Halcyon | Musician/band
Halcyon
Reviews
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25.01.2022 The concert goes live in one hour! The macro image of an opal in the image by Linden Gledhill captures the vibrant colours and the carefully etched marks of human work upon its surface. It felt like the perfect metaphor for the crafts of composing and performing as we hone pieces to bring out their natural beauty. Like the iridescent opal, each piece is crafted to be unique, shining with its own character and colour. Tune in at 7pm today to join us for the YouTube Premiere Ho...lding Light. Hear five new gems, meet the composers and chat with the performers. For more info: https://www.halcyon.org.au/events/2020/9/18/holding-light To watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4gV-dQ0Sa8&feature=youtu.be
24.01.2022 More frustrating news for NSW artists and organisations.
24.01.2022 Welcome to July! Today's In Conversation With... clip is from Katy Abbott, Composer with insights into the value of recordings. We certainly agree with her. Our more than a dozen releases include Katy's No Ordinary Traveller for mezzo, clarinet, percussion and piano, commissioned by Halcyon back in 2006 and first recorded on her Sunburnt Aftertones album of 2010. Commissioned by Halcyon, this work "follows the journey of four women on a ship from England to Australia in ...the early 1850s. It documents their fears, hopes, loss and anticipation at beginning life in a new country. It looks at their quirky, beautiful and gut-wrenching experiences." You can hear Katy talking more about the song cycle here: https://youtu.be/zUT60LE0pLg and take a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist For the full list of our recordings go to: https://www.halcyon.org.au/listen.
23.01.2022 Though we have been saying this for months now, this is still a message that clearly needs repeating, particularly now the government has announced large handouts to assist the building industry while ours is still in dire need (https://www.abc.net.au//government-coronavirus-co/12317786). This is a very simple petition to the arts minister which will take less than a minute to sign. It begins... "We need your help to make sure that the creative workers and iconic institutions that inspire, provoke, and bring together Australians can survive this crisis. We want to get back to work, but we need your support. " Please consider adding your name to show yours.
20.01.2022 Looking back into the wealth of music we have performed and discovered over the years, we've got another gem from the archives for you which acknowledges some long relationships. Here is eminent English composer Jonathan Harvey's Song Offerings performed as part of Nigel Butterley's 70th birthday festival in 2005 in one of our memorable collaborative concerts with Ensemble Offspring and recorded for broadcast by ABC Classic. Over the years, these joint events and festivals... have been wonderful opportunities to stage some fantastic larger chamber works (such as our epic Tehillim program in 2007 with Offspring and Synergy to an audience of well over 1000). Elliott Gyger, who curated the festival and wrote the notes you can read on the clip, has now become a recognised authority on Nigel's music and author of The Music of Nigel Butterley (https://wildbirdmusic.com.au//the-music-of-nigel-butterle/). We first performed Jonathan Harvey's music in our 2004 Close Ups program in this much more intimate work, Lullaby for the Unsleeping for mezzo and piano. You can take a listen here: https://youtu.be/CqeTAXPE1iQ Thanks too to all the performers: Roland Peelman, Ali Morgan, Michael Sitsky, Diana Springford, Sophie Cole, Veronique Serret, Thomas Talmacs, Geoffrey Gartner, Jennifer Druery, Kerry Yong and Sally Whitwell.
19.01.2022 Today's archival video is another of Kerry Andrew's wonderful fruit songs - this time 'cherry' inspired by very short poem about the cherries on Mt Yoshino. This is such a fun piece to perform. Most of the text just consists of 'oh' but I have to say it in SO many different ways! If you missed it you can also find 'plum' in the recent YouTube releases. Or you can listen to 'apple' from our 2003 performance here: https://soundcloud.com/kerryandrewco/apple-from-fruit-songs. ... Kerry is a gifted UK composer, singer and writer with a great sense of fun in her work and we've loved sharing so many of her pieces with our audiences over the years - fruit songs for voice and guitar, hammock for voice and cello, ojo, luna-cy and The Song of Doves for vocal trio and Criosda liom a cadal for solo voice and choir. If you don't know her, check out her work here: https://kerryandrew.tumblr.com/ Performance from our 10th birthday concert and features Jenny Duck-Chong and Janet Agostino.
