Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

This is a culminating work in my field of composing with styles and genres that also embodies my multi-style approach to guitar performance. Each movement aims to communicate one of my creative idylls. The first is concerned with truth and beauty. Musical truth, at one level of meaning, is concerned with the composer's authority and honesty, so that the music is personally authentic. My sonic idylls of the beautific encompass a range of musical ideas, sounds and gestures many of which come to play in this piece.

The work is an highly-idiomatic one where the guitar's diverse historical and stylistic use is engaged alongside contemporary compositional and performance technique. The 3 movements and the cadenza each explore various genre materials in a synthesis of style resulting in a rich tapestry of resonant associations without becoming cliche. The integration seeks a fundamental expression and thus avoids a simplistic collage approach.

Work Details

Year: 2009

Instrumentation: Flute, oboe, clarinet in B flat, bassoon, horn in F, trumpet in B flat, percussion (1 player), timpani, 2 flamenco palmeros (for 3rd movt. for palmas and jaleo), solo guitar (sound reinforced), strings (6.6.4.3.1 minimum).  

Duration: 24 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Contents note: I Beauty is truth, truth, beauty --  II Kepler's regard --  Cadenza --  III New pangaea.

This is a major work of virtuoso technique for guitar which highlights genre and style as part of the individual creative language expressed by the composer.