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SLAVA GRIGORYAN SHADOW DANCES MUSIC FOR GUITAR BY Composer Nigel Westlake might have started his detail which he imparts into each score. Names musical career as a clarinettist (following in the of guitar groups like Sapphire and Guitar Trek are footsteps of his distinguished clarinettist-father dotted throughout his biography, and the affinity NIGEL WESTLAKE b. 1958 Donald), but it’s the guitar that always brings out he has with them and their instruments is 1 Hinchinbrook Riffs for guitar and digital delay 8’30 the best in his original music. In his celebrated obvious, not just in the number of works he’s suite for orchestra, Antarctica, the solo guitar composed for them, but in the very musical Jovian Moons for guitar and piano [16’09] captures the glistening ice-floes of the southern character of the pieces themselves. 2 Ganymede 4’11 continent, while the many works that he’s Throughout his career, Westlake has been 3 Europa 3’33 composed for guitarists Timothy Kain, Slava loosely aligned with the minimalist school, 4 Callisto 3’57 Grigoryan, John Williams and others possess a although in truth the connection is tenuous – the 5 Io 4’28 striking originality. moto perpetuo (perpetual motion) qualities of piano In part the fascination stems from his earliest some of his works often owe more to African 6 Songs from the Forest for two guitars and double bass 6’59 days of composition when legendary guitar hero drumming than they do to any conscious Leonard Grigoryan guitar II, Joel Westlake double bass and avant-garde composer Frank Zappa exerted attempt to mimic Philip Glass or Steve Reich. a profound influence. If Zappa’s actual guitar The guitar, with its natural ability to sustain long 7 Flying Fish for guitar quartet 4’07 sound is not reproduced explicitly in Westlake’s arpeggiated rhythmic lines, suits the Westlake Saffire – Guitar Quartet (Antony Field, music, his spirit of irreverence certainly is. One style well. It is no surprise that this most , , ) only needs to hear the famous ‘Penguin Ballet’ rhythmically-adept of Australian composers has 8 Shadow Dances for guitar and orchestra 12’31 section in Antarctica to realise that Westlake, written masterpieces not just for guitar but also Symphony Orchestra, Nigel Westlake conductor like Zappa, is that rarest of creative animals – a for percussion. (His Omphalo Centric Lecture is ‘serious’ composer with a sense of humour. regarded as a modern classic for percussion Antarctica – Suite for guitar and orchestra [23’45] ensemble.) In both cases, the instrumental 9 The Last Place on Earth 7’39 From that formative encounter with Zappa’s choice guarantees a rhythmic, percussive 0 Wooden Ships 4’37 music, through his establishment of the jazz- foundation to all that goes on top. ! Penguin Ballet 3’14 rock-classical fusion Magic Puddin’ Band in the @ The Ice Core – Finale 8’17 late 1970s, and on to his tours as a guest Everyone knows of Westlake’s exciting rhythms Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Nigel Westlake conductor member of John Williams’ group ATTACCA, – having written circus music as a young man Westlake has always been surrounded by guitars he’s never ashamed to strike up the band and Total Playing Time 72’01 and guitarists. He wrote his first guitar work, the put on a show. But the defining characteristic of quartet Winter in the Forgotten Valley, in 1989 his music is rather more subtle, in that he is one Slava Grigoryan guitar and has never really stopped since, his of ’s supreme instrumental colourists, collaborations with Timothy Kain, Slava and his scores filled with nuance and subtleties of Leonard Grigoryan, John Williams and Karin timbre and tone. Again, the guitar is ideally Schaupp notable for the degree of player-specific suited to this exploration of tonal colour. His

2 3 guitar scores are littered with devices designed that are digitally copied within the delay and decided to revisit the musical fragments could be classified as a planet. Ganymede’s to distinguish one instrumental sound or gesture than repeated 600 milliseconds (about half a collected all those years ago, incorporating them mantle is most likely composed of ice and from another of the same pitch or character – second) after they have been performed live. into Hinchinbrook Riffs with all the virtuosity and silicates and its crust is probably a thick layer of not just rapid harmonics and snapping strings With the performer maintaining a strict tempo of glistening tonal splendour of the tropical water ice. It has mountains, valleys, craters and but dramatic juxtapositions between hard and 100 beats per minute, the riffs are designed to paradise itself. lava flows and certain regions exhibit a bizarre, soft touches, and an almost synaesthetic intersect and trip over themselves, creating grooved surface of complex patterns. Hinchinbrook is on