The music on this album was originally written for a dance piece by Australian artist Ken Unsworth with The Australian Dance Artists premiered 31 October 2017 in Sydney.
Kate Moore's richly multi layered imagination creates a score of diverse and challenging opportunities with some beautiful moments for the dance performers. The notion of a score for Restraints that should create uncertainties for the dancers puts them off kilter so they can refocus to produce new spectacles of movement and emotion.
Inspired by the kinetic physicality and aesthetics of balance found in Ken Unsworth's work, Moore's music embodies a feeling of suspension between movement and stasis. Evolving and revolving melodies, poised skillfully in poly-rhythmic structures, the music creates an intoxicating and emotional impression. There is a feeling of constant motion and flow of sonic currents that typifies much of Kate Moore's music.
The music shifts from the material world, the gradually shifting stone-like cycles of the title track "Revolver", the restrained power and poignancy of "The Boxer" to the various slow unfurling melodies of the tightrope inspired "Song Of Ropes", and finally to a contemplation of the immaterial in "Way Of The Dead".
The pieces are performed with extraordinary virtuosity by the musicians Anna McMichael, Rowena Macneish, Kirsty McCahon, Genevieve Lang and Claire Edwardes. This album is Kate Moore's first collaboration with Unsounds. Anna McMichael has released several projects with the label.
Tracklist
- Revolver (7:41)
- The Boxer (7:10)
- Stroming (5:45)
- Trio (Song of Ropes) (5:09)
- Song of Ropes I - solo cello (3:15)
- Song of Ropes II - solo cello (4:45)
- Way Of The Dead (10:56)
- Gatekeeper (6:11)
Revolver (excerpt)
The Boxer (excerpt)
Notes on Revolver
REVOLVER
a music box or a pistol
a revolving melody
divined from miniature stone circles
a ritual dance of hidden danger
beneath a seemingly innocent façadeTHE BOXER
sentimental images of gentle heroes in a boxing ring
stand with swollen gloves poised in action
noble, humble warriors of humility
prepare the artful fight of the head and heart
to inflict a choreography of moves
against an opponent
who must fall to the ground
exhaustedSTROMING
a polyrhythmic merry-go-round of a passing melody
in a circular dance of electric under-currents
a dizzying liquid maelstrom of relentless pulling,
and towing and sucking with great ferocity into the depths,
an emphatic expression through breathless gaspsTRIO (SONG OF ROPES)
the long slow unfurling of the coil of a rope
in the form of a melody like a snake’s body,
charmed by the slow, hypnotic,
seductive, deadly dance of constriction,
wrapping loop upon loop
around and around and aroundSONG OF ROPES I
a tight-rope walker takes up the challenge:
a rope is fastened tight in tension,
stretched and tied,
and fixed at both ends
in a walk of life and death
played out at great heights,
in tenuous dialog
between ecstasy and balance
at the mouth of the abyssSONG OF ROPES II
an acrobat, glides through the air
rejoicing at the experience of ultimate liberation
whilst being tied at one end to a safety rope
caught in a flying entanglement of freedom and captivity
upon a pendulum swingWAY OF THE DEAD
a danse macabre for the silky threads of a violin
whose melody lures souls away from Earthly existence
and captivates dancing skeletons dressed in bright colours,
adorned with flowers and fruit,
who gleefully and eerily rejoice in their festivities
to celebrate their own mortality and vitality
upon the day in honour of their passingGATEKEEPER
a key is encoded in a riddle:
a mysterious arcane puzzle held
at the tenterhooks of the strings of a harp
stretched infinitely in both directions
meeting again in an unfathomable circle of infinity
guarded by the fixed stare of a sphinx


BIOGRAPHIES
Kate Moore, composer
Kate Moore is an internationally acclaimed composer and sound artist. In 2017 she was awarded the prestigious Dutch award for composition, The Matthijs Vermeulen Prize. Her works are performed by, among others, Asko|Schönberg, Bang on a Can, Icebreker, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble Offspring, The Australian String Quartet and The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2018/19 she was Zielsverwanten composer in residence at The Muziekgebouw aan het 'Ij and 2018 composer in focus at November Music where she was commissioned to write the Bosch Requiem Lux Aeterna. In 2017 she was commissioned by The Holland Festival Sacred Environment premiered at the Concertgebouw by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orkest and Omroepkoor. She holds a doctorate from the University of Sydney/ Conservatorium of Music, a masters from The Royal Conservatory of The Hague and an honours degree from The Australian National University / Canberra School of Music where she majored in composition and electroacoustic composition and was awarded the university medal.
