dramatic counterpoints to a relentless drone

A piercing relentless drone of cicadas is the current background music to my life. Unless the air pressure drops significantly, there is no stopping them. Summer is here! It's really quite an overwhelming sound - each creature producing a slightly different frequency than its friend. The dissonant pitches throb against each other like the loud shrill echo that remains in your ear after a loud rock concert - only worse (or perhaps the throbbing is actually from attending too many rock gigs!?). I can't decide whether I like it or hate it - it brings back pleasant memories of summer holidays spent camping in the bush, but it isn't very conducive for getting work done!

While the cicadas - who apparently have a seven year breeding cycle, hence why they're so much louder this year - have been emerging to announce summer, the rest of my life's activities have served (some much more than others) as a dramatic counterpoint to their incessant repetition...

For various reasons I've been doing more thinking lately than writing (especially thinking about writing!), but so much has been happening in the last month that I feel the urge to summarise so that my poor feeble brain doesn't forget... So, at a quick glance, here are a few of the random happenings of late:

* Chatting on Radio: Along with oz composer Damien Barbeler, I was invited to speak on New Music Up Late about the Australian works that have been chosen for the Paris Rostrum of Composers over the last 25 years. Aside from being ultra nervous (I've never spoken on air before), I had heaps of fun. It was a very relaxed affair with Damien, Julian and I chatting freely about what we personally liked and disliked about each piece.

* With the weather in the Blue Mountains finally getting warmer, some friends organised a community forest doof in Faulconbridge. I spent the afternoon going creatively nuts, designing some funky installations to decorate the space. The night was amazing, with some great psytrance sets and awesome fire twirling acts. Photos will be up here soon.

* I've been to a bunch of gigs and concerts in the last few months. Some include: The Caged Uncaged festival, presented by The Song Company and Ensemble Offspring (you can read an a review of the concert here); This is Not Art festival (an amazing 5 days of 'stuff' - gigs, workshops, forums, debates, ginger beer, discussions, zine fair, poetry readings, etc. etc. etc.); Combat Wombat's 'Get rid of John Howard tour'; the delightful Peregrine and The Saturns at The Annandale, Cloud Control at the Red Room, Katoomba... the list goes on...


* 2007 APEC forum: Of course, the biggest highlight of the last two months was the APEC forum held for a weekend inside a massive 5 kilometre fence in the heart of Sydney. Sydney-siders not only had the pleasure of hosting APEC, they also had the pleasure of paying for it. And with the resulting 'aspirational goals' from participating governments, who can argue that it wasn't all worth the hundreds of million dollars spent out of tax-payers pockets? While thousands of protesters rocked up in Hyde park to demonstrate, some of the more musically inclined activists spent an afternoon exploring the 'sonic wonders' of the hideous construction, by performing on the fence.

* While tempted to stay at home on Wednesday 12 September and watch the cheeky antics of the Chaser’s War on APEC: I didn’t. Instead, I frocked up and headed to Sydney Theatre where the music industry was celebrating the 2007 Classical Music Awards. It was a fun night – exceptional performances, great food, wine and a chance to pay tribute to the excellence and dedication of our arts practitioners.

I was initially disappointed that Liza Lim’s Mother Tongue didn’t win the Best Composition by an Australian Composer award – it’s an amazing piece. Based on the poems of Patricia Sykes (commissioned by Lim herself), it explores the concept of language – its loss, acquisition and intimacy. I have to admit though, that it’s easy to see why Roger Smalley’s Birthday Tango won the award. While I don’t think it’s on the same scale as pieces such as his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, this work for string orchestra is delightful! And as you’d expect this work is no ordinary tango. He delicately pushes the boundaries of the tango form by subtly distorting the well-known tango rhythm and exploring rich dissonant harmonies, while maintaining a strong lyricism in the melodic lines. The orchestration is certainly well crafted and the unusual rhythm creates a compelling momentum, which I find really appealling. Roger performed at the awards, along with Topology, and Taikoz. You can read the list of winners here.

... so there you go: a few highlights of the spring just past... and if I manage to find a way to block out the cicadas, there's certainly lots to look forward to this summer - did I mentioned I have tickets to see Bjork? Yippee!