in Frumious' is now published in Sally Macarthur, Judy Lochhead and Jennifer Shaw (eds), Music’s Immanent Future: The Deleuzian Turn in Music Studies, Routledge/Ashgate, 2016.
Be sure to check out Jim Rolon's Australian Composer Polaroid Project in celebration of the Australian Music Centre's 40th anniversary. The series features 41 composers and sound artists, from Stephen Adams to Sally Whitwell, and I feel very lucky to be one of them!
You can find the online exhibition here, and an interview by Andrew Ford with photographer Jim Rolon here.
The live recording of the And Whether Pigs Have Wings premiere by Caroline Cartens and RKST21 (Orkest de Ereprijs & Het Gelders Orkest), conducted by Arjan Tien, is now available.
You'll also find a few rehearsal snaps below.
Dress rehearsal at Musis Sacrum, Arnhem.
Rehearsal at Town Hall, Apeldoorn.
No trip is complete without a visit to the Kröller-Müller Museum!
Georgia Tech Chamber Strings, conducted by Chaowen Ting, will give the US premiere of FiddleSticks! on the 29th of February at the Ferst Centre, Atlanta, Georgia. The program is sponsored by Women's Philharmonic Advocacy. More information about the night is available here. Other programmed works include Ney Rosauro's Marimba Concerto and Stravinsky's Ragtime for 11 Instruments.
I'm excited to be off to the Netherlands next week for the premiere of my new work, And Whether Pigs Have Wings, for soprano and chamber orchestra. The piece is written for soprano Caroline Cartens and the Orchestra of the 21st Century (RKST21), a joint collaboration between Orkest de Ereprijs and Het Gelders Orkest.
Cartens and RKST21 will perform And Whether Pigs Have Wings on two programmes, conducted by Arjan Tien. The first at Brand New Day (February 13, Musis Sacrum, Arnhem), alongside Three Reflections of Previous Thoughts and HOP by Martijn Padding, and Funk My Life, a new work by Mátyás Wettl. And the second at the opening concert of the 22nd Young Composers Meeting (February 14, Town Hall, Apeldoorn), also alongside works by Padding and Wettl.
Presented by Stockland, a short documentary about FiddleSticks! and the premiere performance is now available to watch!
FiddleSticks! is an exciting partnership between Stockland, Sydney Youth Orchestras and Prairiewood High School. Contemporary Australian composer Holly Harrison worked closely with elective music students from years 8-11 in an intensive workshop program throughout Term 3. Using junk percussion, found objects and improvisation excercises, Holly sculpted a piece based on the rhythmic and melodic ideas of students. Everyday items are repurposed into musical instruments: buckets, sandpaper blocks, sports whistles, squeaky-toys, homemade rice shakers and a megaphone. Holly aimed to write a piece which would reflect the fun, outgoing and eclectic personalities of the students she had worked with at PHS.
The percussion was paired with SYO's Sinfonietta under the guidance of conductor Heloise Meisel. In a series of rehearsals and with a team of supportive staff, including SYO percussionist and concerto Competition winner Stuart Rynn, students combined to present FiddleSticks!
