HOLLY HARRISON - AUSTRALIA
BORN 15 MARCH
Holly Harrison is a young Australian composer from Western Sydney. Holly’s music is driven by the nonsense literature of Lewis Carroll, embracing stylistic juxtapositions, the visceral energy of rock, and whimsical humour.
Holly’s work Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup featured on Eighth Blackbird’s (USA) Australian tour as part of Musica Viva’s 2017 International Concert Season. The tour included performances by the four-time Grammy award-winning group at Perth International Arts Festival and Adelaide Festival. Eighth Blackbird’s performance was later awarded Performance of the Year at the 2018 Art Music Awards. Holly’s recent projects have included a concertino for bassoon and string quartet for Matthew Kneale and Omega Ensemble, a sextet for Sydney new music champions Ensemble Offspring, a children's work for the Canberra International Music Festival, two new works for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and the set string quartet work, Balderdash, for the 2018 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. She is currently writing a new work for the Monash Academy Orchestra and a viola concertino for Stefanie Farrands and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Holly is composer in residence at MLC School, Burwood, and was previously composer in residence at Prairiewood High School. She completed a Doctor of Creative Arts under the supervision of Bruce Crossman and John Encarnacao at Western Sydney University, where she is currently a sessional academic.
Holly also plays drum kit and percussion in the improvised rock duo Tabua-Harrison with Joey Tabua (electric guitar). Their debut record Scout has just been released by Psychopyjama.
KASSIA (810 - 850)
Kassia or Kassiani was an Eastern Roman abbess, poet, composer, and hymnographer. She is one of the first medieval composers whose scores are both extant and able to be interpreted by modern scholars and musicians. Approximately fifty of her hymns are extant and twenty-three are included in Orthodox Church liturgical books. The exact number is difficult to assess, as many hymns are ascribed to different authors in different manuscripts and are often identified as anonymous.
Additionally, some 789 of her non-liturgical verses survive. Many are epigrams or aphorisms called "gnomic verse", for example, "I hate the rich man moaning as if he were poor."
Kassia is notable as one of only two Eastern Roman women known to have written in their own names during the Middle Ages, the other being Anna Comnena.
♫ LISTEN
Pelagia by Kassia
Post Comment
Post a Comment