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Diana Blom : Represented Artist

'Composing, for me, is a continual exploration of, and revel in, sounds - shaping, manipulating and polishing - akin to a potter working with clay or a painter with paints.'

Random Audio Sample: River circles : electroacoustic by Diana Blom, from the CD New Music for Multiple Keyboards


Photo of Diana Blom

Email:

Artist website: http://www.dianablom.com

Born in New Zealand in 1947, Diana Blom moved to Sydney, Australia in 1969. She studied music at the University of Canterbury, NZ (B. Music), University of Sydney (M.Mus. composition; PhD Minimal music: roles and approaches of teachers engaging students with a contemporary art music through composing activities), and the University of Michigan (M.A. musicology). Composition studies have been with Peter Sculthorpe and Ian Farr.

Blom was composer-in-residence with the Australian Opera in 1974 and commissioned to write a children's opera, The Pied Piper. Other commissions include songs for voice and piano, voice and harp for the ABC Radio Coming Out, Ready Or Not show; music for an ABC-TV four part series on Daisy Bates; music for Alitji in Wonderland, the Marionette Theatre of Australia's shadow puppet translation of 'Alice's Adventures' into Pitjantjatjara and works for Italian pianist/toy pianist, Antonietta Loffredo. Music theatre works for children include The Muffin Fiend (based on the book by US author Daniel Pinkwater) and The Golden Bird (libretto by Australian-Sri Lankanese writer Chitra Fernando).

Diana lived in the U.S., Hong Kong and Malaysia for ten years during the 1980s before returning to Sydney, and the sounds of these countries' musics can be heard in some works. Recent works include The Blue Ice Cave (piano/toy piano), Sonata neoclassica (piano), Playing with Fire (CD soundbed/live acoustic piano), Triptych (3 voices, viola, piano, percussion), freefall (piano duo), and songs for US tenor, Kevin Hanrahan - The Ballad of the Canterbury Pilgrims (3 voices and piano), song cycle Portrait of America and At the end of the world we learn to dance. She has an interest in Australasian writers and has set to music words of Lloyd Jones, Fiona Kidman, David Malouf, Helen Garner, Jocelyn Ortt-Saeed, Tim Malfroy, Robyn Ravlich, Peter Goldsworthy and Jennifer Rumsey. Compositions are published by Wirripang Pty. Ltd, Orpheus Music and Wai-te-Ata Press.

Diana Blom is Associate Professor in Music in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University. She plays harpsichord, piano and toy piano and has co-curated several keyboard composition/performance/ CD projects: Shadows and Silhouettes - new music for solo piano with a Western-Chinese confluence, Antarctica - new music for piano and/or toy piano, both with Italian pianist Antonietta Loffredo; Multiple Keyboards - new works for two or more keyboards (pianos, toy pianos, harpsichord) with Michael Hannan; and Playing with Fire, new music for live piano and electroacoustics (pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska) with Ian Stevenson.

Music Composition Toolbox, a composition textbook co-authored by Matthew Hindson and Damian Barbeler is published by Science Press. Research publications are focused on university music performance, the artist as academic, music and war, preparing new music for performance and performing live vs performing for a recording.


Diana Blom — current to November 2018

Studied with

Ian Farr

Peter Sculthorpe

 

Collaborated with

Michael Hannan

 

Selected Commissions

  Work Commission Details
Digital sheet music sample Calling the cows : seven variations for tenor trombone on ‘Guardame las vacas’ (2015) For Rocco Rescigno, Risuonanze Festival, Italy, 2015
Digital sheet music sample White rabbit climbs Mount Kosciusko (solo piano) (2011) Commissioned by Antonietta Loffredo.
Journeying (quartets: 4 recorders) (2006) Written for the Reluctant Consort's 30th anniversary concert.
Digital sheet music sample Songs for Salome : mezzo-soprano voice with piano (1975) Commissioned by 'Coming Out, Ready or Not' show, Australian Women's Broadcasting Cooperative, ABC Radio 2.