Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

Atlas of the Sky is a new work of dramatic and ritualistic power by award-winning and internationally acclaimed Australian composer Liza Lim. It combines driving rhythms with swarming percussion and vocal sounds from a ‘crowd’ of performers.

Featuring Speak Percussion’s virtuosic instrumentalism and Jessica Aszodi’s vast palette of vocal colour, Atlas of the Sky tells stories about the stars, the power of crowds and changing constellations of memory.

The ‘crowd’ of performers consists of a group twenty trained and untrained musicians plus young people from Speak Percussion’s Sounds Unheard program, who will create large-scale patterns that counterpoint the turbulent rhythms of our contemporary world. Using purpose-built instruments, the work demonstrates the expressive elemental power of string drums, stones, wood blocks made of Australian timber and the semantron — a resonant plank of wood that is used like a bell in Greek and Eastern European Christian Orthodox ritual.

The music is expressive, lyrical, textural, percussive, playful, dynamic and conceptually rich. Liza Lim is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary classical composers, and has strong affinities with Asian and indigenous Australian cultural practices.

Atlas of the Sky was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. Speak Percussion is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the Department of Education and Training; City of Melbourne and City of Darebin.

Presented by Melbourne Recital Centre

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on (03) 9699 3333

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Jessica Aszodi
• Performer Speak Percussion