Friday 25 May 2018: Claire Chase + Sonant Bodies

"Look out world. Here comes a monster"
- American Record Guide

To kickstart a year of living music, BackStage Music presents Claire Chase (USA) - a world leading flutist and champion of music made now. Claire is a soloist, collaborative artist, curator and advocate for new and experimental music. Over the past decade she has given the world premieres of hundreds of new works for the flute and she has championed new music throughout the world. Opening the night, BackStage Music welcomes early career artists Sonant Bodies (featuring Victoria Pham, James Hazel and Sarah Monk) in an immersive blindfolded experience Sound of Spaces where you are invited to surrender your senses.

PROGRAM

Sonant Bodies
Heart Beat from Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice -  Pauline Oliveros (2005)
Rain – Sarah Monk (2017)
Modes of Transportation -  Movement I: Two-Step– Victoria Pham (2017)
Beethoven’s Pathetic Ghost – James Hazel (2017)

Claire Chase - flutes
Du Yun - Gradient Density (2013) for electronics
Steve Reich - Vermont Counterpoint (1982) for 11 flutes (piccolos, flutes, alto flutes)
Marcos Balter - Pessoa (2013) for 6 bass flutes
Suzanne Farrin - The Stimulus of Loss (2016) for glissando headjoint and ondes martenot
Mario Diaz de León  - Luciform (2013) for flute and electronics
Du Yun - An Empty Garlic (2014) for bass flute and electronics
Edgard Varèse - Density 21.5 (1936) for flute alone

Claire Chase

Claire Chase is a soloist, collaborative artist, curator and advocate for new and experimental music. Over the past decade she has given the world premieres of hundreds of new works for the flute in performances throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. In 2014 Chase launched Density 2036, a 22-year commissioning project to create an entirely new body of repertory for flute between 2014 and 2036, the centenary of Edgard Varèse’s groundbreaking 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. Every three years of the cycle a retrospective event will be held in which Claire will perform cumulative concerts of all Density work commissioned up until that date. In 2036, a 24-hour marathon will take place.

A deeply committed educator, Chase was named Professor of the Practice in the Department of Music at Harvard University starting in 2017.  She has overseen the development and implementation of education programs such as The Listening Room (for K-6 school children with no musical background), EntICE (for middle-school and high-school youth orchestras in underserved areas of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles). She is also the co-artistic director, with her longtime collaborator Steven Schick, of the Summer Music Program at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada. 

Claire is visiting Sydney for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s ‘Composing Women’ program, working closely with Peggy Polias, Bree van Reyk, Georgia Scott, and Josephine Macken. Clare will also be presenting an interactive performance-lecture and discussion as part of the Alfred Hook Lecture Series.

Sonant Bodies

In an immersive blindfolded concert, performers and composers Sarah Monk, James Hazel and Victoria Pham invite you to surrender your senses to The Sound of Spaces. Come and experience the sounds of Australia from the rhythm of train tracks, the gentle pitter-patter of rain and resonance of a decaying piano.  

The Sound of Spaces is the result of a collaboration between flutist Sarah Monk and Sonant Bodies, James Hazel and Victoria Pham. This show was premiered at two sold-out shows by the collective at Crack Theatre Festival 2017 (part of the TINA – This is Not Art - festival). The collaboration first began with Notes from The Underclass premiered at the Sydney Fringe Festival in September 2017. The show was directed by James Hazel and with compositions by Hazel, Pham and Monk. This work was subsequently awarded the NIDA Sponsored, Emerging Artist Award.

Sarah Monk is a soloist, improviser and collaborating artist based in Newcastle Australia. She plays concert flute, piccolo, bass flute, South Indian Bamboo flute and baroque flute.  Sarah has an interest in new and experimental music, multi-disciplinary practices, early European music, Indian Classical and world music. Sarah graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts, from the Australian National University in 2007 and in 2017 she graduated with a Bachelor of music distinction in Classical flute Performance from the University of Newcastle under the tutelage of Sally Walker.

James Hazel is an Australian composer, writer & sound-artist. His work investigates sonic practices in political & social contexts, as well as the experimentation with precarious, electro-acoustic forms. His work has been exhibited/performed at a variety of festivals and venues across Australia and internationally: Teppo Fest (UK), Sydney Fringe, Vivid (Sydney), 'Screengrab' 7th International Media Arts Awards (Queensland), New Music Network Labs/Mini-Series, and Bundanon Trust. James holds a B.Mus, Honours (First Class).

Victoria Pham is a composer and archaeologist based in Sydney having studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under the tutelage of composers Carl Vine AO, Gerard Brophy and Sandy Evans and archaeology/art history University of Sydney. She has been commissioned by several institutions including AGNSW, Spineless Wonders and the Brett Whiteley Studio and has worked as an archaeologist, photo-documenter and illustrator for the Australian Museum, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Northern Mongolian Archaeology Project, Sri Lankan Consulate and Kantarodai Expedition.