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Speak Emerging Artists Program
Speak Percussion
EMERGING ARTISTS PROGRAM 2010 -2011
Melbourne-based percussive arts organisation Speak Percussion is pleased to announce our new Emerging Artists Program, demonstrating our continued commitment to developing relationships with young Australian musicians.
Applications are now open for this unique program, offering young Australian composers and percussionists the opportunity to collaborate and receive mentoring from nationally and internationally renowned specialist artists in the field of contemporary music. Through extended creative exchange of ideas and collaboration, the selected young artists will be engaged in an advanced program dedicated to contemporary percussion chamber music.
The program places the young artists in a highly focused, professional environment where they will extend their skills in the challenges of developing and presenting new works for percussion. This includes addressing specialized performance techniques, analysis of repertoire, compositional devices, languages for percussion, professional advice and forums as well as realising 5 new works for percussion ensemble from concept through to recorded public performance.
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STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAM
The duration of the program is 5 months during which there will be two 5-day intensives involving all participants.
Each emerging artist (composer & percussionist) is allocated to a mentor and to a peer. These groups of three then collaborate to support the young composer in creating sketches of a new composition that will be workshopped in the Creative Development Week.
Creative Development Week will see the emerging artists and their mentors work intensively to hone their skills and develop, refine and explore the composer’s original compositional material. This will involve a series of intensive workshops, lessons, masterclasses, lectures and forums covering technical advice, hands-on activity, individual/group work, development of chamber music skills.
Following this week, the composers will complete their compositions in time for the percussionist’s to prepare for the Rehearsal Period where the new works of the participants are rehearsed and performed by a combination of the emerging percussionists and professionals from Speak Percussion.
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IMPORTANT DATES
Creative Development
Mon-Fri 6-10 December, 2010
Rehearsal Period
Mon-Fri 11-15 April, 2011
Performance
Fri 15th April, 2011 - 6pm
LOCATION
Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School
57 Miles St. Southbank VIC.
PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS
Guest composition Lecturer: Thomas Meadowcroft (Berlin)
Speak Percussion Artistic Director: Eugene Ughetti
Speak Percussion Professional Percussionist’s (TBA).
Guest Lecture: John Davis (CEO Australian Music Centre, President of the International Society for Contemporary Music)
INCLUSIONS, LOGISTICS AND COSTS
10 active participants (5 percussionists, 5 composers) will be selected to form the emerging artists group. Application details for these positions are as below.
Participation is FREE for all emerging artists including travel (within Australia), food and tuition. Accommodation will be organised through billeting or nearby lodging.
Up to 100 passive participants will also be able to attend the program by watching all sessions and being involved in group discussions.
They must also apply for admission.
Auditions for percussion places will take place in Melbourne, Brisbane, or via recording. Composition applications can be emailed or posted to Speak Percussion.
All application materials and information for prospective Emerging Artists and passive participants can be found on the 'downloads' section of this page.
PARTICIPANT GIFT + PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY
Optimum Percussion will be offering a gift comprising a collection of specialty percussion mallets for all Emerging Percussion Participants, valued up to $175.
Rhythmscape Publishing is offering to work on the commercial development of one of the new works composed by our Emerging Composers. The opportunity for the development collaboration will be judge by Rhythmscape’s nationally selection submissions panel led by its Managing Director, Gordon Hughes.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Enquiries can be directed to Program Manager Laura Holian on laura_percussion@hotmail.com or 0411 124 122.
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Speak Percussion would like to thank the sponsors of this program for their generous support:
Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School
Arts Victoria : Victoria Rocks
Cybec Foundation
Australian Music Centre
Australian Percussion Gathering
Optimum Percussion
Rhythmscape
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Catherine Schieve
Catherine’s large-scale graphic scores are both visual works of art and musically fascinating. Inspired by the Grainger Free Music interior, this collaboration develops series of Catherines scores into a gently moving live percussion performance-installation event.
As a visual artist and composer/performer Catherine Schieve has been investigating the deep congruence of sonic and visual expression for over 25 years.
The first presentation of this work will feature a series of 4 seminal works Catherine created in the 1980’s including the never performed 110 feet-long work "Blue Line". The works are also large visual arts works created on canvas and were designed to be "read" and performed by musicians trained in specific ways (redefining the act of translating visual gestures to sound), often on homemade or adapted percussion instruments.
The performance environment is set-up as an open installation environment where the percussionists traverse the space in front of Catherine’s strategically installed “graphic” scores. The audience is free to move, listen and view the works at their discretion.
This project is also Speak Percussion’s response to the interior of the Salon Room, of which the 4 walls are covered by Percy Grainger’s graphic score “Free Music No. 3”. This performance furthers the highly significant but currently undervalued legacy of Australian graphic notation in music. It also makes use of the wonderful talents of Warren Burt and his reconstructed Grainger Free Music Machine.
