Market Street Commissions

The Substation

8PM, July 15th 2022

Three of Australia’s prolific and up and coming composers premiere works made specifically for a large AAO line-up, accentuating the breadth of what this high-calibre ensemble can do.

From the composers: Jess Green (ACT) seeks to energise the audience, and to “create a space for musicians to connect with each other and find these shimmery moments.” Joseph O’Connor (VIC) considers the interaction between restraint and urgency, “exploring a greater emphasis on timbre and orchestration, using those things in a way that focuses in on intimacy and vulnerability.” Carolyn Schofield (aka Fia Fiell) (VIC) draws upon a curiosity surrounding synaesthesia and how others interpret visual rhythms - “Our whole experience of music is about creating meaning from abstract elements of sound. It makes sense to think about things in a synaesthetic way.”

Following the concert there will be an artist talk with Auslan interpretation.

CAROLYN SCHOFIELD (aka Fia Fiell)

Vietnamese-Australian electronic/synth musician Carolyn Schofield, aka Fia Fiell, combines her profound practical and theoretical knowledge as a pianist/composer with a modern and perceptive ear for stretching out the orbit of millennial electronic music constructs.

“This commission is an exciting opportunity for me to explore new sonic and expressive possibilities with the AAO; I want to see how groups of acoustic and electronic performers working as ‘one instrument’ can create distinctive, almost ‘alien’ sonic colours that morph and shift organically like amoebae under a microscope. I’m also excited to experiment with how I can use carefully choreographed light in the place of a traditional score, looking at how signals and rhythms created by light can synesthetically guide an ensemble performance. My goal is to facilitate the creation of the unheard and unexpected!”

JESS GREEN

Jess Green is a guitarist, vocalist and composer. Based in Canberra, her composition and song writing spans instrumental jazz, rock, indie pop and experimental music.

“I am thrilled to have the chance to write music for the AAO to perform. It is so exciting to return to writing for an improvising ensemble, especially one with a cohort of players of such diversity and brilliance. My piece will draw upon my fascination with the many intricate webs of communication we are immersed in everyday, channelling the Signal Makers and Receivers that surround us. I hope that when the audience is released from the sonic world we make, they leave feeling energised and wanting to engage on a deeper level with the natural world, inspired to listen for messages previously unheard.”

JOE O’CONNOR

Joe O’Connor is a Melbourne based pianist and composer engaging with improvised, notated and experimental practices. His work currently explores a delicate harmonic sensibility that unfolds slowly in asymmetrical cycles.

“I am so pleased that I have been chosen to develop my new work 'In a Shrinking World' with the wonderful artists of the Australian Art Orchestra. It will map the mundane sound environment of my lockdown days – the instruments in my bedroom, household sounds, field recordings from daily walks – and transform them to create unique, tactile orchestrations that are rich and expansive. 'In a Shrinking World' will celebrate human qualities that cannot be put on hold – imagination and resourcefulness.”

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