3 Shades Black

Andrew Aronowicz is a passionate writer of music and words, and a promising young mind in Australian classical music. He holds a Master of Music from the University of Melbourne, and was an Australian Postgraduate Award recipient during his post-graduate candidature. He is also the recipient of an Australia Council ArtStart grant.

Taking cues from the extra-musical, Andrew sees his music as synonymous with the visual arts, his instrumental lines etched or drawn as if by a pen or calligraphy brush. Drawing inspiration from books, poems, artworks, philosophy, and spaces natural and constructed, Andrew seeks to bring together random threads and render them in sound, creating abstract and beautiful sonic works which stimulate, beguile and entrance.

Andrew has composed music for a number of major Australian ensembles and performers, and his music has been broadcast on 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne and around Australia on ABC Classic FM.

In May 2016, his composition ‘Strange Alchemy’ for orchestra was chosen as the Australian Under-30 entry in the 2016 International Rostrum of Composers, held in Wroclaw in June of that year. Andrew has received various commissions, from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Cybec Foundation, Arts Centre Melbourne, Syzygy Ensemble, Forest Collective and Sarah Curro (violinist), among others. His music has been performed as part of the Melbourne Metropolis New Music Festival and the SoundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno Italy, and he has been a participant in Speak Percussion’s Emerging Artists program and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Composer School.

This year in 2016, Andrew was commissioned to write new works for Plexus Ensemble, and also for Syzygy Ensemble as part of the Glen Johnston Composition Award at Macedon Music. His work, ‘Following the Blackbird’ was also presented in a concert in June featuring flautist Naomi Johnson, and presented by Forest Collective. Andrew was also composer in residence for a second year at the 42nd annual Border Music Camp in Albury, NSW.

Andrew is a regular contributor to Limelight Magazine, as a reviewer and feature writer. He has also contributed to some of Australia’s most notable arts publications, both online and in print, such as the Australian Music Centre’s Resonate Magazine, 2mbs Fine Music Magazine and new music blog, Partial Durations. Through his work as a music journalist, Andrew has interviewed a number of prominent Australian musicians, including Brett and Paul Dean, Elena Kats-Chernin, Paul Stanhope, Anthony Pateras and Lyn Williams OAM, as well as English tenor Ian Bostridge. Andrew was selected in 2013 as a Music Presentation fellowship recipient by the Australian Youth Orchestra, giving him the opportunity to work with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and on the Music Show at AVC

Andrew has lectured in music theory at the University of Melbourne’s Conservatorium of Music. He has also delivered pre-concert talks for both the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, and is volunteer at 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne, presenting “The Romantics” every Saturday morning on 3MBS Digital.

He has been mentored by various Australian composers, including Stuart Greenbaum, Elliott Gyger, Katy Abbott and Brenton Broadstock.

Sydney Braunfeld

Born in 1986 in upstate New York, Sydney began taking horn lessons at the age of eight. She attended Juilliard, studying under William Purvis for her Bachelor’s degree and Jennifer Montone while completing her Master’s.

While in the US, Sydney had the honour of performing with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and the New World Symphony Orchestra. Sydney then went on to study further at The Curtis Institute and received her Performer’s Certificate in 2011, the same year she moved to Melbourne.

Since relocating, she has also played with the symphony and philharmonic orchestras of Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Sydney, Adelaide and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. Sydney is currently a full-time member of Orchestra Victoria, specializing in low horn!

Merewyn Bramble began playing both violin and viola when she was little and was taught by her mother. In 2005 she completed a Bachelor of Music with Honours in Performance under the tutelage of William Hennessy and in 2007, a Master of Music Performance mentored by Caroline Henbest. During her course at the University of Melbourne she was awarded the Peg Oldfield Prize and the H.A. Owen Award for performance excellence. She performs with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and holds casual positions with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and the Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

Violist with the Patronus Quartet, Merewyn competed in the 2015 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and as a former member of the Tailem Quartet she was a finalist in the 3^rd Australian Chamber Music Competition and performed in the 2008 ARD Chamber Music Competition in Munich. The Tailem quartet also completed residencies at the Banff Centre, Canada, and at Yale University’s Norfolk Summer Chamber Music Festival. 2007 introduced Merewyn to the Australian Chamber Orchestra when she was accepted as an Emerging Artist. Merewyn made another soul-searching trip to Banff in 2011, a journey she intends to repeat many, many times in the future.

