ELISION Ensemble
ELISION Ensemble | |
---|---|
Origin | Australia |
Genres | chamber ensemble |
Years active | 1986–present |
Members | Daryl Buckley (artistic director) |
Website | elision.org.au |
The ELISION Ensemble (often referred to as simply ELISION) is a
Since 1986 it has maintained an active schedule of concerts,
ELISION combines its Australian perspective with a long-term exploration of complex musical aesthetics, and in so doing has developed an international reputation[1] for Australian new music and performance practice.[2] Paul Griffiths, in Modern Music and After, writes of ELISION, "whose splendiferous range of colours ... has produced a kind of sensuous complexity that may be uniquely Australian".[3]
In 2018, the ensemble toured internationally to Germany and Mexico as well as performing in Australia in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney.
Aesthetics
ELISION's musical aesthetic is at the
"The ELISION ensemble ... celebrated its 10th birthday with a characteristic sequence of salto mortale items, proving yet again that 'impossible' is a relative word. Its repertoire, once relatively eclectic, has now become sharply focused: both technically and aesthically, it specialises in 'tough cookies'. Typically, though not exclusively, these tend to be rhythmically highly complex, with dense webs of wide-flung micro-tonal melodies, and the same horror of rests that one finds in Fauré's later chamber works. In such a context, even a new cello solo by Stockhausen (Violoncello aus Orchester—Finalisten) sounded meek and mild."[4]
The ensemble has
Cross-artform events
Beyond its traditional concert-giving activity, a distinguishing aspect of ELISION's work had been the creation of new cross-artform events, combining musical performance with the visual and
"ELISION constructs itself not so much as a concert-performing ensemble but as a vehicle for the creation of unique and thought–provoking artistic statements ... ELISION projects are ones with which one mentally carries on an argument long after the event. ELISION is a mouth."[8]
"The Welsh composer Richard Barrett entreated an excursion into the black holes of the universe. On stools and benches welded from steel tubes in the Norwegian Per Inge Bjørlo's environment, you had the impression of being in a forest of grabbing arms. Conducted from a spaceship's cockpit, one hears the musicians of the Australian ELISION Ensemble partly shielded behind steel cages."[10]
ELISION's activity in music theatre/opera production, most recently The Navigator (composer Liza Lim, director Barrie Kosky; Brisbane and Melbourne 2008, Moscow and Paris 2009), can be viewed as a continuation of an artistic relationship which began in 1993 with performances of The Oresteia[13](Melbourne 1993).
Beyond notated music, ELISION has also maintained a strong thread of structured improvisation performance, often within cross-artform events, such as the seven-night long Bar-do'i-thos-grol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) (composer Liza Lim, installation artist Domenico de Clario; Lismore 1994 and Perth 1995) (described as "one of the most astonishing creations in recent Australian music performance"[14]). The use of improvisation as a creative laboratory to generate sonic understandings, subsequently informing more formal processes, has occurred with composers Richard Barrett and John Rodgers, and recently in What Remains (composer/performers John Butcher and Timothy O'Dwyer; Brisbane 2007).
History
ELISION was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1986 by its current Artistic Director Daryl Buckley and other musicians from the
ELISION has received government funding from
Current membership
Deborah Kayser (soprano), Genevieve Lacey (recorder), Paula Rae (flute), Peter Veale (oboe), Richard Haynes (clarinet), Carl Rosman (clarinet), Timothy O'Dwyer (saxophone), Ysolt Clark (horn), Tristram Williams (trumpet), Benjamin Marks (trombone), Peter Neville (percussion), Richard Barrett (electronics), Daryl Buckley (electric guitar), Marilyn Nonken (piano), Marshall McGuire (harp), Satsuki Odamura (koto), Graeme Jennings (violinist) (violin), Erkki Veltheim (viola), Séverine Ballon (cello), Joan Wright (double bass).
Critical acclaim
This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. (November 2010) |
"an uncompromisingly radical attitude to the presentation of the music, treating each piece as a score for a total art work, involving installation artists to design the sets for their performances and taking their audiences on a journey, not only through the music but through the performance space itself."[12]
"ELISION has gone the distance and established itself not only as one of Australia's finest contemporary music ensembles but as an ensemble of international standing"[1]
"Elision is a unique venture with a wonderful record of explorations of cross-cultural and intermedia composition and performance, engagements with architecture, medicine and science, and enjoys a capacity to develop unique and successful international collaborations. It has changed the face of Australian music, not only in its support for talented composers and musicians, but in ways of presenting music for new audiences. Elision has also cleverly developed an international market for its work by commissioning composers from other countries and by partnering overseas ensembles in productions. It has achieved a remarkable touring record."[7]
"Conventional people may choose to stay at home."[16]
"Chris Dench (b. 1953) has become a part of the musical life of Australia, as has Richard Barrett (b. 1959) in works written for the Elision ensemble, whose splendiferous range of colours (with a prominent tuned percussion centre, including angklung, mandolin and guitar, as well as full stretches of winds and strings) has produced a kind of sensuous complexity that may be uniquely Australian." [3]
"What we need is the regular chance to see the other greats of new music—Frankfurt's Ensemble Modern, Paris's Ensemble intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, Amsterdam's Ives Ensemble, Australia's ELISION Ensemble—to experience other ways of interpreting the greats of the 20th and 21st centuries, and to hear their unique performance practices at the cutting edge."[2]
"From time to time one still comes across the idea that modernist music, by its very nature, is ugly and inexpressive, and that the newly tuneful composers of the last couple of decades have saved the art from going down some blind alley. If evidence were needed to counter that notion, a recent CD of solo works by Brian Ferneyhough (Etcetera KTC 1206), played by the extraordinary musicians of the Australian group Elision, would do the trick."[17]
Discography
Compact discs released by ELISION:
- Elision Ensemble (1992), RCA BMG/Ariola CCD 3011
Music of Giulio Castagnoli, Chris Dench, Michael Whitticker, Brendan Colbert - Driftglass (1992), ONE-M-ONE Records 1M1CP 1018
Music of Chris Dench, Liza Lim, Richard Barrett and Alastair MacDonald - Garden of Earthly Desire (1992), Dischi Ricordi CRMCD 1020
Music of Liza Lim, Sandro Gorli, Franco Donatoni, Mauro Cardi and Gerard Brophy - Richard Barrett/Elision Ensemble (1993), Etcetera KTC 1167
Music of Richard Barrett including the cycle negatives - The Oresteia (1994), Dischi Ricordi CRMCD 1030
Memory theatre (opera) by Liza Lim - Skinless Kiss of Angels (1995), ABC Classics/Under Capricorn 446 625.2
Music of Michael Smetanin - After the Fire (1996), Vox Australis VAST 019-2
Solo music by Richard Hames, Michael Whitticker, Liza Lim, Chris Dench, Allesandro Melchiorre, Timothy O'Dwyer - the intertwining—the chasm (1998), Institute of Modern Art, ISBN 1-875792-27-91994–1996, with CD of improvisations by ELISION
Booklet documenting installation-performance works by Domenico De Clario and Liza Lim - Brian Ferneyhough Solo Works (1998), Etcetera KTC 1206
Music of Brian Ferneyhough[17] - The Heart's Ear (1999), ABC Classics/Under Capricorn 456 687.2
Music of Liza Lim - Opening of the Mouth (2000), ABC Classics/Under Capricorn 465 268.2
Music of Richard Barrett - ik(s)land[s] (2005), NMC D089
Music of Chris Dench - Transmission (2006), NMC D117
Music of Richard Barrett - Aldo Clementi: Works for Guitar (2007), Mode Records 182
Featuring guitarist Geoffrey Morris - Negatives (2009), NMC D143
Music of Richard Barrett. Re-issue of 1993 Etcetera KTC 1167 but including codex I (2001)
Compilation compact discs featuring tracks performed by ELISION:
- Terra Incognita (1994) Dischi Ricordi CRMCD 1027
Music of Alessandro Melchiorre - Works by Akira Nishimura (1998), Fontec FOCD 2560
- Shu Hai practices javelin (2002), Mode Records 117
Music of Chaya Czernowin
Name
The ensemble takes its name from an archaic English usage of the word elision,[15] meaning "a cutting of the air ... as the cause of sound".[18]
References
- ^ a b c Litson, Jo: In The Australian, 20 January 1992
- ^ a b Service, Tom: We need a forum for new music in London, The Guardian, 27 June 2008
- ^ a b c Griffiths, Paul: Modern Music and After, Oxford University Press 1996, p. 314
- Toop, Richard, in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1996[full citation needed]
- ^ Jenkins, John and Linz, Rainer: Recent Australian Music Theatre, Redhouse Editions, 1997, pp. 134–137
- ^ Kuppers, Petra: The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art, University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 197–200
- ^ a b "The rich yield of the law of the minimum", in RealTime 73, June–July 2006, p. 35
- ^ a b McCallum, Peter. The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 March 1997[full citation needed]
- , pp. 181–187
- ^ a b Kühn, Georg-Friedrich: "Exkursionen in Zwischenbereiche", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 28 March 2003
- ^ Buckley, Daryl: "ELISION: Philosophy Defining and Performance Practice", elision.org.au Archived 25 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Scheer, Edward, in RealTime magazine, edition 18[full citation needed]
- ^ Ford, Andrew: Illegal Harmonies, Hales and Iremonger, 1997, p. 240
- ^ McGillick, Paul, in Australian Financial Review, 3 March 1995[full citation needed]
- ^ a b c Daly, Mike: Musicians at the Cutting Edge, The Age, 2 December 1987, p. 14
- ^ Dawes, Stewart: X-PRESS Magazine 525, 6 March 1997[full citation needed]
- ^ a b Griffiths, Paul: "A Modernist Plays with Identities", The New York Times, April 4, 1999
- ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, p. 594