Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Simon Charles

Simon Charles is currently studying a Masters Degree in composition and saxophone at the Victorian College of the Arts. He has composed music for dance, television documentaries, electro-acoustic works and has composed works at the request of Mardi McSullea, Speak Percuss ion, Carmen Chan, Bosgraaf and Elias (the Netherlands) and Jessica Aszodi . His music has been performed in Sweden, Thailand and Australia. As a saxophonist he performs contemporary and traditional repeftoire, ori ginal compositions and free improvisations. He is also one of the founding members of the Free Music Ensemble, performing on traditional and original instruments with Ras Bandt, Rod Cooper, RupertG and Brigid Burke. In 2005 he was Art ist in Residence at Bundanon (NSW) and was invited as composer to the Asian Composer's League festival for contemporary music in Bangkok. He was also the recipient the Rogowski scholarship for saxophone at Melbourne University and winner of the Zavod Jazz Classical fusion award in 2003.

Simon Charles

River Walk

River Walk was composed for Speak Percussion and premiered in Manchester Lane in 2005. It was
composed over a three week residency at Bundanon, located on the Shoalhaven River in New South
Wales. This piece is an imaginary dialogue with that environment. Every pitch came from an internal
impulse wanting to be projected into and become part oflhe surrounding landscape. The piece is organised so that pitch and timbre are very precise and exact, however there is flexibility and fluidity in the temporal organisation of the work. It is liberated from rigid metric structures underpinning the flow of music, creating a feeling of interaction and spontaneity, an integral part of the nature of this imaginary dialogue. This piece is dedicated to Arthur Boyd, for his abili ty to paint in a way that is beyond a photographic, visual mimicry of this environment, expressing its underlying essence.