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Pearl, Ochre, Hair String

Pearl, Ochre, Hair String was commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and West Australian Symphony, with research supported by an Ian Potter Foundation Fellowship 2008-09 (AUD$80,000). Premiered 9 July 2010, BRO conducted by Lothar Zagrosek, Munich; also 25-27 Nov 2010, WASO, Paul Daniel, cond., Perth, Australia; 17 March 2012, BBC Scottish Symphony, Otto Tausk, cond., Glasgow. Broadcast on BR, ABC Radio and BBC Radio 3. A documentary film about the work was made by Bayern-Alpha TV for the series ‘Forum der Gegenwarts Musik’. The Fellowship research focused on a study of Australian Aboriginal aesthetic prioritisations in art and ritual. Unlike most cross-cultural work in this area, my concern was to look beyond surface rhythmic or melodic features to underlying patterns of fluctuation (‘shimmer’) allied to Indigenous knowledge structures. My fieldwork experiences led to a profound re-evaluation of rhythmic relations and sonic behaviours in my music and notably led to further development of techniques for the ‘guiro bow’. The bow is exploited in Invisibility (2009) for solo ‘cello (see CD ‘Transference’, ELISION, HCR02, 2010), forming the basis for the orchestral work. The success of the bow can be gauged in the take-up of the solo work, performed more than a sixty times internationally by four ‘cellists (Ballon, Woods, Hamann, Bayman), and of the orchestral work by three international orchestras. The framework for the cultural/ethnographic research and its impact on technical and aesthetic developments in my composition is discussed in Lim, L. (2012) ‘Patterns of Ecstasy’ in Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik, Band 21, Schott: Mainz. (27-43) ISBN: 978-3-7957-0816-0. The article also discusses the ways in which the project gave a space to the Indigenous women artists involved to up-end aspects of the symbolic regime at the centre of their own cultural experience as part of a meaningful intercultural exchange.