ABC Classic and ABC Jazz reveal recipients of $90,000 Composer Commissioning Fund
Pictured: Eric Avery
ABC Classic and ABC Jazz have announced the 15 recipients of the inaugural Composer Commissioning Fund to support the creation of new music from emerging and diverse Australian artists.
Chosen from 150 applications, all compositions will be recorded live for broadcast and commercial release via ABC Music, with each successful applicant being granted up to $6,000 to assist in the writing and recording of their work.
Out of the 15 successful composers and performers selected in the fund, more than half identify as female, with two composers identifying as First Nations, three as LBGTQIA+, and five as linguistically and culturally diverse.
Standing ovation for âmajor contribution to Australian choral musicâ
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By Peter McCallum
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In his new
Requiem, Paul Stanhope has interspersed and, in some cases, replaced the words of the traditional Latin Requiem with poems by five women. As Stanhope notes, the choice of female poets was not pre-planned but the end result of an instinctive set of decisions. The result is a work of nuanced expressive variety alternating between ritualised sorrow and reflection reminiscent of Brittenâs
War Requiem.
With soprano and tenor soloists (a pristine clear-voiced soprano Chloe Lankshear, and gently grained tenor, Richard Butler) and small instrumental ensemble of oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, harp and percussion, the new
Requiem open to interpretation: masterwork 20 years in the making
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Settings of the requiem, the Catholic Mass for the dead, have a long and storied history in classical music.
Giants such as Mozart, Verdi, Faure and, more recently, Benjamin Britten and John Rutter have all written monumental requiems, each occupying an iconic part in the choral repertoire.
Writing one is a massive undertaking and new requiems are composed comparatively rarely, which makes Paul Stanhopeâs requiem, which next month receives its world premiere in Sydney, a significant musical moment.
Sydney Chamber Choirâs spirit abounds in hope
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York Theatre, Seymour Centre, January 21
Socially distanced and immaculately balanced, the Sydney Chamber Choir and conductor Sam Allchurch have serendipitously discovered the secret to making the barn-like acoustic of the Seymour Centreâs York Theatre work for classical music.
The Sydney Chamber Choir perform Cycles.
Credit:Yaya Stempler
By separating the singers by 1.5 metres across the whole performance area, the choir created a sound of glowing depth and intricate clarity - neither unduly thin or amorphously fog-like. In