A piece for six percussionists. Best listened to on over-the-ear headphones to experience the spatial (binaural) live recording. The percussionists were arranged in a circle around the audience and the performance recorded on a binaural microphone in the centre.

For the six percussion desks, two were written to play in 5/4, two in 7/8, and two in 9/8. All players would share beat 1 of any bar. During composition, I found that woodblocks in the 9/8 and 5/4 parts could give a satisfactory illusion of the sound of crickets. The ‘phasing’ of different crickets could also be evoked, and this begins at bar 23. The entire group falls silent at bar 39, and any hopes of reprieve for the listener from the approach of the Crickets of Doom are dashed when they return in bar 42. While most of the piece involves only two players on wood blocks at any one time, at a period beginning at bar 46, all four players in the 9/8 and 5/4 time signatures are playing the phasing cricket motif. This is intended to raise the menacing quality of the motif in this period. All other motifs, in all time signatures, are intended to be disorienting and reinforce the sense of menace. The final iteration of the cricket motif at bar 121 is supposed to evoke the arrival of the Crickets of Doom, heralding final annihilation.

credits
released March 28, 2023
Performed by the Defying Gravity percussion ensemble in the Enright Theatre on the 5th of May 2022.

Music Director: Genevieve Wilkins
Assistant Music Director (Xenakis100 project): Tayla Rattray
Ensemble:
Tayla Rattray
Jonathan Parker
Zac Skelton
Genevieve Wilkins
Dean Murray
Cassandra Loy
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This piece was inspired by a 14th Breton lai (medieval romance), of about 1,100 lines, that was first attested to in the Auchinlek manuscript, thought to have been compiled around 1330.
lyrics
These lyrics were written by the composer:
Sop: There was a knight, Sir Degaré,
His origins a mystery,
Left at birth on a doorstep,
All alone.
When he became a man and strong,
He wander’d far and wide,
Searching for what he had lost,
Until one day his mother he found,
She gave him a sword,
That his father would know him by,
He rode forth.
Bar: The night is cold, the forest dark,
I need warmth and shelter,
A castle is yonder,
Perhaps there I’ll find…
Sop: Who is this knight?
Bar: Fair maid, I am Sir Degaré.
Sop: He does not belong here.
Bar: Why does she ignore me?
Sop: I will ignore him,
He does not belong here.
Bar: I do not belong here,
The harp makes me sleep.
Sop: Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Sop: Sir knight you must awake,
It is dawn, will you help me?
A knight comes who wishes to,
Take me away by force!
Bar: I will deal with this!
I will take my sword!
And this vile knight,
I will slay!
Sop: Sir Degaré,
You have slain the dreadful knight,
My land, my body, is yours,
Please stay!
Bar: I cannot stay.
Sop: But you belong here.
Bar: I must my father find.
Sop: Must your father find?
You will return.
Bar: I will return.
Sop For I know you belong!
Bar: For I know I belong!

credits
released March 27, 2023
Baritone: Keaton Staszewski-Hose
Soprano: Emily Davis
Harp: Kira Gunn
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Built using wavetable synth Vital and granular synth Ribs.

credits
released March 27, 2023
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A 3 minute piece based on a 3/4 over 4/4 cross-rhythm, that can be counted out using the phrase ‘what atrocious weather’. For four percussionists. Recorded live.

credits
released March 27, 2023
This piece was performed by the following at a lunchtime concert in the Richard Gill Auditorium on the 14th of September 2021:
Congas: Jon Parker
Bongos: Dean Murray
Woodblocks: Zac Skelton
High woodblock: Cassandra Loy
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This piece was made using an Arturia Microbrute. It is binaural (spatially mixed front, back and sides) and best listened to on over-the-ear headphones.

credits
released March 27, 2023
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This piece was written for the Astor Piazzolla homage event, Tango Nuevo. Recorded live.

credits
released March 27, 2023
Performed by Robyn Blann (violin) and Stewart Smith (piano) at the Richard Gill Auditorium on the 6th of May 2021.
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A piece for classical guitar and violin. Recorded live

credits
released March 27, 2023
It was performed of the 20th of April 2021 by Iain Parker (guitar) and Miranda Dyskin (violin) at the Richard Gill Auditorium.
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This piece was performed on the 13th of October 2022 in the RGA at WAAPA, during the Dark Side Of The Moon Revisited gig. It was also played twice at lunchtime concerts the following week. A recording of one of those performances is attached.

This piece was written using ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ as a reference track. I found a piano transcription of the piece and used that to create a version in negative harmony. While this is often very straightforward, since it can be formulaically done when a piece stays in the same key, that was not the case here. The piece starts in what could be either Bb or F (since there are a number of borrowed chords), then modulates definitively to Bb, then to F, then to B, then to F, Bb, F. Where these delineations are made affected the final harmony.

The algorithm to create the negative harmony, once key centres had been identified, was to flip notes around a point halfway between the tonic and the dominant. To determine the root, notes were flipped around the tonic of the original key. This works for all chords except the vii diminished, which was not in the piece.

credits
released March 27, 2023
WAAPA jazz students
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This was originally a 3 minute piece entitled “The Spell” inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in particular Act 4 Scene 1, where the witches chant the recipe of a potion they are preparing for a spell. This piece was submitted into the Studio 2022 program of The Choral Collective and accepted for further development, along with three other composers’ works. Recorded live with ten voices.

The narrative arc of the piece follows the witches attempting to cast a spell. They fail twice before succeeding. ‘Succeeding’ in this case is finding the note F# at the end of the chorus (in the correct context). Each attempt is a stanza followed by the chorus (‘Double double…’). The three stanzas all begin in the same harmonic space, and each stanza is harmonic repeat of the previous stanza, though getting longer each time and modulating to new tonal centres in these extensions. This is analogous to a trauma victim repeatedly re-enacting a traumatic experience, trapped in a loop, until it can be transcended. Thus, the ‘No’s after the first attempt should be expressing confusion. The ‘No’s’ after the second attempt should be expressing frustration. The ‘Yes’s after the third attempt should express triumph.

credits
released March 27, 2023
This piece was performed by the ten-voice choir, Vanguard Consort, at Old Customs House in Fremantle on the 15th of October 2022. . The performance was also filmed and can be found here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu4r5S64NHA
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This is a developmental work, based on a single field recording of a metal top spinning on a resonant glass display table.
The original recording was put into the granular synthesizer ‘Ribs’. Sounds were created by manipulating ‘playrate’ (both speed and direction) and ‘wobble’ (amplitude and speed) of selected grains. These sounds were recorded into a number of tracks. Eleven samples were then created and placed into the Reaper sampler ‘ReaSamplOmatic5000’, along with the original recording. This resulted in 12 sounds that could be played through a midi keyboard. The envelopes (attack, decay, sustain, and release) were adjusted in the sampler. Each sound was then played and recorded, with appropriate volume and stereo-panning automation. In this manner, the original material is transformed, reworked, and presented in new contexts.

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released March 27, 2023
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