Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

ELISION returns in force, Thursday April 20, to the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre as part of New Music Days 2023. Featuring works by composers Liza Lim, Mary Bellamy and Aaron Cassidy, this thought-provoking program explores pertinent environmental issues of our time and celebrates the world premiere of Aaron Cassidy’s new piano concerto.

Liza Lim’s composition Extinction Events & Dawn Chorus is a seminal Australian work that has resonated decisively with ensembles and audiences all over the world. It contemplates the vast conglomerations of plastic trash circulating in the world’s ocean currents. An ecological catastrophe – toxic fragments gather on remote islands, the beaches we swim in, and within our bodies through the water we drink and the fish we eat. Liza has made a music that samples ‘extinction events’ ranging from the spectral echoes of creaking 19th century piano music, to a transcription of the last mating call ever heard of the now extinct Kauai O’o bird. There is broken grandeur and there are attempts to sing. The work references the uncanny dawn chorus of the fish-life that populates endangered Australian coral reefs. Brilliant Australian violinist Harry Ward returns from Berlin to play the solo part.

Mary Bellamy’s Enveloped uses two seemingly quite different instruments, the cello and contrabass recorder, to forge a new sonic identity. The work is made up of imaginary dialogues – points of connection and disconnection.

Aaron Cassidy's Piano Concerto conjures images of white tie and tails, images of Brahms, maybe Schumann or Tchaikovsky. This is not that! Scored for an unusual ensemble including recorders, harp and a pedal steel guitar, Aaron Cassidy’s concerto has been especially written for solo pianist Alex Waite who brings his iridescent brilliance to this world premiere.

Featured non-Australian music: Mary Bellamy 'Enveloped' and Aaron Cassidy 'Piano Concerto'

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on (03) 9699 3333 or by email to daryl@elision.org.au

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Presented by Elision Ensemble
• Performer Alexander Waite