Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Australian composer Thomas Reiner  

Richard Mills and Timerblake Wertenbaker’sThe Love of a Nightingale was short-listed for Best New Australian Work, Best Original Score and Best Music Direction and Best opera in the 2007 Helpmann Awards (www.helpmannawards.com.au), which were held 6 August in Sydney. In its seventh year, the Helpmann Awards celebrate artistic excellence and achievement in Australia’s performing arts communities.

Matthew Orlovich’s Crazy Logic – premiered at the 2006 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival – has just been released on CD by reedmusic.com (www.reedmusic.com). Saxophonist Gerard McCrystal will give the London premiere at Wigmore Hall on 15 September 2007.

Andrian Pertout’s Tres Imágenes Norteñas has recently been selected to feature in the ISCM-ACL World Music Days 2007 in Hong Kong. Pertout’s work is the fifth Australian piece to be included in the program.Works by Julian Yu, Caroline Szeto, Loenzo Alvaro and Daniel Blinkhorn will also be performed. The program will showcase of over 150 compositions from over 50 countries

Australian composers Thomas Reiner and Paul Moulatlet recently toured with the Italian chamber trio Altrove 1.3 to promote the trio's latest CD Kappa - a recording of Australian work released by the Australian label Move Records (www.move.com.au). Moulatlet and Reiner are two of six Australian composers whose works are featured on the CD. Other composers include Steve Adam, Melanie Chilianis, Brendan Colbert, and Philip Czaplowski.

Daniel Rojas was recently awarded the Miriam Hyde Memorial Prize for his composition Danza de Montañas. Currently he is working on a text based piece inspired by Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno, scored for symphony orchestra, SATB choir and soli to celebrate Sydney Grammar School's 150th anniversary at the Sydney Town Hall in November 2007.

Sydney-based composer, Paul Stanhope, has had a hectic year, so far, with a series of high-profile commissions. These include a new choral work for massed vocal forces written especially for the BONYI festival held in Brisbane in July; a new orchestral work commissioned by the Tasmanian Symphony, also premiered in July; and a new Piano Trio commissioned by Musica Viva Australia for the Swedish-based Kungsbacka Trio, who will tour the piece in 8 performances around the country. Paul's next project is a music-theatre piece for Brisbane ensemble Collusion, which was made possible thanks to a Project Fellowship from the Australia Council.