Anna McMichael, violin
Anna is a violinist, festival director and educator in demand as an experienced musician able to perform diverse styles of music from early to experimental. She enjoyed a successful career in Europe before returning to Australia in 2010. Anna performed with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Royal Concertgebouw, and with ensembles including the ASKO Ensemble, Schønberg Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Ives Ensemble, and Ensemble MAE. She also played with the Netherlands Opera and with the London Sinfonietta, and in Germany with Ensemble Modern and as leader of MusikFabrik. Anna has toured many major European festivals and given premieres by leading international composers. She performs regularly with groups including: Ensemble Offspring, Australian Haydn Ensemble, Sydney Chamber Opera, Omega Ensemble, Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian World Orchestra, and is a core member of leading early music specialists, Ironwood. She performs at many festivals around Australia and has recorded her own CD on the Dutch label Unsounds, and two CDs on the Tall Poppies label. Anna has been Co-Artistic Director of the NSW Tyalgum Music Festival since 2014. She joined the School of Music at Monash University as Coordinator of Strings in 2019.
Genevieve Lang, harp
Genevieve Lang has performed regularly as Guest Principal and section harpist with the Sydney Symphony and Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra. She has also enjoyed a long association with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra as Guest Principal harpist. Genevieve is a founding member of SHE (Seven Harp Ensemble). Under the direction of harpist Alice Giles, SHE has commissioned numerous works by Australian composers including Schultz, Sitsky, Wesley-Smith and Edwards, and has toured to America, China, and locally around NSW and Victoria. Genevieve has appeared as soloist with the Tasmanian, West Australian and New Zealand symphony orchestras. She has also toured internationally with the Tasmanian and Sydney Symphony orchestras to the United States, Japan and Europe. Genevieve is dedicated to sharing her passion for classical music with audiences, and now presents on ABC Classic, Australia's classical music station.
Claire Edwardes, percussion
Internationally acclaimed percussion soloist, chamber musician and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, Claire Edwardes has been described by the press as a ‘sorceress of percussion’ performing with ‘spellbinding intensity’ and ‘graceful virtuosity’.Her award-winning performances combine a theatrical energy with charismatic and original interpretations bringing to life the varied array of music she performs. Claire is the only Australian musician to win the 'APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Individual' three times (2016, 2012, 2007), was the recipient of a recent Australia Council and a Freedman Fellowship and the winner of numerous European (resident there for seven years) instrumental and percussion competitions as well as 1999 Australian Young Performer of the Year. Recently appearing as soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Myer Music Bowl and on Play School to an audience of thousands of children. Claire is passionate about percussion and new sounds being widely disseminated.
Rowena MacNeish, cello
Cellist Rowena MacNeish performs with the Sydney Symphony & Opera Australia Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra. She received a full scholarship to undertake postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music in London with David Strange and was a member of the Southbank Sinfonia in London and performed at Covent Garden, Queen Elizabeth Hall and festivals throughout Europe. In Australia she studied at Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne with Nelson Cooke and Michael Goldschlager. Following this she undertook the Sydney Symphony Fellowship program. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Sydney Conservatorium studying with Susan Blake and is a founding member of the Sydney Omega Ensemble.
Kirsty McCahon, double bass
Kirsty McCahon is Australia's leading practitioner of Historical Performance on the double bass and violone. She is the Principal Bass of Pinchgut, Brisbane Baroque, Orchestra of The Antipodes and former Principal Double Bass of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, a position she held for 20 years. She has performed in the Brodsky Quartet, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Musica Viva, Halcyon, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Mornington Peninsula Festival, Les Talents Lyrique and L'Arpeggiata. Her background includes extensive performing, recording and touring throughout Europe with ensembles such as Ensemble Itineraire, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and ELISION. Awarded a Churchill Fellow in 2001, Kirsty has been recognised as an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne for Services to Orchestral Music. A passionate supporter of young women and girls, Kirsty was an invited mentor at the inaugural Sydney “Women of the World” conference in 2014.
Bob Scott, sound engineer
Bob is an internationally awarded audio engineer, music producer and sound designer with experience in music production, theatre sound design, location recording, broadcast, film and audio consultation in Australia, Europe and Asia. In particular, he focuses on contemporary classical music, sound installations, jazz and acoustic music, and specialises in both mixing live for performance or broadcast, and working in the studio. The last year has seen him output a diverse range of work from producing from Paul Kelly's Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds to Assembly by Angelica Mesiti for the Venice Bienniale and recently won the sound design award for Howling Girls in the Tokyo World Festival.
DIGITAL ALBUM ON BANDCAMPREVOLVER | Kate Moore
- Catalogue #: 72U
- Format: CD
- Release date: October 2021
- Availability: In Stock
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€12.00
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