18.01.2022 While I had long known of Larry Sitsky and his many vocal works, it was only in 2013 that I first worked with him in Canberra. Since then he has written three works for Halcyon including the very moving Letter from the Trenches (for our War Letters project, which featured composers of four generations reflecting on WWI), A Feast of Lanterns II (on our Waves IV EP) and Two Songs of Li-Po for voice and flute. When I wrote to ask him about this project, he had the handwritten ...score to me in less than two weeks. Now 86, he is showing no signs of compositional fatigue! Hear more about his creative process in the interview on Thursday. For more information: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/sitsky-larry https://www.halcyon.org.au/recordings/war-letters https://www.halcyon.org.au/recordings/wavesiv https://www.youtube.com/watch
18.01.2022 A bit of peace in the midst of our present chaos, today's archival video comes from last October's performance of Andrew Ford's gorgeous new song cycle Nature (in that longed-for-but-not-so-distant time when we still were performing live for audiences). This time it's a wonderfully evocative piece 'Night Pictures I' with text by Australian poet Maria Takolander. The instrumental soundscape was notated freely as timed events not aligned with the text so each time we played it it was full of tiny new surprises, as sounds appeared around me just as they would in the nighttime landscape. Thanks to Sally Walker, Vladimir Gorbach, Geoffrey Gartner, Maharshi Raval and Tim Brigden for bringing this lovely song to life with me.
17.01.2022 Next composer to introduce before Thursday is Kate Reid. I first met Kate some years ago at the Sydney Con while she was completing her Masters. I had been invited by Paul Stanhope to present to the students about writing for voice and work with them on a composition project for voice, cello and guitar. We’ve since worked a couple of different vocal projects together. Knowing Kate’s love of poetry, when I requested this new work I was delighted to see her select Judith W...right, having most recently sung this evocative poetry in Ross Edwards’ recent song cycle, Five Senses (now out on Waves IV). https://www.halcyon.org.au/recordings/wavesiv The Wagtail is the first of several planned settings of Wright's bird poems. https://www.katereid.com.au/ Kate is one of the composers that I have coached in vocal writing over the years. I have always loved having dialogues with composers of all ages about the details in and behind their vocal works and I love being ab le to share my experience as an interpreter with emerging and establishing composers to hone their skills and help them articulate more clearly their own musical intent. Tune in on Thursday at 7pm to see the results. https://youtu.be/B4gV-dQ0Sa8
16.01.2022 Nicola LeFanu is an eminent UK composer, teacher and advocate for contemporary music. Though Halcyon has only performed one work by Nicola to date, a trio for female voices called The Bourne, we have known each other for more than a decade and we have caught up up both in Sydney and in the UK where she lives with her husband, composer David Lumsdaine. This new cycle of three very short works, Songs for Jane, began life as a piece for soprano and viola which she graciously reworked for us for this project, and sets English translations of anonymous Japanese poetry. She describes why she likes to set text in translation in the conversation with me which precedes her piece. Tune in on Thursday at 7pm to find out more. https://www.nicolalefanu.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch
14.01.2022 Today's track and story is from a long way back in the archives. In 2004 we performed Basque composer Gabriel Erkoreka's evocative work Bizitza (Life). We 'met' the composer via email conversations and he sent me a recording of someone speaking the Basque text for me which I learnt syllable by syllable. It is an intriguing language and I loved the challenge of familiarising myself with something so out of my comfort zone, and still striving for an intelligible interpretat...ion of the poetry. Plus the instrumentation was fantastic - flute/piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, percussion, violin, cello and double bass - so many dark sonorities to sing against. This great program (and live CD) Dark Love also featured works by John Harbison, George Crumb and the world premiere of Rosalind Page's Sonetos del amor oscuro (winner of the 2006 Paul Lowin Song Cycle prize) and stunning art work by Catherine Abel Artist. https://www.halcyon.org.au/events/tag/2000-2004 Apart from the long line up of artists on stage - Roland Peelman, Ali Morgan, Jenny Duck-Chong, Laura Chislett, Steve Meyer, Diana Springford, Matthew Ockenden, Tommie Andersson, Vanessa Souter, Michael Hooper, Daryl Pratt, John Douglas, Sophie Cole, Nicole Forsyth, Deborah Coogan and Helen Cosgrove - how many of you were there all those years ago? Audio courtesy ABC Classic 2004
12.01.2022 Tune in tonight to celebrate the achievements of our community and see some of the wonderful work that's been produced in the last year. In the midst of a hard year for the arts, it's good to be reminded that there is much still to celebrate and acknowledge some fantastic artists and creators.