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Astra Chamber Music Society
Speak have been very pleased to begin a performance association with the Astra Chamber Music Society. Early in 2007 the groups joined forces to present Luigi Dallapiccola's Canti di Prigiona including 8 percussionists, choir, 2 piano and 2 harps. Recent projects have included Birthday concerts celebrating Elliott Carter's centenary and the lineage of American composers associated with him. New works by Andrew Byrne have be co-performed and more are in store for future performances.
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Aphids
Over 15 years Aphids has grown into a dynamic, artist-led organisation specialising in unique cross-artform collaborations with Australian and international dimensions.
Aphids is one of Australia’s only arts companies focusing on new music and cross-artform collaborations. Since 1994 Aphids has created over 60 distinctive and critically acclaimed projects, involving artists of all disciplines. In the twelve months of Aphids' 06/07 program, over 100 artists were employed.
Aphids works with arts companies including the Libra Ensemble, Speak Percussion, and major organisations in Australia such as the Melbourne International Arts Festival, ACMI, Sydney Opera House, Victorian Arts Centre, Malthouse Theatre, Federation Square, ABC Classic FM, Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Arts and RealTime.
Aphids has undertaken projects involving Japan, the USA, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Indonesia, Germany, France, Switzerland, South Africa, Lithuania, Serbia and Italy. Recent tours include Underground to Holland, Belgium, Italy and Japan; and Skin Quartet to the USA, South Africa, Belgium and Sydney.
Aphids has a history of providing support to artists through mentoring, project management, resource sharing and auspicing. This has been formalised in Aphids’ Residencies and Mentoring Scheme for young and emerging artists working in music and cross-artform practice.
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Clokced Out Productions
Brisbane's Clocked Out joins forces with Melbourne's Speak Percussion to present a series of composer portrait concerts. So far in the series has been the project: Dream, Spill, Fear, Percussion - the music of Erik Griswold. This program included his groundbreaking work "Strings Attached" plus new percussion pieces and other evocative music for prepared piano and percussion. Next in the series is the music of Anthony Pateras. Anthony will be composing a new sextet and solo work for this project and this event will give a well-rounded expose of his current repertoire for percussion.
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The Glass Percussion Project
An immersive experience unveiling the hidden sound world of glass
The Glass Percussion Project is a collaborative initiative directed by glass/installation artist Elaine Miles and percussionist/composer Eugene Ughetti. It brings together a series of specialist artists in the disciplines of percussion practice, instrument building, musical composition, sound and light design, installation, studio glass and performance.
This project researches, develops and presents the interaction between glass and sound, refining and expanding the possibilities of sound installation and performance, simultaneous musical instrument and visual art objects within a family of glass percussion instruments.
From within installations of glass percussion instruments, live performances, soundscapes amplified in surround-sound and interactive experiences converge around themes of air, water and divine melody.
The experience is a wholistic interplay between sight, sound, light and movement. Presentations vary between seated performances, gallery installations and more complex interactive environments.
Installations feature hand-blown glass percussion instruments, many made of crystal, of over 300 gongs, 100 bowls, 160 goblets, 50 maracas, 60 udu drums, various wind-chimes, bars, bells and a collection of suspended sheets and shards.
Performances include a selection of elite percussion soloists with live electronic manipulation of the sound and diffusion through a network of speakers throughout the space.
ARTISTIC RATIONALE
The Glass Percussion Project is a search for a new sound world, with new musical instruments, new performance techniques, new compositional languages and a new visual environment.
Air, water and divine melody are the binding elements and conceptual focus. The broader ramifications of these themes are further developed and create strong material for dialogue between glass object and sound. A unified language is sought between all the collaborative mediums and often creates a blurring of the boundaries between the senses.
Glass is one of the most unexplored sound materials and has immense musical potential because of it’s highly resonant properties, complexity of overtones and flexibility in terms of physical form and shape.
The process of developing musical and sonically diverse glass percussion instruments is of benefit to all artists involved and has a broad significance to the music industry. Such innovations provide new opportunities for instrument builders, performing percussionists, composers and an extraordinary visual potential allowing the aesthetic potential of glass to augment the already elaborate forms of musical instruments.
KEY ARTISTS
Eugene Ughetti is primarily responsible for the sound, performance and development of the new musical instruments. He monitors the instrument’s playability and logistical parameters, makes decisions about implementing alternative tuning systems, organizing the instruments and directs the musical performance aspects of the project.
Eugene has collaborated on a number of ambitious and innovative hybrid-arts projects and is a performer of a plethora of percussion instruments, a composer and a conductor. He is the artistic director of Speak Percussion, a percussive arts enterprise which commissions new works for various percussion forces, collaborates with other art forms and performs contemporary percussion music. He has also commissioned and recorded a work for solo glass-percussion by Melbourne composer Kate Neal.