the main tourist route, but ‘colouring’ of the fabric of individual notes. It’s rhythmic and melodic variants that surge and one of Westlake’s great skills as a composer is like music you can touch. ebb in wave-like formations. It’s the musical Europa is bright and smooth with an almost his ability to depict in music the most remote equivalent of a 60-foot ketch sailing before the complete absence of craters. Its surface looks regions of the planet and solar system. Jovian No wonder then, that guitarists are as attracted wind, and in fact the piece is based on like broken glass that has been repaired by an icy Moons, like Antarctica, is his extraordinary to Westlake’s music as the composer is to them, Westlake’s teenaged experiences of sailing the glue oozing up from below. Low ridges, straight evocation of a world remote in time and space, with his commissions for the instrument and curved, crisscross the surface. Flows and ocean of the Great Barrier Reef with his family. the spiky piano figures from Michael Kieran mounting constantly. This new CD features the fractures, pits and frozen puddles all hint at a Harvey – whose performance of Westlake’s key works that he’s written for the instrument, ‘I first encountered Hinchinbrook Island while unique geologic history. It is thought that Piano Sonata has achieved critical acclaim – set either in massed ensembles of the instrument cruising the coral coast on my father’s yacht in volcanoes of liquid ice may be a regular against hypnotic guitar figures to create a or for guitar and orchestra. Each piece captures 1975, and I was awestruck and inspired by the event on Europa. a landscape or an environment within musical overwhelming grandeur of the rugged peaks and compelling sense of alienation. form – an indication of Westlake’s ability as a lush tropical gorges,’ he says of the rainforest- Essentially a set of four fantasies for piano and Callisto is the outermost of the Galilean writer of ‘descriptive’ music, an ability also clad island which lies off the Cardwell Coast guitar, Jovian Moons was commissioned in 2001 satellites and orbits beyond Jupiter’s main realised in his highly-acclaimed film scores, midway between Cairns and Townsville. Now by Musica Viva Australia for Slava Grigoryan and radiation belts. It is a cold, icy ball, densely especially that for Babe, and fostered in the part of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Simon Tedeschi, and was then revised in 2002 covered in craters and thought to have been close creative associations Westlake has formed area, it’s Australia’s largest island National Park. for performances by Slava Grigoryan and Michael dead for billions of years. with directors like George Miller and John ‘A number of musical motifs or “riffs” Kieren Harvey, who perform it here. Westlake Io is the most volcanically active body in the Weiley. Not that there’s anything particularly lush immediately came to mind, which I notated.’ was inspired to compose the piece by evidence solar system. The gravitational influence of the or clichéd in Westlake’s musical landscapes. It’s That initial encounter came as part of a trip uncovered during the Galileo and Voyager large moons Europa and Ganymede on Io’s orbit as if the visual worlds are not so much trapped during which, further south, he and his family missions which revealed a vast amount of new of Jupiter create tremendous tidal forces that are in musical form as they are used as starting faced a near-fatality when hit by a storm at sea. information about the so-called ‘Galilean the cause of immense volcanic activity. Oceans points for Westlake’s creative imagination. In the calmer waters to the north, his immediate satellites’ (named after Galileo Galilei, who of liquid sulphur lie beneath the crust and the musical inspiration at the sight of Hinchinbrook discovered them in 1610). The missions revealed surface is constantly renewing itself, filling in any Hinchinbrook Riffs for guitar and digital delay Island was his equivalent of Mendelssohn’s that each moon is quite distinct in character from demonstrates both the rhythmic and colouristic encounter with Fingal’s Cave, and he the others, and Westlake’s work seeks to impact craters with molten lava lakes and sides of Westlake’s personality. A kind of moto incorporated it into one of his earliest capture the nature of each, as he himself writes: spreading smooth new floodplains perpetuo in which dazzling harmonics shimmer compositions for his garage band at the time. In of liquid rock. The surface is very colourful, like the tropical ocean around the island of the adulthood, he returned to the island for a Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar mottled with red, yellow, white and orange- title, it consists of a string of ‘motifs’ or ‘riffs’ walking expedition with his son Joel, and system. If it orbited the sun instead of Jupiter it black markings.