12.01.2022 Today's archival clip is from our first full-length studio album, Cool Black (2008) featuring the music of Rosalind Page. It features two cool and atmospheric songs from her work Hrafnsöngvar (Ravensongs), for soprano, piano, harp, celeste and cello, inspired by the landscape and poetry of Iceland. Performed by Mark Shiell, Ali Morgan, Patrick Murphy, Clemens Leske, Ben van Tienen and Genevieve Lang Huppert. Alison and I worked extensively with Rosalind in Halcyon's early ...years, featuring three of her song cycles in quick succession - apollinairesongs in 2002 (to which she penned a brand new movement 'l'univers' for the performance), Sonetos del amor oscuro (winner of the 2006 Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize) in 2004 and Hrafnsöngvar in 2005. Because our ensemble is not fixed but always drawn together specifically for each project, we were able to perform all of these beautiful song cycles - with their diverse and unusual instrumental ensembles - across only a handful of years. And then we recorded and co-produced them all with Rosalind for Cool Black. Read more about the album and listen to a few more tracks here: https://www.halcyon.org.au/recordings/cool-black And if you still want more, Rosalind also wrote Aquila’s Wing for our 15th birthday Kingfisher project. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/s37B9G2H82U
12.01.2022 Great to see new financial support available to those who have been falling through the cracks. Please spread the word.
09.01.2022 Another petition for federal support for the Australian arts and entertainment workers and industry. Already its generated over 8000 signatures including mine. Will you add yours?
08.01.2022 THIS FRIDAY 25th September at 7pm Halcyon presents Holding Light - an exclusive online event for e-news subscribers featuring mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong and cellist Geoffrey Gartner. Sign up on the web page www.halcyon.org.au or at [email protected] for more details.
07.01.2022 Halcyon's In Conversation With... series recently turned 2 so I wrote a little blog about it. We're really proud of this growing resource which now features 10 composers giving fascinating insights into their work. Each week this month we've been uploading new clips so check out the latest by Andrew Ford, Nicole Murphy and Kevin March on the channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist
07.01.2022 Today's archival video comes from our 10th birthday concert in 2008 and features one movement of Kerry Andrew's wonderfully eccentric fruit songs. This 'chilled' movement features Jenny with guitarist Janet Agostino. I first sang these songs in 2003 and they have followed me through my singing life as they are challenging and virtuosic, full of character and just so much fun to sing. And proof contemporary music can have a sense of humour too! Audio courtesy ABC Classic 2008
06.01.2022 Really excited to share five new works for voice and cello with you this Thursday in Holding Light. We would like the works to speak for themselves, rather than telling you too much about what you will hear, but over the next few days we're going to introduce you to the composers, before you meet them and hear their new pieces. First up is Andrew Schultz. Well-known to Halcyon audiences, over the years we have performed seven of his works (including five world premieres)... and in 2018 released the album, This Moment Must Be Sung, showcasing six of his vocal works. He also features in the In Conversation With YouTube series. His new sparse and contemplative work, Flock of Angels, features words by Kahlil Gibran. Here are some links if you want more info: Repertoire: https://www.halcyon.org.au/the-music CD: https://www.halcyon.org.au/recordi/this-moment-must-be-sung ICW: https://www.youtube.com/watch Website: https://andrewschultz.net/ https://www.youtube.com/watch
06.01.2022 On Friday Sept 25 Halcyon will be presenting their first virtual event exclusively for e-news subscribers. Holding Light will feature 5 new works written or arranged especially for mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong and cellist Geoffrey Gartner by Larry Sitsky, Nicola LeFanu, Gordon Kerry, Andrew Schultz and Kate Reid. If you’re not yet a subscriber and you want to find out more about this special event, sign up to the e-news at www.halcyon.org.au and we’ll send you all the details.
