Registered: 12-2004 Location: Uncanny Valley Posts: 3142 Karma: 24 (+25/-1)
A couple of interesting articles These were handed out in class this morning.
This first one was written by the Australian composer Richard Meale in The Listener in 1971.
The Australian composer of today can either attach himself to specifiv current European movements- an operation which can be as decisive as sterilisation- or, now that we have discovered that our neighbours are in South-East Asia, he can produce what can only be described as a "musical world of Suzie Wong". Fortunately, there is a third possibility and that is to be a 'stateless' musician in a 'global village'. To work this way is a unique pleasure because one can give more attention to the creative act per se than to the infliction of foreign nationalistic pressures, orientalia and intellectual covens. It is my hope that Australian composers will begin to take advantage of their musical birthright- a right of freedom and individuation. In this sense I would oppose the formation of an Australian school of music (often abortively talked about within the country). It would have to be an artifice, a denial, and would have to be illeberal.
--- Breathing is important! If you don't breathe, your sound will deteriorate, your phrasing will suffer, and you will die.
