Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Joseph Franklin  
© Shannon May Powell

Harrison Birtwistle once said that "you make a pact with the idea and you see it through." ¹

The idea for THE HORROR OF THE AVANT-GARDE(S) first came about sometime in 2020. I had received funding to record an album in New York with pianist Marc Hannaford and drummer/percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, who collaborated with me on an earlier album called Amen in 2019. However, like most plans at that time, COVID had other ideas.

Composing a concerto seemed like an ideal plan, as it was a way that I could continue to work with Marc and Satoshi, albeit from a distance. My immediate thought was that there was no way I would approach this as a traditional concerto. The starting point would be to feature improvising musicians. When Satoshi expressed interest in coming to Australia for the premiere, the work transformed from a piano concerto, into a concerto for piano, percussion, and large ensemble.

There is a rich history to the concerto, that can conjure up certain expectations for audiences. I have engaged with certain aspects of the tradition compositionally, but have also tried to challenge many of these expectations. I see the concerto as a field or territory to map out, explore and play within - and "the concerto" has become a sort of trickster figure in my work.

I began researching other contemporary compositions that existed on the fuzzy edges of the concerto format. I explored two Australian works: Glass (2010) by John Rodgers, which features improvising trumpeter Scott Tinkler with London Sinfonietta, and Tract (2010) by Erkki Veltheim, which features Young Wagilak Group and the London Sinfonietta with (optional) improvising soloist. Both works include highly detailed notations for the orchestral ensemble, with no specified directions for the improvisers.² Veltheim's Tract is to be performed alongside the Manikay "Djupulwarra" by the Young Wagilak Group - creating a beautifully intense clash of musical worlds, with the soloist acting as a link between the two.

I am a huge fan of both these works and composers. But for this concerto, I wanted to find multiple ways to interweave improvisational elements into the notated material itself. For instance, at times, the piano soloist is asked to be both interpreter of written material in the one hand, and improviser in the other, or both in both [see Fig. 1]. Blurring the distinction between what is written and what is improvised: a contamination between modes of musicking that take place in an individual body, and throughout multiple bodies. I'm interested in the differing thresholds of improvised modalities, it's capacity to disrupt/interrupt, but also to create cohesion and connection adjacent to written music. The question becomes this: How do we (composer, performers, conductor) shape all of this?

I should note that for me, composing for the piano was a terrifying thing - it's a teethy historical beast, from the destruction of microtonal consciousness to the humble singalong - so I thought it was time to confront this modern dinosaur. As a non-pianist, composing for instruments that one doesn't play well, or at all, becomes a speculative form of aurality. The composer-performer hears the premiere at the exact moment that the audience does - an electrifying experience.

The piece - approximately 40 minutes in length - moves through several horrific movements. One may hear incessant, morphing repetitions; sticky and stuck boa-constricted motives; mutinous interruptions of soloistic decadence; uneasy unisons; inflationary blobs and reptilian buzzes; frenetic whirlwinds and rhythmic elasticities.

My trio album Amen (2019: Earshift Music) with Marc and Satoshi was described as 'the avant-garde of today' (The Weekend Australian), a description I always loved but found somewhat ambiguous. That description has sent me down several research paths about the history, the death, and the ghosts of the avant-garde. What is the history of the Australian avant-garde - and does it exist today?

In 2022, I happened across conductor John Mauceri's book The War On Music. In it, he serendipitously describes the military history of the term avant-garde, the institutionalisation of what was considered avant-garde music, and its use by the United States in the Cold War with the Soviet Union - who preferred tonal music.

This institutionalised form of the avant-garde, for better or worse, continues in those of us privileged enough to have studied in conservatories. This work highlights the contradictions and loops, the ouroboros, and the illusionary aspects of deconstruction and subversion in neo-liberal times.

THE HORROR OF THE AVANT-GARDE(S) is a particularly important work in my development. It is the culmination of different elements of my previous work and experimental practice.

The mode of presentation is theatrical by its nature. This theatricality builds upon elements that began with JOUSKA - a psychodrama in three acts, which was performed by Tina Stefanou and The Music Box Project at BIFEM in 2019. Since then, I have felt the urge(ncy) to continue moving beyond the relative comfort and safety of music, into other domains.

The piece also draws on my solo bass practice, something I have been particularly focussed on in recent years - some of these techniques and approaches appear in my bass parts and are transferred in various ways to other instrumental parts.

It also incorporates some unusual instrumentation, including my new and yet-to-be-named string bass instrument [see Fig. 3], harmonium, double-bell trumpet, double-bell bass trombone and Satoshi's hybrid percussion setup with small taiko drums, a frame drum, and other bits and pieces.

Conceptually, THE HORROR OF THE AVANT-GARDE(S) is a response to the horror of imminent environmental collapse (the present day), the horror of classed experiences, the horror of finite time, the horror of neo-liberal capitalism that swallows up everything in its path, the horror of life in the arts as someone without a financial safety net, and so on.

There can be something oppressive about formal music concerts where the listener is seated in a chair that isn't comfortable for all bodies at all times; where the listener is expected to be quiet and attentive, to clap in the right places and passively receive the music. THE HORROR OF THE AVANT-GARDE(S) demanded something else, I felt, something more.

It's tricky to find a non-traditional performance space that sounds good and can accommodate many bodies, and that has a grand piano you are allowed to prepare (add objects to the strings inside the piano to affect its sound). Alpha60 Chapter House were delighted by the idea and have been very supportive of the project. **sigh of relief**

Early in the compositional phase, I played a MIDI-audio version of the first movement to artist and long-term collaborator Tina Stefanou - art director for the event - who instantly called it 'a horror'! Whether it was the laptop MIDI playback (a horror in its own right), my musical material, or a combination of both - likely the latter - I couldn't shake this idea of creating a horror concerto, which helped shape the musical direction from that moment on. The title, however, emerged much later in the process.

Beyond the musical reasons for not wanting to write a traditional concerto, nor to perform in a concert hall - at least not for the premiere - all the extra-musical magic comes from the wonderful mind of Tina. We have discussed many aspects of the event at length, but I have really left the additional elements in her hands. Tina would ask questions such as, "What would a horror concerto taste like?", and "How can a concerto be transferred across the senses?"

Tina also suggested bringing in the voices and knowledges of communities that express these themes through other configurations or practices. This includes the writings of artist Diego Ramirez and performance by acclaimed Butoh artist Yumi Umiumare, who will embody the essence of the non-existent working classes like haunting spectres. Additionally, there will be a religious anti-bullying protest led by the Young Voices of Melbourne, conducted by Mark O'Leary, along with Tina herself. To add yet another dimension to the concerto, food-wizards Long Prawn will craft horror-fuelled culinary accompaniments for the evening.

As a composer-bassist working between spontaneous and formal composition, I was looking to put together an ensemble of players who could welcome hybrid approaches. The aim has been to facilitate contexts that support encounters between new sonic experiences that unprovoked, would not have occurred. I see this as fundamental to the role of composer.

Each player brings their own highly developed skill sets, histories, positionalities etc., and so the instrumental writing varied from player to player, that considers the individual within collective. Throughout the process, I engaged in workshops and ongoing dialogues with each of the performers, tailoring and refining each part to their particular strengths, and hopefully coaxing each other into new sonorities.

It's an extraordinary privilege to be not only composing, but also performing with this exceptional cohort of musicians, not to mention one of my favourite Australian composers and mentor Elliott Gyger, who will be conducting the performance. The ensemble features: Laila Engle (flutes), Luke Carbon (clarinets), Jasper Ly (oboe/c.a), Callum G'Froerer (double-bell trumpet), Benjamin Anderson, double-bell bass trombone, Satoshi Takeishi (percussion), Louise Devenish (percussion), Marc Hannaford (piano), Melina van Leeuwen (harp), Sophia Kirsanova (violin), Phoebe Green (viola), Anna Pokorny (cello), and myself (contrabass guitar/harmonium).

Footnotes

¹ Fiona Maddocks and Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Harrison Birtwistle: Wild Tracks - A Conversation Diary with Fiona Maddocks (Faber & Faber, 2014).

² A feature of both works is the use of the harmonic language of Elliott Carter, an interest that I share with both composers, as does Marc Hannaford in his improvising language.

THE HORROR OF THE AVANTE-GARDE(S) will be performed at ALPHA60 Chapter House in Melbourne, on Thursday 17 August 2023.