The 15th Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival

Australian Chamber Works

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Ross Edwards
Tucson Mantras (World Premiere)
Ross Edwards (b. 1942) writes: "When Peter Rejto invited me to compose a mantra piece to close the 2008 Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, he specified the need for a celebratory conclusion. Accordingly, the ruminative, often intense string passages that follow the opening mantras have the effect of accumulating energy which joyfully explodes in the work's expansive conclusion. The texture of 'Tucson Mantras' abounds with nature symbolism - shapes and patterns abstracted from birdsong and the mysterious sound world of insects and frogs. Drones remember the earth and there is music reference, by way of personal symbols, to an Earth Mother archetype that pervades all my work."

Peter Sculthorpe
"Sydney Singing" for Oboe and Piano
Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929) writes: "This 2002 work lovingly describes my feelings about certain well-known places in Sydney. It makes
references to popular music, and its five very straightforward movements are motivically related. The second movement is the longest and is concerned with lazy days spent at Bondi Beach. The third movement begins and ends with night sounds on water, its central section suggesting music floating across the quay from the Sydney Opera House. In the fourth movement, I recall a time in my youth, when I wrote for musical theatre. A part of 'The Last Post' is used in this movement, referring to the El Alamein Fountain at Kings Cross. The final movement refers to earlier material."

Michael Askill
"No Rest from the Dance"
Considered to be Australia's finest percussionist, Michael Askill (b. 1952) is also a composer whose large body of music draws equally from both ethnic traditions and Western jazz, rock, and classical idioms. A strong narrative line is evident in such works as "Salome," a rich fusion of motifs and rhythms inspired by the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Askill describes the suite he created from this score in 2001: " 'No Rest from the Dance' is based on rhythmic material from my ballet score for Graeme Murphy's 'Salome' (1997). The rhythms in the opening sections are derived from the scenes of Salome being pursued relentlessly by the lustful King Herod. The steadier 'groove' section of the piece is based on an earlier part of the ballet featuring the young women of the court."

Michael Askill
Salome's Entrance
This hypnotic moment composed in 1997 was originally conceived for Graeme Murphy's ballet "Salome," with pulsing marimbas, frame drum, and gongs providing a cushion for the vocals and flute of Omar Faruk Tekbilek, the master of Turkish and Sufi music.

Timothy Constable
Waves
Those who have grown up near the sea have a sense of the infinite extent of its ebb and flow. Here the marimba "waves" are tightly woven cells of rhythmic ostinati, which gently rise and fall in counterpoint, blending rhythm and harmony as they coalesce. The bubbling log drum is more "watery," and over this the soloist freely adds colors and highlights. This piece has been used as a vehicle for a variety of soloists to enter the fabric of the ensemble. It is also a somewhat tranquil, yet heartfelt, rain dance, since no discussion of fresh water in Australia can omit its prevailing shortage and preciousness.

Michael Askill
Lemurian Dances
The legend of Lemuria proposes the idea of an Atlantis-like sunken continent in the Pacific that was the motherland of all humankind. The wide and unexplained distribution of lemurs (a small primate) in the region gave further fuel to the idea of a land mass that existed in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and India millions of years ago.

Produced by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
PO Box 40845, Tucson, AZ 85717
520.577.3769

www.ArizonaChamberMusic.org
Cover: Brenda Semanick
Notes: Nancy Monsman, Michael Askill
Design: GroundZero
Recording/Mastering: Matthew Snyder