TRANSLATION MACHINE
for solo violin
Composed for Louise Turnbull
World premiere performance: 13 June 2025
Commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) as part The ANAM Set 2025 and written for Louise Turnbull, with its world premiere during ANAM’s 2025 recital season at the Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne.
This ANAM Set commission was generously supported by the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation
Program note:
"In collecting goods and people from around the world, capitalism itself has the characteristics of an assemblage. However, … capitalism also has the characteristics of a machine, a contraption limited to the sum of its parts. This machine is not a total institution, which we spend our lives inside; instead, it translates across living arrangements, turning worlds into assets. But not just any translation can be accepted into capitalism. The gathering it sponsors is not open-ended. An army of technicians and managers stand by to remove offending parts – and they have the power of courts and guns." – Anna Tsing
About the composer:
Aditya Ryan Bhat is a musician based in Narrm/Melbourne, Australia.
Aditya is active as a percussionist with a penchant for experimental music—regardless of whether precisely notated, freely improvised, or somewhere in-between! A keen collaborator, he thrives on exploring new sonic territory in the company of friends, exchanging ideas and approaches. Accordingly, in composition, Aditya is preoccupied with finding non-prescriptive ways to communicate musical ideas, delighting in the chance emergence of fascinating sounds, moments of spontaneous discovery—whether hysterical or profound—and other ephemera.
Thematically, Aditya's work has a strong political and ecological focus, examining the many and varied effects of colonialism, as in recent pieces, including fixed/fleeting (commissioned by New North Music), …at war with oneself (with Todd J. Bennett) and Cerita Buat Dien Tamaela (after Chairil Anwar, for WHACKollective and Jeffry Liando). These concerns carry across to his interests in research and curation.
Aditya is currently training in percussion at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), under the guidance of Peter Neville and John Arcaro. He recently completed a Bachelor of Music (Honours) at the University of Melbourne, for which he wrote a thesis on electronic music and anthropology.
Outside of music, Aditya mainly spends time pondering the big questions, such as how to make a cake both vegan and gluten free, and still taste acceptable.