nestings, asunder

With Yona Su (viola), Aditya Ryan Bhat (percussion/electronics), Sean Quinn (voice), Sofia Carbonara (percussion) and Kina Lin-Wilmoth (bassoon).

सृष्टि/Shrishti presents an intimate evening of experimental and improvisational music by queer and POC composers. Curated by Su, Quinn, and Bhat, the performance will break away from the ubiquity of heteronormative programming, and spotlight four unique creative voices from Australia and the USA. Set in the unique and deceptive acoustic of the Norla Dome at the Mission to Seafarers nestings, asunder will be a collective sonic exploration of growth, togetherness, and separation.

Timothy McCORMACK | nestbuilder [2022-23]
solo voice with assistants

The nest as a protective, hermetic, enveloping space. To build a nest for oneself is to care for oneself, center oneself, to curate a space for oneself. This piece is not the nest you are born into; it is the nest you construct for yourself alone, always building and rebuilding, fine-tuning, caring over. The nest you build for yourself. Withinness. Centered in noise; a space saturated with sound and noise so as to pad it, soften it, envelop it from within. Sound as nest. Noise as nest. Accumulating; gathering; radiating out, through, on, over time. Sonic terraforming.

Sarah HENNIES | Growing Block [2019]
ensemble

Growing Block is based on the scientific theory of the same name that theorizes that past and present time exist but future time does not. The more time that passes, the more of the world comes into being. The musicians in Growing Block behave as though inside a snapshot of a moment in time, if one could move around inside a moment without going forwards or backwards. The score allows for some freedom in choice of sounds, but the order of events and instructions for performers are fixed.

Sia AHMAD | Twin Pedals [2016] - adapted for this event
ensemble with electronics

Inspired by the legendary duel between cyclists Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault during the 1986 Tour De France and in particular, during the stage up Alpe d’Huez, Twin Pedals is a 60 minute site-specific chamber composition for organ keyboards, electric guitar, strings, electronic rhythm and sounds derived from cycles and Tour de France television coverage. Driven by the undulating rhythms (“tempos”) set in place by the individual performers (“racers”), layered harmonies are interlaced with sinewy melodies to tell the story of this classic David vs Goliath story. The performance space is contained within fabric backdrops created using the abstracted colours seen within a racing “peloton” and direct the performers from the open start to the narrow and tense finale.

Sean QUINN | lexis (i) [2023]
ensemble with 'oracle'

lexis (i) calls for a human response to language. The score, a dichroic invitation; to react, to respond, to rebel. Bridging the gap between guide and communicator, the ‘oracle’ nestled at the heart of the work recites passages developed from mesostic poems - themselves embedded with a multiplicity of potential meanings. Surrounding voices then emerge, attempting to discern meaning from one another’s emanations and elisions, finding solace in moments of synergy found not because language, but in spite of it. Language, in its most basic form, is about communication. The 'lexis', its totality, taking into account all its forms, fabrications, inferences, and iterations. A paradox; a subversion!

सृष्टि/SHRISHTI | free improvisation
ensemble