$25,000 (New category)
The Beleura Award for Composition 2016 is for a composition of outstanding musicianship, skill and creativity.
All genres of composition are eligible.
John Tallis, son of theatre entrepreneur Sir George and Lady Tallis, was a renowned composer and studied at London’s Royal College of Music and in Paris. His lifetime passion for providing opportunities for musicians and love of music is enshrined in this new Award for Victorian composers across all genres. Beleura was John Tallis's house on the Mornington Peninsula, gifted by him to the people of Victoria, which is now a house museum. Visit beleura.org.au
Supported by The Tallis Foundation in memory of John Tallis (1911-1996)
Chris Dench
Entered composition — Piano Sonata (2015-6)
The Piano Sonata was written entirely in Ballarat, and is the culmination of an almost 50-year ambition to write a single movement work that embodies the complete lifecycle of a musical cosmos.
It has nine movements that run continuously over a span of about ninety-five minutes: whiteout (Prelude), three windows (Sonata-Rondo), heat sink (Intermezzo I), Photino birds (Scherzo I & trio), gallery of spaces (Passacaglia), Lévy flights (Scherzo II), EM fugue [A—B—C] (Fantasia), k=+1 (Intermezzo II), infallscape (Scherzo III) and tombeau / Ω Point (Elegy-finale).
Peter de Jager, who gave the first performance of an incomplete version on 6 August 2015, commissioned the work.
Biography
Born in England, Chris Dench came to Australia in 1989 to escape the Old World and obtain some proper weather; he now lives in Ballarat. He has been writing music for fifty-five years and has produced an extensive catalogue of works performed, broadcast, and issued on CD, world-wide.
Mary Finsterer
Entered composition — AEREA
AEREA explores how diverse idioms within jazz and classical traditions can be unified in one cohesive structure. It reflects on that slight sense of déjà vu you might feel while looking down from an aeroplane window which comes in part from the shifting correspondences between the world below and your own.
AEREA was commissioned and first performed by The Monash Art Ensemble, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University in 2013 and received the Australian ART Music Instrumental Work of the Year Award in 2014. AEREA is dedicated to Dean Golja.
Biography
Mary Finsterer is Chair of Composition at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University. Recognised as one of Australia’s most innovative orchestral composers, Mary has won many prestigious national and international awards and has represented Australia in five International Society for Contemporary Music Festivals.
Photo credit: Natasha Blankfield
Andrea Keller
Entered composition — Grateful, Hopeful, Joyful
Dedicated to the great British pianist & composer John Taylor, I composed Grateful, Hopeful, Joyful after hearing of his sudden passing in 2015. The piece is offered as a celebration of Taylor’s life, and a nod to his immeasurable contribution and effect on the musical world.
I am Grateful for having heard his music and for having met and interacted with him personally; Hopeful that I continue to strive to be a musician with as much integrity, honesty and generosity as Taylor; and Joyful as is the pleasure and fulfilment Taylor’s music has brought to the lives of myself and countless others.
Biography
Andrea Keller is a pianist and composer dedicated to the performance and creation of contemporary jazz and improvised music. Described as ‘totally original’, ‘remarkably Australian’, and ‘positively arresting’, her music is highly lauded, receiving three ARIA Awards, four Australian Jazz ‘Bell’ Awards, an Art Music Award, and fellowships from the MCA/Freedman Foundation and the Australia Council.
Kate Neal – Winner
Entered composition — Semaphore
Semaphore is a compelling and intriguing multimedia exploration of signalling, communication and miscommunication. Three dancers and nine musicians synchronize in a complex coordinated choreography of bodies, music and illumination. Regimented physical formations, outbreaks of cascading melody, intricate interplays of light and sound; Semaphore is a complex and immersive visual and sonic experience.
Biography
Kate Neal is an artist with over twenty years experience as a composer, arranger, teacher, artistic director and collaborator. Neal holds a BMus (VCA, Melbourne); BMus/MMus (RC, The Hague); PGDip (non-western music, SC, Amsterdam); PGDip (RNCM, Manchester) and is a current PhD Graduate Fellow at Princeton University.
Anthony Pateras
Entered composition — Beauty Will Be Amnesiac Or Will Not Be At All
Beauty Will Be Amnesiac Or Will Not Be At All is the result of many years of research into orchestral percussion writing. Between the years 2000 and 2011, Pateras wrote 13 works in this idiom. All works explore distinct timbral configurations, long-range rhythmic structures and potential inter-relationships between percussion and electronics. Beauty is the 14th and last of this cycle of work, synthesising the enduring aspects of all pieces before it into an hour-long, four movement piece, which is performed surrounding the audience with six percussionists & 6-channel electronics.
Biography
Anthony Pateras is a composer, pianist and electro-acoustic musician whose work explores varying constellations of notation, improvisation, electronic and acoustic materials. Since 1999, Pateras has been consistently active in multiple bands that have toured extensively throughout the world, simultaneously writing over 50 concert works for leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists.