shallow listening (2019-2021)

Clearing the Air (1974) by Moya Henderson

Moya writes… I’d only had one introductory lesson with Mr Kagel, But he was keen for me to attend the two-week-long, 1974 Summer Classes at Darmstadt. These annual, new-music sessions were already internationally famous; Musicians, composers and performers, flew in from all around the world. I, of course, had never heard of Darmstadt. ‘Don’t do anything!’ advised Mr Kagel, ‘Just attend the various seminars and concerts.’ I intended to obey, but then, I found I couldn’t. This idea for a new music-theatre piece had suddenly, perversely, come into my mind.

What had actually arrived on the scene were two musicians from Milan, Fernando Grillo and Davide Mosconi. Grillo was a beautiful, always-in-white, double-bassist, and Mosconi was an oboe-playing clown. After persuading them and a few more of their mates to be in my crazy little music-theatre piece, I spent most of the two weeks in a back room, buying the wherewithal, then making four giant loud-speaker boxes . . .

 Some 45 years later (2019) and for the first time in Australia, the Music Box Project, featuring Joseph Franklin as the ‘me-me-me’ double bassist, presented this same-but-different Clearing the Air at the BIFEM. The part of the clown fell happenstantially to the hiding Jane Aubourg, with her violin and Auntie Jack, red boxing glove.

I was delighted and convinced by this Music Box Project and their engrossing, ‘noisy nutter’ performance of Clearing the Air.

the music box project writes… We are proud to begin our performance of Moya Henderson's music theatre work Clearing the Air (1974). our bifem performance was not only the Australian premiere, but the oldest Australian work to be performed at BIFEM to date - 45 years after the first performance at Darmstadt where Moya was awarded First Prize in the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis! Apart from the shared conceptual threads between this work and the four new works, it seems fitting to begin our program by recognising the exploratory work created by Australian generations of composers before us. How fortunate we are to share sounds yet to be heard by Australian ears!

Elemental Layering (2019) by Jasmin Wing Yin Leung

jasmin writes…'Throughout this piece, five different musical ideas occur. Although they are ordered, they can be moved between at any speed, with various space in between and repeated as many times as necessary. However, attention must be given to listening and silence. This piece is for (retuned) viola, (retuned) double bass and 3 treble voices with 3 smart phones. the music box project are asked to consider the ideas of:

• intonation, tuning, to be tuned, attuned to yourself, the group, the environment etc.
• slow motion sound
• elemental sound
• sound in a space, spaciousness and small spaces'

Shallow Listening (2019) by Jaslyn Robertson

jaslyn writes…'Shallow Listening requires the performers to switch instruments throughout and features voice, theremin, toys, music boxes and pitched and electronic instruments. It is the culmination of about a year's explorations in incorporating humour, movement and more complex and personal themes to my compositional practice. The piece was written while undertaking research on alternate gazes in the music of gender oppressed people, particularly studying the works of Jennifer Walshe and Pauline Oliveros. Recently I have pushed myself to create music that is more personal and delves outside of the genres and mediums of music that I feel confident in.

The piece was workshopped in its early stages during the music box project's "playshop" week in a warehouse. We had the pleasure of meeting Moya Henderson, who spoke to us about her experience studying with Mauricio Kagel and Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany and the subsequent reception when she brought back this "unhinged" music to Australia. Moya's story and music have inspired me to continue on this path of composing music that is comedic, experimental, theatrical, feminist, queer and subverts the male gaze.

Shallow Listening combines a meticulously notated score for open instrumentation with a Cathy Berberian-inspired graphic page. A dark humour is revealed in the lyrical content, but I would never intend any disrespect to the reverent seriousness of the theremin canon.'

Prelude & Pickle (2019) by Elizabeth Jigalin

elizabeth writes…Prelude & Pickle is a collage of (observational, ephemeral, humorous, mundane to deeply personal) thoughts and ideas as explored by the music box project via elements of theatre, colour, movement and sound.

I conceptualised and structured Prelude & Pickle as if a fractal of our BIFEM performance as a whole - a world within a world. In composing this work, I curated my 'collage' (collection of ideas as documented in a journal I have kept for the past year) into five seemingly disparate yet interconnected sound worlds - each of which I think of as a distant relative or strange derivative of the other works that make up our program. If someone were to attempt to make sense of the web of ideas and pages upon pages of material that my work is drawn from, it may seem difficult to identify the nucleus of ideas that constitute my work. However, I know that the heart of the work is 'play' - the same heart that I believe gets the music box project's blood pumping.

In all the work I compose, it is always my intention to actively consider the people who will be exploring my music and the context within which my music will be shared - working on Prelude & Pickle for the music box project was no different. Composing has always been an activity of contradiction for me and so it comes as no surprise that composing for dear friends is both a joy and unsettling. A lesson in setting limitations for myself whilst I trawl through the abundance of ideas and possibilities in my mind - the product of working with such open minded, dedicated and crazy friends!

Jouska (2019) by Joseph Franklin

joseph writes… jouska 'n. a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head - a crisp analysis, a cathartic dialogue, a devastating comeback - which serves as a kind of psychological batting cage… '

'Jouska is a work that follows my own psychodrama, as played by the protagonist (mezzo-soprano Tina Stefanou). Written specifically for the music box project, the work seeks to dramatise aspects of both the individual, and the collective personalities, as seen from point of view. The idea and form follow a psychodrama curve - a method of psychotherapy developed in the 1920s by Jacob L. Moreno. This includes the warm up (Trialogue), action (Catharsis) and integration (Integration). A diamond of opposites is employed in the stage layout and the gravitational forces of contradictory 'characters' - represented by indeterminate and determinate musical events. References to core psychodrama techniques - such as mirroring, doubling, role playing, soliloquy and role reversals - appear throughout the work.'