4 5 The fearsome virtuosity of the concluding Io complexity of sound and texture...at least to for Slava Grigoryan, who performs it here. instant cult status. It’s now been performed creates a sense of outer space which is cold, me!) Saffire saw this as an issue that we should Opening with an abrupt explosion of orchestral many times, including by Williams with the forbidding and yet spellbinding. The transition address with the Fish commission.’ colour, Shadow Dances is a dissonant work at London Symphony Orchestra and by Slava from this hostile landscape to the Songs from first, whose snatches of melody build toward Grigoryan (the performer on this recording), and the Forest, for two guitars and double bass, The unusual ensemble chosen for the piece the decisive entry of the soloist. As the piece is a set score on the syllabus of both the NSW therefore couldn’t be more compelling. The consists of two traditional guitars joined by proceeds, however, things become gentler, the Higher School Certificate (HSC) and the Victorian commission from Timothy Kain for a duo dobro and a 12-string steel guitar, whose colour dialogue between soloist and orchestra Certificate of Education (VCE). featuring himself and John Williams came in and texture Westlake exploits cleverly achieving an intimacy that then breaks out into Westlake says of the film version – one of four 1994 after Kain and Westlake had toured the UK throughout the piece. Westlake says that the an extended free-form cadenza. This serves as and Australia with Williams’ group Attacca. movements are meant to sound as if they are the bridge to the ‘dance’ proper, described by Imax projects on which he’s worked with ‘submerged’ and he’s tried to ‘wet up’ the sound the composer as ‘a pulsating, high-energy director John Weiley: ‘It was a film about the Where Jovian Moons is remote and strange, using open string sonorities and sustained sequence of rhythmic invention based on spirit of enquiry, about looking beyond the Songs from the Forest is all warmth and vitality, resonances. Using Richard Flannigan’s Gould’s repetition and variation’. An extensive exploration known – past the edge of everything. My brief its engaging spirit making it a favourite among Book of Fish as his reference guide, Westlake of guitar sonorities, it works its way through was to compose music that captured the awe- musicians, several of whom have requested set out to create the teeming life of the idiomatic guitar figurations that sometimes inspiring grandeur, beauty, desolation and extended adaptations of it for a variety of aquarium or coral reef, with its flashing colours sound like they might have come from Rodrigo harshness of the images.’ different instruments. This version for guitar duo and sense of a dazzling ecosystem within a or Villa-Lobos. and double bass is in a single movement, the confined space. ‘Generally a rare sight in He started by sketching some ideas for solo guitars trading off melodies and rhythms with southern Australian waters, the appearance of a Westlake is best known, though, for two film guitar and orchestra but in the end the film blissful dexterity, almost jazz style, while the flying fish off Jervis Bay struck me as being a scores – the multi-award-winning Babe and the score would only use fragments of guitar music, middle section is more elegiac, serving the good omen,’ Westlake says, ‘and after years of Imax documentary Antarctica. Originally he performed on the soundtrack by Timothy Kain. function of a traditional slow movement. It’s reading about them, I couldn’t get this idea out intended to use John Williams as guitarist in the The film score was elemental, with simple ideas difficult on hearing it to imagine it in any other of my mind when I started work on the piece.’ latter score, but when that proved impossible, and raw orchestration, with lots of percussion configuration than that heard here – so he subsequently wrote a concert suite – and glistening instrumental textures as if distinctive is the writing for guitar. Westlake often revisits works, to revise, re- effectively a concerto – using discarded material reflecting the stark beauty of the icy landscape. orchestrate or expand them, or to tailor them to as well as excerpts from the film score itself. The reworked Suite is much more formally On the other hand, Flying Fish, extracted from the needs and personalities of individual The resultant Suite for guitar and orchestra, structured, consisting of four movements, the the Six Fish suite for four guitars, began life as a performers. Shadow Dances, for instance, entitled Antarctica, was completed in 1992. last comprising two sections joined by a kind of technical exercise, exploring the balance began its life in 2000 with the title Images. Commissioned with funds from the Australia short cadenza. between the various guitar types of the four- Premiered by long-term collaborator Timothy Council to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the member Saffire ensemble. As Westlake says, Kain with the Academy of Melbourne, it was Australian Broadcasting Corporation, it was And yet even though the piece works perfectly ‘With Six Fish I wanted to address the guitar then revisited by the composer four years later premiered by John Williams with the Tasmanian on the ‘abstract’ level, traces of the original ensemble issue of disproportionate output. when, as the holder of the H.C. Coombs Symphony Orchestra, and quickly established visual medium are obvious throughout. For (Four guitars frequently do not sound like one Fellowship at the Australian National University, itself as an audience favourite, with the instance, ‘The Last Place on Earth’, which opens guitar x 4, in terms of volume output or the composer found the opportunity to rework it whimsical ‘Penguin Ballet’ section achieving the suite, depicts the ice cap, seen at midnight

6 7 in an aerial shot which, owing to the midnight Slava Grigoryan sun, is in full daylight. ‘Wooden Ships’ which follows is a tribute to the first Antarctic explorers Slava Grigoryan was born in 1976 in Kazakhstan who came in flimsily constructed vessels. (Note and immigrated with his family to Australia in that this is just one of many maritime references 1981. A major prizewinner at the Tokyo on this CD.) Of the ‘Penguin Ballet’, the International Classical Guitar Competition, he composer says, ‘Emperor penguins are seen as has performed around the world, including never before by human eyes in a kind of ballet appearances in the UK at the Brighton underneath the ice cap. They leave the water at International Festival, Guitar Festival of Great fantastic speeds through a hole in the ice to Britain, Harrogate International Arts Festival, avoid being eaten by leopard seals.’ Newbury Festival and the Wirral International And then in ‘The Ice Core/Finale’, Antarctic Guitar Festival, and at the Dresden scientists are to be seen drilling into the ice core Musikfestspiel, the GFA (Guitar Foundation of to research changes in the earth’s atmosphere America) Festival in La Jolla, California, the Al and the extent of the hole in the ozone layer. The Bustan Festival in Beirut, the New Zealand and Finale has an upbeat sense of optimism – a Hong Kong Arts Festivals, the Darwin reflection of the fact that as the film was being International Guitar Festival, the , completed, the Antarctic Treaty, protecting the Melbourne, and City of London Festivals last great wilderness for future generations, and the Queensland Biennial of Music. He has was signed. also appeared at WOMAD festivals in Australia, Martin Buzacott with additional , South Africa and the USA. material by Nigel Westlake He has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Radio Orchestra, the Klagenfurt Symphony Orchestra Slava Grigoryan with in Austria and the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, Nigel Westlake UK. In Australia, he has performed with the Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, The

8 Queensland Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, the Nigel Westlake His composing credits include commissions for Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Lyle Chan Australian Youth Orchestra and the Australian ABC TV and radio, The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Recording Producers Jeremy Alsop 1, Stephen Nigel Westlake studied clarinet String Quartet. Synergy Percussion, the Australia Ensemble, Snelleman 2-5, 8-@, Jon Russell 6, Isolde with his father Donald Guitar Trek, Bell Shakespeare Company, The Schaupp 6 1 Slava Grigoryan has also toured Australia Westlake, then Principal Clarinet Seymour Group, SBS Television, the Sydney, Recording Engineers Jeremy Alsop , Jim Atkins 2-5, 8-@, Jon Russell 6, David Neil/Jumpstart extensively with his brother Leonard, with of the Sydney Symphony Melbourne, Tasmanian and West