Sideband: The In-Between Review by Greg Schiemer

The In-Between is a showcase of contemporary chamber music composition driven largely by the initiative of a three-member musical collective called Sideband.  The work involves collaboration between  composers and performers that shines a new light on a period

of concert music production spanning several generations.  Collaborators include composer-instrumentalists and composers who extend existing instrumental resources along with a host of impressive vocalists and instrumentalists.  One of the nice things about this CD is that even though the oldest works involve electronics the collection includes music performed on conventional instruments alongside music performed electronically.
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Short Circuits (track 1) by Tristan Coelho, creates tension with an interesting blend of timbres and rhythms.  The work is a product of rhythmically-focused piano improvisations supplemented through collaboration with the instrumentalists, alto flautist (Jane Bishop) tenor saxophonist (Ben Carey) and percussionist (Niki Johnson).  Passages of constant rhythmic energy eventually yield to long silences punctuated by isolated rhythmic figures.

Performers Jane Bishop (Left), Niki Johnson (Centre) and Ben Carey (Right) rehearsing Tristan Coelho's Short Circuits in 2016.

Katia Tiutiunnik’s A Requiem (track 2) is a beautifully evocative work where the melodic line on bass flute (Jane Bishop) is immersed with dreamlike arpeggiated figures and vibrato textures created on vibraphone (Brad Gill).

The Colour of Blue Clouds (track 3) by Brad Gill, is a short movement with an interesting contrast and balance of timbres.  The work is the first of a series of Five Pali Songs set to the text of a buddhist poem and scored for soprano (Michelle Ryan), flute (Jane Bishop), violin (Jackie McCaughan), trombone (Milo Dodd) and percussion (Brad Gill) conducted by Anastasia Pahos.

In Amplitude (track 4) by Peter McNamara, timbres reminiscent of Stockhausen’s Microphonie 1 are extruded from a variety of percussion instruments.  Isolated notes emerge from the misty texture and evolve into starkly articulated note passages played on vibraphone (Brad Gill).  The texture is gradually transformed to mirror the melodic contour.

Gill’s Josquin Study (track 5) features the composer playing in a vibraphone duo with James Townsend.  The work consists of contemplative melodic fragments separated by vast silences and is based on Josquin's madrigal Mille Regretz paraphrased and interspersed with original material.

Spectrum (track 6) written by Božidar Kos in 1988 is for bass clarinet (Garran Hutchison-Menzer), marimba (Anastassia Korolev) and tape.  The constant ebb and flow of tension between two live instruments is set against a pre-recorded tape part.  Extended Bartellozzi techniques form a link between live instrumental timbre and timbres produced electronically.

McNamara’s White Noise (track 7) for soprano (Deepka Ratra), bass recorder (Alicia Crossley) and vibraphone (Brad Gill), is a setting of text by Lao-Australian writer Sumana Viravong expressing thoughts on life in south-western Sydney.

Brad Gill recording Peter McNamara's Amplitude.

The melodic line is initially accompanied by chordal semi-quaver passages, with occasional countermelody played on bass recorder.

Monody (track 8) for piano with live electronic modulation was written by Roger Smalley in 1972.  The work consists of a single melodic contour in which the piano timbre undergoes live transformation and was written as a founding member of the live electronic improvisation group Intermodulation.  On this recording, both piano and percussion is played superbly by Kerry Yong.

Composer Božidar Kos.

A special challenge in producing this CD has been to present a range of electronic composition techniques in a period of radical change both musically and technologically.  In the case of Monody written in 1972 it was necessary to replace a form of vintage technology, the ring modulator, which had found its place in electronic music through the work of Stockhausen.  It was a non-trivial challenge to find a digital plug-in replacement that honours the composer’s initial intention.

The genre of electronic work for tape and live instrument(s) has also been affected as disk media gradually replaced reel-to-reel tape.  In Spectrum, composed on Fairlight CMI Series 2 using a text-based Music Composition Language, both operating system and composition resided on floppy disk; the CMI played the ‘tape’ part which was recorded on CD.  Works in this genre are often starting points for composers and instrumentalists working with electronic sound [1][2][3], so the genre is unlikely to disappear even as technology continues to offer new creative options for composers.

The group Intermodulation in 1971.  Tim Souster (Left), Robin Thompson (Centre), Roger Smalley (Right) and Peter Britton (Seated).

And 30 years on, as solid-state technology gradually replaces disk media, new composition tools include readily available production software running on personal computers in a variety of flavours, both proprietary and open source.  The latter include Csound and Pure Data, which evolved from the first computer music languages developed by computer scientists collaborating with composers working at Bell Labs during the 1960s.  In the case of Amplitude the production software is open source, viz., Cecilia (a derivative of Csound), and Soundhack, both created by composers, Jean Picheand and Tom Erbe, respectively.

The emerging composers in Sideband each represent a different facet of the CD collection.  Each studied composition at the Sydney Conservatorium while Kos was Head of Composition, yet each reflect a different aspect of the diverse composition culture that flourished ever since the Composition School was established in its present form by Don Banks, Martin Wesley-Smith and Graham Hair during the 1970s.  Their work owes much to the broad range of training offered by several composers who worked in the school like Trevor Pearce, Dame Gillian Whitehead, Michael Smetanin and Elena Kats-Chernin and musicians like Judy Bailey and Daryl Pratt.  Brad Gill, who performs works by various composers on this CD, represents something of the composer-performer; Peter McNamara is a composer whose work includes both instrumental music and music produced electronically; and Tristan Coelho whose interest in contemporary composition was first inspired by performer and teacher Stephanie McCallum, is about to embark on creating a new electronic work as a recipient of the 2018 APRA Art Music Fund.  As technology becomes ever more mobile and ubiquitous it will eventually be embedded in the design of new musical instruments that are indistinguishable from those currently played by chamber musicians.  Hopefully we can expect such instruments to feature in high-calibre performances like those heard on this CD.


[1] Roger Smalley
Echo III (1978) Gordon Webb (trumpet)

[2] Don Banks
Commentary (1971) David Miller (piano)

[3] Martin Wesley-Smith
For Bass Clarinet and Tape (1983) Harry Sparnaay (bass clarinet)

Author

Greg Schiemer is a composer who lead several Australian Research Council Discovery and Linkage projects on composition and instrument design. His purpose-built interactive electronic musical instrument designs are an important part of the early history of Australian electronic music. He studied composition at Sydney University with Peter Sculthorpe and graduated with Bachelor of Music and lectured in electronic composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1986 to 2003.