06.01.2022 Only a week till this special performance. If you're not yet a subscriber, it's worth signing up to be able to see Halcyon in action again.
04.01.2022 Holding Light premieres tonight at 7pm! The final composer in the program is Gordon Kerry, also well-known to Halcyon audiences (the most recent performances were his settings of David Malouf’s poetry for voice, violin, cello and piano). A featured composer in our In Conversation With... playlist, Gordon was also one of the twenty-one composers who gifted Halcyon with a song for our 15th birthday Kingfisher project. My Sorrow’s Flower describes discovering a small moment of ...unexpected joy and seemed a fitting conclusion to the program, which for us has allowed us to create some creative light in this unpredictable year. Website: https://gordonkerry.wordpress.com/ ICW: https://www.youtube.com/watch Kingfisher project: https://www.halcyon.org.au/kingfisher?rq=kingfisher https://www.youtube.com/watch
03.01.2022 In 30 seconds this Irish ad spells out why we all need the arts in our lives. If you agree, then please sign the federal petition for support for arts and entertainment workers. Now more than 30k signatories. https://www.aph.gov.au/petition_list?id=EN1609 If you work in the sector, please also consider signing this great open letter now circulating via APRA on behalf of the Australian Music Industry: https://docs.google.com//1AtT3Gdy8aHkhP_MZmDJcg3YW7su/edit Contact [email protected] to add yours to over (my estimate) 1000 names.
03.01.2022 Today's archival video is from a concert I did with Melbourne guitarist Ken Murray (in those days when you could travel to Melbourne) in 2015. Three very short nonsense songs by Andrew Schultz from his piece Ditties. Originally written for baritone, I sang the first at original pitch (if you're wondering why I have SO many fun low notes) and the other two up an octave from the original. I have always loved a good nonsense poem. I think you can see that from this performance. Hope it brings a smile to your afternoon.
01.01.2022 Fantastic to see the list of nominations for this year's revamped Art Music Awards. Congratulations to all!
01.01.2022 If you haven't seen this yet just a reminder about Kammerklang's call for scores. A great idea to breath fresh life into existing works for soprano and piano with performances scheduled in Sydney and Melbourne in 2021. If you've got a suitable work, you've only got a few days more to get your submission in. Entries close on November 16.
01.01.2022 Working closely with composers for so many years, I have discovered they each have very different approaches to the use of text when writing songs, and so I like to explore this with each of them as part of our interview for In Conversation With... Next up in the series is Andrew Ford on Setting Text. Andy's deep love of poetry and language is integral to his vocal writing and often the key inspiration for the works themselves. He has written many works for Halcyon over t...he years, so once you've heard him talk about what he likes to do, why not listen to a few examples of these ideas in action. Search for 'Ford' on the channel itself and you'll come up with at least five different pieces to choose from including our first Ford commission, Willow Songs, which he refers to in the clip. Recorded on the Waves I EP you can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/7iMU1ZNziL0 See more