Australian Productions, Brisbane 6 pianist Simon Tedeschi, with Saffire – The Orchestra, and bass clarinet Symphony Orchestras, Australian Youth Editing Nigel Westlake 2-5 Australian Guitar Quartet, and with the with Dutch contemporary music Orchestra, Royal Australian Navy Band, the Mastering Michael Letho Australian Chamber Orchestra, and has specialist Harry Sparnaay. He completed studies in Elektra and Goldner String Quartets, Australian Supervising Producer Nigel Westlake performed in Japan with baritone José Carbó. Music for Film at the Australian Film, Television Chamber Orchestra, Adelaide Chamber Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb He regularly collaborates with musicians outside and Radio School and in 1993 received a grant Orchestra, and Saffire – The Australian Guitar Publications Editor Natalie Shea of the classical genre including Leo Kottke, Paco from the Australia Council to study composition Quartet. He is also a prolific film and television Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Peña, Trilok Gurtu, Ralph Towner, Wolfgang with and composition and composer, with award-winning scores for The Cover Photo Ingrid Kaiser Muthspiel and Al Slavik. He is a founding conducting with . Celluloid Heroes, Children of the Revolution, Photo p10 John McCormick member of Saffire. The Nugget, Hell Has Harbour Views and Babe, Recorded 23 May 2003 2-5 and 15-16 July 2004 His performance career has included solo as well as the Imax movies Antarctica, The Edge 8-@ in the Iwaki Auditorium of the Australian In 1998 Slava Grigoryan was named Young engagements with John Williams, Geoffrey and Solarmax. In 2005 his piece Six Fish for Broadcasting Corporation's Southbank Centre, Australian of the Year for the Arts, and in 2001 Parsons, Yvonne Kenny, Stephen Isserlis, guitar quartet was named Best Instrumental Melbourne; November 2003 6 at Avalon Studio; he received the ‘MO’ award for Instrumentalist Kathryn Selby, Synergy, Michael Kieran Harvey Work at the APRA–Australian Music Centre June 2004 at Jumpstart Studios, Brisbane 7; and of the Year. and the Melbourne, Tasmanian and Hunter Awards; that year he was also offered an H.C. May 2006 1 at Jeremy Alsop's studio. Symphony Orchestras. In 1980, again with Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship at the Slava Grigoryan uses D’Addario J46 strings. His debut classical album for ABC Classics, financial assistance from the Australia Council, Australian National University. Recent works ABC Classics thanks Alexandra Alewood and Sonatas and Fantasies, was named Best he formed the Magic Puddin’ Band, dedicated to include a percussion concerto When the Clock Melissa Kennedy. Classical Album at the 2002 ARIA Awards; he the performance of new music. From 1987 to Strikes Me, a percussion quartet Kalabash and Antarctica – Suite for Guitar and Orchestra © 1992, won a second ARIA the following year with 1992 he was a core member of the Australia music for the telemovie Stepfather of the Bride. Songs from the Forest © 1994, Jovian Moons © Saffire – The Australian Guitar Quartet. He has Ensemble (resident at the University of NSW), 2001, Flying Fish and Hinchinbrook Riffs © 2003, Nigel Westlake made his conducting debut with recorded five other discs on the ABC Classics touring, performing and recording in Australia Shadow Dances © 2004 N. Westlake (APRA) / the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 1997. label: Play and Rodrigo Guitar Concertos (with and abroad. In 1992 he was both performer and Rimshot Music Australia P/L. He has since conducted film scoring sessions Leonard Grigoryan), Brazil (with flautist Jane composer with John Williams’ ensemble 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. and performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Rutter), and Nostálgica and Renaissance ATTACCA, touring Australia and the UK. In 1995 © 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed with Saffire. Canberra and Tasmania. in Australia and New Zealand by , he was the soloist in performances of his bass under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the clarinet concerto Invocations with symphony For further information about Nigel Westlake visit owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, orchestras around Australia. www.rimshot.com.au. diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited.

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