viewfinding
for violoncello
Composed for Noah Lawrence
Performed as part of ANAM 2024 Recitals
This ANAM Set commission was generously supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia and the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation
Program note:
Last year I experienced for the first time what I believe was the phenomenon of sleep paralysis – or at least, some kind of strange, altered state of waking, where I was fully conscious but locked into a bizarre, dreamlike state, glued to the bed, eyes seemingly open and perceiving the room around me but still with a feeling of closed heaviness. It hasn’t happened again since – but it’s spurred on a fascination of mine with the many facets of waking perception.
‘Being awake’ isn’t a singular experience – in a given day, or hour, or within the timeframe of a given task, our consciousness flickers across myriad states – whether it be that of pointed focus and attention, or active daydreaming, or even just ‘zoning out’. We live through a kind of gradient of presence, if you will, and to my mind these presences come bundled with echoes of that sleep-paralytic state, in all its surreal sensation.
Where does the border between conscious sleep and inattentive waking lie? viewfinding is a reflection on these strange borderlands, and their disorienting, ungraspable nature. The cello becomes the consciousness; its timbres shift fleetingly back and forth between states of soothing noise and distant, unsettled tonality; eerie, inharmonic overtones emerge and demerge from within the space, as a constant, nagging undercurrent of melodic shapes becomes sharper, fuller, focused.
About the composer:
Andrew Chen (he/him) is a composer of eclectic tastes and output – who, all the same, is often singularly inspired in the first instance by the layered, emotional qualities of human experience. Recent works have centered on ‘anthropomorphosis’ – particularly, the material sources, processes, and catalysts by which one embeds or perceives the embedding of entity within music.
Having grown up in Naarm on Wurundjeri country, Andrew is now based in London. He was a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer for 2021-22, and has enjoyed past collaborations with several musicians and ensembles including Wu Wei, the Gould Trio, and Ensemble Offspring.
Andrew also actively maintains performance practice as a jazz pianist and improviser; he was the recipient of the 2021 Dankworth Award for Jazz Composition, and regularly plays in a variety of solo, combo, and other ensemble settings – including performances at the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican, and Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, as well as onstage appearances with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK), and alongside Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo.
Beyond his own creative practice, Andrew is a dedicated, passionate advocate for new music and the musicians behind it. He is a Producer and Curator at ScoreFollower, and currently sits on the Ivors Academy’s Classical Council. He was also previously an inaugural ABRSM Composer Mentee (2021-22).
Andrew studied at the Royal College of Music, London, with Alison Kay, Simon Holt, and Jonathan Cole, and enjoys occasionally returning to the RCM's Junior Department as a Deputy Teacher of Composition, Jazz Piano, and Musicianship.
For more about Andrew, visit his website at: andrewchen.ac/