Work Overview
The starting point for this music was the late abstract paintings
of Ian Fairweather and the exploration of the flute as a filter
for the human voice. Fairweather's wonderful mix of the
figurative and the abstract, the earthy materiality of paint and
canvass and the almost-disappearing-ness of the
image/referentialpresence became the starting point for my
dialogue with Janet McKay about a new flute piece.
The music I ended up writing isn't based in any direct way on the
Fairweather paintings. What it has retained is a focus on the
layered, elusive yet tactile, and rather dry and papery
soundworld that exists in the territory where flute-tone, voice,
breath and the mechanisms of the instrument meet. And also, I
hope, some of Fairweather's contemplative serenity and sense of
gradual construction of a self-sufficient and immersive world.
Work Details
Year: 2013
Instrumentation: Solo flute with vocalising.
Duration: 12 min.
Difficulty: Advanced
Written for: Janet McKay
Commission note: Composed for, and in dialogue with, flutist Janet McKay.
First performance: by Janet McKay at Significant Other (The Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts) on 6 Feb 2014
This piece builds on some aspects of an earlier work, Reverse for solo flute, also created in dialogue with flutist Janet McKay.
Subjects
- Inspired by: Visual arts works
Performances of this work
6 Feb 2014: at Significant Other (The Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts). Featuring Janet McKay.
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