Elaine Miles will be primarily responsible for the creation and design process with particular emphasis on creating experiential environments. Her experience with glass percussion instruments stems from Fine Arts. Her training in handblown glass making has allowed her to created hundreds of percussion instruments. Elaine has already constructed two major groups instrument families, among many others, including 4-octaves of glass bowls from a set of two hundred and two sets of 2.5-octaves of glass gongs hand selected from three hundred.
Elaine has collaborated with musicians Hugh Paddle, James Roche and Naomi Jean on her glass instruments exhibiting innovative glass installations incorporating both their natural acoustics and sound recordings. Such exhibitions have formed the basis of solo and group exhibitions Regionally, Nationally and Internationally.
Myles Mumford is the project’s sound artist and designer the sound-space of all installations and performances. Myles uses technology and sound-reinforcement to enhance the musical potential of the instruments and also collaborates on the creation of the composition.
Richard Vabre is the lighting designer. He creates all lighting states for both the performances and installations. Richard also operates in the live performances and collaborates on the installation design and aesthetic.
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Schallmachine 06
Aphids, Speak Percussion, Fritz Hauser and Boa Baumann in assocation with the Melbourne International Arts Festival present:
Schallmachine 06
The hidden spaces underneath Federation Square will be open to the public for the first time for Schallmachine, a collaboration between Swiss percussionist Fritz Hauser, architect Boa Baumann and Melbourne’s Aphids and Speak Percussion.
Described by the New York Times as "simply one of the best drummers alive", Fritz Hauser together with architect Boa Baumann will lead a team of artists and musicians including composer David Young, artist/instrument builder Rosemary Joy and percussionists Eugene Ughetti and John Arcaro to create 135 of the most unusual and private solo percussion concerts ever experienced.
Audiences will be escorted in groups of three met in the Federation Square Atrium and escorted in groups of three up into the Shard, down into the subterranean Labyrinth, a 3.5 km long maze that serves as a passive air cooling system, or deeper still into the vast concrete bunker of theTrenches for a minutely staged concert of miniature percussion.
Percussionist Fritz Hauser and architect Boa Baumann have been working at the nexus of sound and space for fifteen years. Fritz Hauser interferes rhythmic-musically, in the creation of architectural concepts and the designing of building projects while Boa Baumann designs stage settings and participates in musical dramaturgies. Their collaborations include the conversion of Castle Burio in the hills near Milan as a place of research and residence; Polyblox 1-4, four privately commissioned homes in Zurich and Klangstein 5 for musicians and sounding stones.
Schallmachine 06 is part of Aphids‘ company residency at Federation Square. Aphids has been developing cross artform international collaborations for more than ten years. Recent projects include a tour of Skin Quartet to Sth Africa, America and Europe and Scale at Bains::Connective, a former art deco swimming pool in Brussels‘ Morrocan quarter. Artistic Director David Young will have a new work performed in Stuttgart this year for the World New Music Festival. In January, Rosemary Joy created an miniature percussion instrument inspired by Fritz Hauser‘s house for a Swiss Radio recording of Samuel Beckett‘s Worstward Ho.
Speak Percussion are Melbourne’s most diverse percussion enterprise exploring vast sound worlds from improvised languages to complex new music and regularly engaging in hybrid-arts projects. Performing regularly in Europe and Australia, Speak Percussion is lead by 25 year old Eugene Ughetti. Joining Speak Percussion, John Arcaro, appears courtesy of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Following the world premiere in Melbourne, Schallmachine will be presented next year in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a Fritz Hauser retro-perspective different beat featuring ten of the world’s leading percussionists.
Pre-bookings are essential for this unique concert project.
www.aphids.net
www.fritzhauser.ch
www.boabaumann.ch
www.speakpercussion.com
World premiere
MEETING PLACE
Federation Square Atrium near the entrance of the BMW Edge.
DATES AND TIMES
October 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28
Performances every 40 minutes between 12.30pm and 6.15pm
DURATION
25 minutes no interval
PRICES
$25 FULL
$18.75 CONC/ARTISTS
BOOKINGS
Ticketmaster 1300 136 166
www.melbournefestival.com.au
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The Swiss-Australian Collectables
This long-term collaborative project has currently brought Speak Percussion together with Basel group Duo B&B on over 4 projects held both in Australia and Switzerland. The most recent project involving Daniel Buess (Switzerland), Christoph Boesch (Switzerland), Myles Mumford (Melb), Eugene Ughetti (Melb), Peter Neville (Melb), James Hullick (Melb), Jose Navaro (Spain) and Gary Berger (Switzerland) presenting new electro-acoustic works across four cities in Switzerland. Previous performances in Australia were presented in the Liquid Architecture Festival (Melb, Syd, Bris), Footscray Community Arts Centre, VCA (Uni Melb) and the Australian National Academy of Music. Look out for the new CD by the Collectables "Shimmerlings", available online soon.
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Active Participant Application Pack
The Glass Percussion Project - collaboration/studio
The Glass Percussion Project - catalogue outside
Bowls
Bowls2