Talk: WORDS AND MUSIC by MICHAEL SMETANIN
6pm, Wednesday February 9
Nihon Room, Pembroke College, Cambridge
Michael SMETANIN is probably the most distinctive
figure among younger Australian composers. Born in
1958 of Russian parents he completed his Bachelor of
Music in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of
Music winning several young composers' prizes,
including the Frank Hutchens Scholarship in three
successive years.
In 1982, having been awarded an International
Fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia
Council, Smetanin went to study with leading Dutch
composer Louis ANDRIESSEN at Royal Conservatorium in
The Hague. Further awards from the Netherlands
Ministry of Education and Science, and the Amsterdam
Foundation for Arts Funds enabled him to spend two and
a half years studying with Andriessen until December
1984.
While studying in Holland, Smetanin composed his first
major work Track (for 12 musicians, in collaboration
with the ensemble Hoketus. In 1984 he wrote The Ladder
of Escape for Harry SPARNAAY's Het Basklarinetten
Kollektief. This work was premiered at the 1984
Salzburg Aspekte Festival in Austria and has since
received many performances all over the world. It has
been recorded by Sparnaay (Attacca LP, now on CD) and
its title was appropriated for a series of new music
CDs issued by Attacca.
Since Smetanin's return to Australia, his work has
continued to garner awards including the inaugural New
South Wales Young Composers Award, Per Canonem II was
selected for performance at the International
Gaudeamus Foundation Music Week in Amsterdam, second
prize in the 1989 Olympia International Composition
Competition (Greek Radio) for his string quartet Red
Lightning, the Sounds Australian State Awards for his
controversial orchestral work Black Snow, which gained
front-page headlines in the national press, the 1991
Sounds Australian National award for best chamber work
for Spray, and first prize in the Georges Enescu
International Composition Competition for the work
Fylgjir.
During this period his music both crytallised and
diversified--the initial minimalist influences of his
work, already sharpened and refined by his contact
with Andriessen were partly supplanted by a more
abrasive hyper-energetic style, whose roots can be
found in sources as diverse as Stravinsky, `funk' and
Xenakis.
In February 1993, the internationally acclaimed
ELISION Ensemble presented the first programme
entirely devoted to Smetanin's music, including the
premiere of Hot Block for electric guitar, amplified
percussion and live electronics, and the large-scale
song cycle The Skinless Kiss of Angels for soprano,
baritone and 15 musicians. These works were
subsequently recorded for compact disc by ELISION and
released on ABC Classics in May 1995.
Smetanin's largest works to-date are two operas. The
first is the chamber opera The Burrow, with libretto
by Alison CROGGON, which is a `psychological profile'
of Franz Kafka during his last minutes of life. It
created a sensation when it was premiered at the 1994
The Festival of Perth, with Lyndon TERRACINI as Kafka.
It received a Sydney season shortly after and was also
presented in Melbourne by Chamber Made Opera in 1995.
The work has been recorded for CD release. His second
opera Gauguin, also with a libretto by Alison CROGGON,
will be premiered in June 2000 by Chamber Made Opera,
and they are currently working on their third opera,
The White Army.
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