Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

Treize couleurs du soleil couchant by the French composer Tristan Murail is a beautiful sonic metaphor for the setting sun. Like watching a sunset, the work imperceptibly draws the listener through slowly transforming colours of seemingly infinite depth and subtlety.

Murail, like Messiaen and Debussy before him, is part of a legacy of French music that displays a refined sensibility for colour. Together with compatriot Gérard Grisey (whose work Talea is featured in the concert), he is credited with establishing an entirely new school of composition called ‘spectral music'. Just as light can be broken into a spectrum of colours, so too a rich sound can be broken into a kaleidoscope of microscopic frequencies.

Continuing the theme of light is Fatamorgana ('mirage' or 'optical illusion') written especially for Ensemble Offspring by the esteemed Australian composer Bozidar Kos. Kos is one of a small handful of Australian composers to follow the spectral techniques introduced by Grisey and Murail. The program also features a world premiere by the recently returned Australian composer Christopher Tonkin, a graduate of the famous IRCAM institute in Paris and UC San Diego.

Given the spectral movements' vast influence in contemporary music world wide, the seminal repertoire by Murail and Grisey is seldom heard in Australia. Ensemble Offspring's ‘Thirteen Colours' is a rare opportunity to hear this unique and engaging music.

Featured non-Australian music: Murail, Grisey, Adams, Kyriakides

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Roland Peelman
• Performer Lamorna Nightingale
• Performer Jason Noble
• Performer Claire Edwardes
• Performer Clemens Leske
• Performer James Cuddeford
• Performer Geoffrey Gartner
• Performer Ensemble Offspring