Away from the music stand, nothing beats writing for children, running long distances and buckling up the tap shoes.

A sound can evoke a time, a place, a cultural moment, or a worldview.  As someone who loves both the Western classical tradition and the world of pop culture, Alex Temple (b. 1983) has always felt uncomfortable with stylistic hierarchies and the idea of a pure musical language.  She prefers to look for points of connection between things that aren’t supposed to belong together, distorting and combining iconic sounds to create new meanings — often in service of surreal, cryptic, or fantastical stories.  She’s particularly interested in reclaiming socially disapproved-of (“cheesy”) sounds, playing with the boundary between funny and frightening, and investigating lost memories and secret histories.

Alex’s work has been performed by a variety of soloists and ensembles, including Mellissa Hughes, Timothy Andres, Mark Dancigers, the American Composers Orchestra, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, Spektral Quartet, Fifth House Ensemble, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and Ensemble de Sade.  She has also performed her own works for voice and electronics in venues such as Roulette, Exapno, the Tank, Monkeytown, Galapagos Art Space, Gallery Cabaret, and Constellation.  As the keyboardist for the chamber-rock group The Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles, she’s performed at the South by Southwest Festival and at Chicago’s Green Mill Cocktail Lounge;  and with a·pe·ri·od·ic, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of indeterminate music in the tradition of John Cage, she’s made sounds using her voice, synthesizers and various household objects.

Alex got her BA from Yale University in 2005, where she studied with Kathryn Alexander, John Halle and Matthew Suttor, and released two albums of electronic music on a microlabel that she ran out of her dorm room.  In 2007 she completed her MA at University of Michigan, where she studied with Erik Santos and visiting professors Michael Colgrass, Tania León and Betsy Jolas, as well as collaborating with a troupe of dancers and playing in an indie bossa-nova band.  After she left Ann Arbor, she spent two years in New York, working as the program manager for the New York Youth Symphony’s Making Score program for young composers.  Now she’s pursuing a DMA at Northwestern University, where she’s studied with Hans Thomalla and Jay Alan Yim, and taught aural skills, theory, composition for non-majors, and private composition lessons.  She’s currently working on a podcast-opera called End, about TV production company logos and the end of the world.

What a gig! Amazing music, performances to die for, (we’re looking at you, percussion quartet) and the only big band where the lead trumpet was played on oboe.

As we ramp up for Homophonic! #6! Here’s a couple of photos from last years show to whet your appetite. All photos by BJ Hill.

Hamish is working towards a Master of Music (Research) in partnership with ANAM and Griffith University. He is a founding member of the Bricolage Collective, an ensemble championing new Australian percussion repertoire, directed by Kaylie Melville.  Professional engagements for 2016 include freelance work with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Ensemble Offspring (Sydney).
Hamish holds a BMUS (Honours) from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (Singapore). During this course he spent a semester on exchange at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and 2 weeks in Bali immersed in Gamelan.

You are invited to the first performance of works created by Miranda Hill and Naima Fine while in residence at Lijiang Studio, as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Lashihai

Featuring work by Miranda Hill, Jennifer Torrence, Naima Fine.

Escape the bright city lights and come with us to the mountains of Yunnan. The white walls of Conduit Arts will be transformed into the mountains and memories of the Naxi people of Lashihai.

This new cross-media graphic score by Miranda Hill explores the melodies of family and natural histories; taking an ancient language and reinterpreting it through new musical expression.

FānYìShān translates the spoken languages of Lijiang into a musical language. It takes the natural melody of tonal languages and joyous inflection of storytelling, and sets them against the imposing mountainous horizon.

This work explores the intricacy of meaning, of what’s gained and lost in the act of translation, of languages not taught in schools and a culture fighting assimilation. It tells a story of lived history, of a changing landscape, and a grandparent’s love.

Performed by:

October 2nd:

Miranda Hill; Belinda Woods; Karen Heath; Matthew Horsely.

October 3rd:

Ben Opie; Lizzy Welsh; Deborah Kayser; Miranda Hill.

Tickets here, or at the door.