Damien Ricketson

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Damien Ricketson
Born
Damien Ricketson

(1973-05-09) 9 May 1973 (age 51)
Wollongong, Australia
Education Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Bachelor of Music (Composition)), Doctorate of Music
Occupation(s) Composer, artistic director, lecturer, performer
Years active1991–present

Damien Ricketson (born 9 May 1973) is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music. He is best known for his innovative compositional practice and in his capacity as the co-founder and co-artistic director of Ensemble Offspring. He is currently an academic at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney of which he is also an alumnus. [1]

Contents

Biography

Born in Wollongong, Ricketson studied composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1991 to 1995, after which he continued his studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague from 1996 to 1998 with Louis Andriessen. [2] He holds a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he also teaches. [1] Ricketson is the co-founder and former co-artistic director of the Sydney-based Ensemble Offspring – an organisation dedicated to the performance of new music. [3]

Ricketson's music is characterised by colourful sound-worlds, novel forms and is often multisensory in nature. An early interest in Spectral music can be seen in his frequent exploration of unusual timbres and microtonal pitch structures. Some Shade of Blue, for example, features a newly invented string instrument in a just intonation system. [4] Recent stylistic tendencies have moved away from an earlier abstract style, exemplified in works such as Ptolemy's Onion, towards what the composer terms a more "corporeal" approach embracing tangible references to existing music and a highly physical performance aesthetic. [5] His works are heavily gesture-focussed, with pieces such as Imagining Le Verrier and Chinese Whisper being based upon "sets of physical actions on instruments". [2] This extends to the idea of open instrumentation in later pieces such as Trace Elements, which is intended to be playable by any two string and two woodwind instruments. Indeed, much of Ricketson's recent work reveals an ongoing interest in open forms with works such as Same Steps, Length and Breath and Not by Halves employing unconventional notational strategies to elicit a creative and collaborative engagement from performers. Ricketson's major show-length works such as The Secret Noise and Fractured Again also show an interest in multimedia and hybrid arts practice, [6] combining conventional acoustic instruments with unconventional (sometimes self-built) instruments and electronic music as well as other media.

Although Ricketson's materials are eclectic, often including disparate processes within the one work, Gordon Kerry describes his music as aesthetically late-modernist in that it is "experimental in form and speculative in content". [7] Frequently, this involves the inclusion of musical references and quotations put through "distorting filters". [8] This technique is particularly notable in the work A Line Has Two, and more recently in the multi-movement work Fractured Again. This work explores the musical language and thematic implications of glass instruments, quoting Donizetti, Mozart and Crumb throughout.

Ricketson's hybrid work for Ensemble Offspring, The Secret Noise, featured installations, dance performances and theatre within a concert setting. The major thematic concern was music shielded from public view. The project was extremely positively received, with Maxim Boon of Limelight naming it "a trail-blazing triumph" [9] and the work went on to receive a new production presented by Arts House and Melbourne Festival.

Awards, commissions and residencies

The Secret Noise won the 2015 Art Music Award for Instrumental Work of the Year. Ricketson's string quartet So We Begin Afresh (for the Grainger Quartet) received the NSW State Award for the Best Composition by an Australian Composer at the 2008 AMC/APRA Classical Music Awards. He also received the international Lady Panufnik Prize (Poland) for Chinese Whisper, and was selected by ABC Classic FM to represent Australian music at the Paris International Rostrum with his work Lamina. [10] Ricketson's Ptolemy's Onion received the Marienberg Spring Award for an Outstanding Australian Composition and was subsequently chosen for the Gaudeamus International Music Week. In 2016, his works were featured in a profile concert as part of the Australian Voices series presented by ANAM and the Melbourne Recital Centre.

Ricketson has received commissions from: Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music; the Transit Festival (Belgium); The Song Company; the Australian Chamber Orchestra; Symphony Australia; Continuum Sax; ABC Classic FM; the Portuguese-based Drumming Grupo de Percussão, the MLC School Burwood, Speak Percussion and piano soloist Zubin Kanga. [10]

Ricketson has been artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre, Canada; the Bundanon Estate (Shoalhaven); the University of Wollongong and the Peggy Glanville-Hicks House (Sydney). [10]

Notable works

Notable works include:

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Claire Olivia Edwardes is an Australian classical percussionist, artistic director, composer and advocate for change in the classical music sector. Edwardes is the co-founder and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, roles she shared with composer Damien Ricketson until his retirement from the group in 2015. In 2016, she won two APRA Art Music Awards, with one going to Ensemble Offspring for "sustained services to Australian music for 20 years", and Edwardes receiving an individual award "for performance, advocacy and artistic leadership”. She is the only Australian to have won the Luminary Art Music Award for an Individual 3 times. In 2019, Edwardes created and performed the music and dance theatre work RECITAL with dancer Richard Cilli and director Gideon Obarzanek for Dance Massive 2019. Edwardes composed the music and sound design for RECITAL in collaboration with Paul Mac. In 2011 and 2017, Edwardes was a member of the Australian World Orchestra. In 2015-216, Edwardes was the Vice President of the New Music Network. Edwardes has appeared on television as an occasional host of Play School, and as a panelist on Spicks and Specks. In 2021, Edwardes created The Australian Marimba Composition Kit and a comprehensive list of percussion works by female composers. Additionally, Edwardes has composed numerous works for solo waterphone. She is currently on staff as a percussion teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Ensemble Offspring is an Australian music ensemble. The group is led by artistic director Claire Edwardes, and features some of Australia's most innovative performers. The group has toured to locations such as Hong Kong, London and Warsaw, are regularly featured at MONA FOMA, Sydney and Melbourne Festivals, and have a cult following at their Sizzle series at Petersham Bowling Club. Ensemble Offspring has premiered over 200 works in its 23-year history. The ensemble was previously known as Spring Ensemble.

Vincent Plush is an Australian composer. He studied at the University of Adelaide under the composer Richard Meale and founded the Seymour Group in 1976. He has taught at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music and worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Plush was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and spent time at Yale University researching American composers. He writes about classical music for The Australian newspaper and has contributed to Limelight magazine. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians describes Plush as a "remarkable Australian composer".

References

  1. 1 2 University of Sydney. "Faculty Page". (accessed December 2014)
  2. 1 2 Campbell, Rachel. "Ricketson, Damien." Grove Music Online Archived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine . (accessed December 2014)
  3. ↑ "Musicians". Ensemble Offspring. (accessed December 2014)
  4. ↑ Damien Ricketson. "Classical Music's Bastards Offspring", Music Forum, Volume 20, No. 1, 2013.
  5. ↑ Damien Ricketson (2005). "Curious Noise: analytical notes." Ph.D. The University of Sydney.
  6. ↑ Anni Heino. "Ricketson at work: the fragile and the secret", Resonate Magazine. Australian Music Centre, 28 October 2014.
  7. ↑ Kerry, Gordon. New Classical Music: Composing Australia. (Sydney: UNSW, 2009), 91.
  8. ↑ Kerry, Gordon. New Classical Music: Composing Australia. (Sydney: UNSW, 2009), 91–100.
  9. ↑ Boon, Maxim. "Review: The Secret Noise (Ensemble Offspring)", Limelight (accessed December 2014)
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Damien Ricketson: Represented Artist", Australian Music Centre. (accessed December 2014)
  11. ↑ "Aeolian Playgrounds". curiousnoise.com. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  12. ↑ "The daring new opera The Howling Girls revisits a post 9/11 hysteria attack" by Andrew Taylor, The Sydney Morning Herald , 22 March 2018
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