Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

A new box set by Jon Rose on the prestigious ReR (Recommended) label in London, with 3 CDs, a data disc, a booklet of notes to the tracks, some Rosenberg Museum trivia, and artifacts of used bow hair (the review copies are lacking this due to UPS losing 1,000 autographed bags of the stuff in the USA; replacement bow hair is currently being sourced!). This is a (slightly late) edition to celebrate his 60th birthday.

The recorded music features a cross section of some of the violinist's work in recent years, most of it unknown to Australian audiences. Amongst the extracts are collisions for violin(s) with orchestras, freaks, choirs, improvising ensembles, barbed wire, a singing dingo, interactive violin bows, talk back radio, fire, chainsaws, bowed saws, a brass band, a department store pianist, outback environments, suiciding flies, broadband feedback, Aboriginal gum leaf playing, odd scordatura tunings, knives and forks, a front end digger, fences, a giant 2.4 meter ball, highly dangerous voltage sparks, rain, traditional whips, corrugated iron, a lyrebird called George, a bicycle powered mobile orchestra, Tchaikovsky, a kitchen sink, and the other: 2004-2010. Also included on the data disc is an historic 1982 video of Rose playing his 19-string cello.

In 2012, the musician was awarded the Don Banks Prize for his lifetime achievement to Australian music. ROSIN demonstrates the scale, originality, and quality of his enterprise - a total art form based around the violin. The box set contains written affirmation on this mega opus by the likes of David Harrington (Kronos), Dr Bob Ostertag (musician and political activist), Richard Barrett (composer), and Dr Kersten Glandien (musicologist specialising in sound art).