570949bk Aus Guitar:570034bk Hasse 3/1/10 5:00 PM Page 4 2000 he returned to Australia to concentrate on composing. and misery through repeated notes and intermittent His works include experimental film and radio projects, strummed chords, drawing on Spanish flamenco idioms. concertos, operas, chamber music, and instrumental pieces. This first Capricho concludes with rapid descending scales, AUSTRALIAN A wide variety of leading orchestras such as the Berlin creating images of menace and exploitation. Dios la Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Concertgebouw perdone: Y era su madre (May God forgive her: and it was Orchestra, and the Cologne Philharmonic, have commis- her mother), shows in the original etching a fashionably GUITAR MUSIC sioned his music. The guitarist, Andrew Booth, gave the attired and sophisticated woman (possibly a prostitute), world première of Brett Dean’s Three Caprichos after being asked for money by an old lady who happens to be her Goya in 2007. The famous eighty Caprichos, featuring mother. It may be that the young woman does not realise it Sculthorpe • Edwards • Dean satirical etchings of aspects of Spanish life, by the painter is her mother or is deliberately ignoring her, a haughty Francisco Goya (1746-1828), have inspired many posture being contrasted against the bent supplicant. Hence composers over the years to interpret them through music. the composition takes the form of a kind of dialogue, the Houghton • Koehne A prerequisite for such pieces is that the listener should pleading voice of the beggar being heard loud and clear. understand the meaning of the original picture. Brett Dean Finally, No te escaparás (You will not escape) is the image begins his trio of compositions with ¡Qué sacrificio! (What of a beautiful dancer pursued by huge ugly birds to whom Aleksandr Tsiboulski a Sacrifice!), which depicts a young and beautiful girl being she will fall prey sooner or later. The composer presents the delivered by her sorrowful parents into the clutches of a dance enacted within its sinister environment of imminent rich but ancient hunchback, a marriage arrangement which evil, once again with a strong Iberian atmosphere. will provide the family with security but at the expense of their daughter’s happiness. The music evokes disturbance Graham Wade Aleksandr Tsiboulski Ukrainian-born guitarist Aleksandr Tsiboulski began his guitar studies shortly after moving to Australia at the age of ten. Starting with Andras Tüske, he went on to study with Australia’s pre-eminent guitar teacher Timothy Kain at the Australian National University, and, as Fulbright Scholar, with Adam Holzman at the University of Texas at Austin. He has also studied with Angelo Gilardino, Photo: Galina Stepanova Carlo Barone, Ernesto Bitetti and David Leisner. He was three-time finalist at the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition, and has won first prizes at seven international guitar competitions, including the 2006 Tokyo International Guitar Com- petition, which led to an extensive Japan-wide tour. Based C in Adelaide in Australia, he has performed worldwide as a soloist and as a chamber musician. He actively M collaborates with vocalists on contemporary repertoire, and is currently pursuing a doctorate with research into Y the guitar works of Mexican composer Manuel María Ponce. K 8.570949 4 570949bk Aus Guitar:570034bk Hasse 3/1/10 5:00 PM Page 2 Australian Guitar Music The Stélé of Demokleides, which depicts the image of a Sculthorpe adds: ‘The work is an intimate one, being lost sailor seated alone on a cliff, his head buried in his concerned with the deep contentment that I feel whenever Over recent years the classical guitar in Australia has performance with the Darwin Symphony Orchestra at the hands, provided great inspiration for the entire work and, in I return to Kakadu. This feeling is ever-present in the dance- become a cultural presence of global significance. This is not 1995 Darwin International Guitar Festival. Later Timothy particular, the first movement. The next movement, Dervish, like second section, and in the singing line, and its entirely surprising. In the first instance, one of the greatest Kain performed this concerto in Melbourne, and, with the is based on the statue of the mad galloping horse and jockey counterpoint, of the final Cantando.’ international guitarists of the last five decades, John assistance of the Australia Council, commissioned of Artemision, its musical form being a response to the Into the Dreaming (1994), another work written Williams (b. 1941, Melbourne), claims that country as his Blackwattle Caprices. ecstatic dance of the Whirling Dervishes. The third especially for John Williams and dedicated to the memory true nationality and has remained a constant inspiration to The composer has described Blackwattle Caprices movement, Bronze Apollo – in two sections, a) Premonition of the novelist Maggie Hemingway, was inspired by ‘a quiet some of the composers included in this selection. Moreover, (1998) as ‘light but intricate pieces, the first a song, the and b) Arpeggio, and inspired by the magnificent early solitary walk in the Valley of the Winds at Katajuta, in Uluru Greg Smallman (b. 1947, Cronulla, New South Wales), the second a dance, or more exactly a maninya (Australian bronze figure Piraeus Apollo – bears the subtitle ‘Copper, National Park in central Australia’. The work is in three Australian luthier, revolutionised the basic principles of dance or chant)’. Blackwattle Bay, an inlet of Sydney Bronze, Water, Air, Green, Perfume’. Web, a short relentless sections with a short coda, ‘dominated throughout by a guitar construction and his instruments are now among the Harbour, is close to where Ross Edwards lives, hence the drone that compresses and weaves elements used in the yearning melody’. The composer has intended here to most coveted possessions for concert players of all title. The three Guitar Dances (1994), arranged by Adrian preceding three movements, closes the solo.’ ‘exploit the resonance of open strings, the long-held pedal nationalities. Walter, provide an integrated triptych. The first of these Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929, Launceston, Tasmania), notes being symbolic of the didjeridu’. Djilile (1986), Younger guitarists such as Timothy Kain (b. 1951, combines folk elements with neo-romantic melodic lines, studied at the University of Melbourne and Wadham originally a piano piece, was arranged for the guitar by Braidwood, New South Wales) and Craig Ogden (b. 1967, suggesting the spirit of the dance rather than any specific College, Oxford, and is now Emeritus Professor at the Stephen Wingfield, the Canadian composer and guitarist. Perth) have established themselves as formidable virtuosi on genre. The meditative second dance is nocturnal in mood, University of Sydney. He has taught at many conservatories The opening melody is a transcription of a chant from the world stage while the renowned Darwin International opening with mysterious echoes and sinister sonorities, a and universities and holds honorary degrees from Tasmania, Arnhem Land, Northern Australia, collected in the late Guitar Festival attracts many artists and guitar enthusiasts kind of danse macabre of the night’s dark spaces with Melbourne, Sussex, Griffith and Sydney. Having been 1950s by Professor A.P. Elkin. The title means ‘whistling from Europe and the United States. The much admired dramatic silences. The final dance begins with insistent awarded the OBE in 1977, he was appointed Officer of the duck on a billabong’. John Williams gave the first British recitalist Julian Byzantine (b. 1945) moved to rhythmic chords in perpetual motion, broken into by melodic Order of Australia in 1990. His prolific output of more than performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on 5th Australia in 1981 to become Head of Guitar Studies at the fragments. 350 works includes compositions for orchestra, choirs, October 2003. Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Brisbane, whilst Though Phillip Houghton (b. 1954, Melbourne) has chamber orchestra and smaller ensembles, as well as ballets Graeme Koehne (b. 1956, Adelaide), a graduate of the various leading Australian players have taken up residence described his first musical interests as being in the area of and film music, and instrumental pieces. John Williams has University of Adelaide, studied composition with Richard in Europe in a reciprocal interchange of creative abilities. rock, jazz and folk, he eventually decided to take lessons in made the following observations: ‘Peter Sculthorpe is Meale. In 1984 a Harkness Fellowship enabled him to work The jewel in the crown has been the participation of leading classical guitar at the Melba Conservatorium of Music. After known for developing a musical style or language inspired at Yale, and to take lessons with Louis Andriessen and Virgil Australian composers who have discovered in the guitar a that he studied privately with Sebastian Jorgenson to whom by and descriptive of the unique landscape and physical Thomson. On moving back to Australia in 1987, he was profoundly expressive voice entirely appropriate for the he dedicated his first guitar composition, God of the nature of Australia … The more I heard of his music, the appointed Lecturer in Composition at the University of complexities and intensities of contemporary music. Northern Forest (1989). In 1982 he received his only formal more I tried to persuade him to write for guitar, to give it a Adelaide. His output includes a number of ballets and Ross Edwards (b. 1943, Sydney), studied composition tuition in composition from Helen Gifford (b. 1935). He voice in his powerful and evocative musical language. He orchestral works, chamber music (including a Guitar at the University of Sydney where he worked for a while as has written music for a variety of acoustic and electronic takes advantage of the guitar’s more universal sound Quartet), solo instrumental and vocal pieces. A Closed an assistant to Peter Sculthorpe. Following lessons at the media as well as for theatre, film and dance.