Words by:
Aditya Bhat (VIC) percussion
Photo Credit: Pia Johnson
It’s difficult to resist the temptation to describe my new piece as ‘rock music’, considering it involves digitally manipulated recordings of me playing with large stones. Rather, the literal rocks are meant to evoke the compelling, subterranean world conjured up by writer Ursula Le Guin in her 1970 novel, the Tombs of Atuan. Ostensibly a young-adult book, re-reading it at twenty-one it’s clear how much of it went right over the head of my 12-year-old self. The way memory and great storytelling are entangled in it makes it the perfect source of inspiration for music.
On 30th May, two fellow ANAM musicians—Laura Cliff and Nicola Robinson—and I will perform at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part of the ‘ANAM Encounters’ series. Collaboration is one of the most thrilling aspects of our line of work, and the opportunity not just to curate and present a concert at one of Australia’s finest venues, but also to develop a new composition together, is one to delight in. Our programme includes all different combinations of our instruments—flutes, horn, and percussion—, including works by Richard Barrett, Hilda Paredes, and Luke Styles that will be heard in Australia for the first time. The only trouble was that despite extensive online research and consultation with our teachers, no piece seemed to exist for the trio… which is when I had the idea of making one up!
The Tombs of Atuan begins by describing a high horn’s resonance through the air, and the sound of softly beating drums emerging from the decay—ideal for our ensemble! With that idea in my mind, I then had the fascinating experience of sitting down with Laura and Nicola to learn about all the unique sounds their instruments are capable of producing. Trickier, however, is figuring out which ones to use. I discovered, for example, that the irregular rumbling of low-register horn played with flutter-tongue articulation is an excellent ‘musical’ analogue to the grinding of stone against stone. And the whisper tones of the piccolo flute have a delicate instability to them that beautifully reflects the point in the protagonist, Tenar’s, character-arc this piece will zoom in on.
At this crucial point in Le Guin’s book, Tenar, who has lived a cloistered life training to be a high-priestess, encounters an outsider, and in that moment also sees the titular underground tombs illuminated for the first time. She can’t sleep that night; instead lies ‘long awake in the wind-loud darkness’, thinking about what she has witnessed. That quotation was so striking, I decided to steal it to make into a title! It will be a joy to work with Laura and Nicola over the next one month to see this piece, and our concert as a whole, take shape. The programme is sure to be a challenge for us, and the audience, alike—but a rewarding one, we hope!
ANAM ENCOUNTERS: INFLECTIONS
Tues 30 May 2023, 6PM
Melbourne Recital Centre