Congratulations to School of Music student Lynden Bassett and alumnus Ronan Apcar, who the Friends of the School of Music Committee have agreed to support by partially fund the costs of holding a concert at Gorman Arts Centre. Congratulations also to the other recent grant recipients Max Sturm, Kian Shayan and Yona Su, and the first Music Enterprise awardee Dante Clavijo. Read more about the Friends here.
This Is What We Have Today is a concert of new music and multimedia works co-organised by Lynden Bassett and Ronan Apcar, exploring lived experiences of the contemporary historical moment. More simply put, this concert explores our diverse experiences of today, in particular the ever-growing presence of digital and social media in our lives, stress, the pandemic, the climate, and politics. The concert, slated for December 2nd, features a combination of newly-commissioned and extant works, predominantly from composers who are current or former students of the ANU School of Music. The performers are a collective of composers, in collaboration with the Ellery String Quartet. Find out more and register here.
Lynden Bassett (pictured left) is an Indonesian composer and performer based on Ngunnawal/Ngambri land. Lynden plays in hardcore punk band, HYMMNN, and as a composer-performer works across noise, electronic and computer music, chamber music, and improvisation. Key interests in Lynden's work are decoloniality, horizontality, communication, collage, and visual language.
Ronan Apcar (pictured right) is a young and emerging Australian pianist and composer quickly garnering a reputation of versatility, edge, and tenacity. Unafraid to experiment and challenge norms, his experience and fluency across all kinds of music - jazz to the avant-garde, classical to house music - translates into his exciting work as a musician. Described as "a talent far beyond his age" (Limelight Magazine), Ronan is best known for his work in contemporary and new music - particularly by Australian composers. He has performed in concerts, festivals, and both intimate and large-scale venues across Canberra, Sydney and regional NSW and his debut album, Dulcie Holland Crescent, was one of the ABC’s featured albums.
As well as supporting Lynden and Ronan, The Friends of the School of Music Committee agreed to partially fund Max Sturm's completion of a recording project of a comprehensive body of original work by the ensemble ‘dogworld’, to fund Kian Shayan's project providing innovative compositions for ensembles performing live in online video games, and to fund Yona Su's preparation and performance of compositions by Australian women featuring viola.