Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

The big focus in the August schedule on ABC Classic FM is a series of concert broadcasts from this year's BBC Proms. But alongside the international action there are some notable world premieres of new Australian works by local and visiting artists.

The Queensland Music Festival presents The Australian Voices (TAV) and Topology Ensemble in a new 90-minute work mining the historic utterances of Australian prime ministers, composed by Topology director and double bassist Robert Davidson with contributions from Topology saxophonist John Babbage and TAV director Gordon Hamilton. Also from the festival is a concert by double bassist Edgar Meyer and the Camerata of St John's including more new music by Davidson and by Erik Griswold plus an improvisation by James Morrison and Edgar Meyer.

A new percussion concerto by Iain Grandage composed for soloist Claire Edwardes gets two outings courtesy of the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras. Visiting English vocal group I Fagiolini give the world premiere of Le Molière imaginaire by Andrew Schultz, while a longer-term British visitor, soprano Ellen Winhall, gives the Australian premiere of My Sister's Song by expatriate Australian David Lumsdaine - the centrepiece of a concert of mostly contemporary British music for solo voice, including a piece by Lumsdaine's wife Nicole Lefanu.

Online, the New Waves podcast presents six world premieres in 'Music for Strings and i-things', performed by Zephyr Quartet with electronics ranging from generative systems to a theremin to mp3 players with audience participation. You'll hear new works by fellow Adelaidians Brendan Woithe, Luke Harrald, Al Thumm, Jarrad Payne, Dylan Marshall, and Zephyr artistic director and cellist Hilary Kleinig, as well as Perth-based composer and Decibel director Cat Hope. And you'll hear an interview with Kleinig about the group and the works.

Elsewhere in the schedule you can hear a variety of older and newer Australian works from disc, such as Graham Abbott's thread of Australian pieces after 10pm on Saturdays (this month including focuses on two Tasmanian composers, Peter Sculthorpe and Maria Grenfell) and a liberal sprinkling across the overnights programming throughout the week. (For example, in the wee hours from midnight on the1st August you can hear pieces by Ross Edwards, Margaret Sutherland, Graeme Koehne, Nigel Westlake, John Carmichael, Colin Brumby, Richard Charlton, Carl Vine and Mark Isaacs.) For more details, check the music listings on ABC Classic FM's website.

Australian music broadcast schedule

Saturday 1 August
1.00pm AFTERNOONS: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Benjamin Northey; Claire Edwardes, percussion.
Includes Iain Grandage - Percussion Concerto Dances with Devils (world premiere)
10.00pm EVENINGS: tracks following 8pm concert include: Paul Cutlan - Times Past; Joseph Twist - Versa est in luctum

Tuesday 4 August
8.00pm EVENINGS: Queensland Music Festival - 'Unrepresentative Swill'
Robert Davidson et al. - Unrepresentative Swill (world premiere), performed by Topology and The Australian Voices directed by Gordon Hamilton

Friday 7 August
10.00pm EVENINGS: Queensland Music Festival - 'Edgar Meyer with Camerata of St John's'.
Includes Erik Griswold - Love to love your strings, baby; Robert Davidson - A Short Hour Unseen: Elegy; James Morrison - improvisation (Morrison/Meyer)
Performers: Edgar Meyer, double-bass; Andrew Mogrelia, conductor; James Morrison, trumpet; Camerata of St John's

Saturday 8 August
10.00pm EVENINGS: tracks following 8pm concert include: Peggy Glanville-Hicks - Etruscan Concerto; Peter Sculthorpe - Irkanda IV; Four Little Pieces for Piano Duet; Requiem

Wednesday 12 August
8.00pm EVENINGS: Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Carter; Claire Edwardes, percussion.
Includes Iain Grandage - Percussion Concerto Dances with Devils

Saturday 15 August
10.00pm EVENINGS: tracks following 8pm concert include Maria Grenfell's Rock Hopping; Four Leunig Pieces and Poems of a Bright Moon

Tuesday 18 August
10.00pm EVENINGS: Southern Cross Soloists and guest violinist Ilya Konovalov
Includes Mark Isaacs - Vocalise

Thursday 20 August
1.00pm AFTERNOONS: Musica Viva - I Fagiolini
Includes Andrew Schultz - La Molière Imaginaire (world premiere)

Friday 21 August
10.00pm EVENINGS: MRC Local Heroes - Dmitry Onishchenko, piano; Flinders Quartet.
Includes Ian Munro - Divertissement sur le nom d'Erik Satie

Monday 31 August
10.00pm EVENINGS: New Music Network Mini-series - Ellen Winhall, soprano
Includes David Lumsdaine - My Sister's Song