Radiance (or the Black Sonata)
for violoncello, vibraphone, tam-tam, timpani, bass drum, tom-toms, snare drum
Composed for Joshua Jones and Jesse Vivante
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 (written by Joshua Jones):
Radiance (or The Black Sonata) was commissioned for the 2024 ANAM Set. This piece is a sonata for cello and percussion, played by my good friend and fellow ANAM musician Jesse Vivante. We were fortunate enough to be able to receive feedback and information about the piece directly from Lee during our rehearsal process. In discussions about the piece with Lee, we were told the work is related to Dante’s Inferno. Much like Dante, the cellist must navigate the soundscapes created by the percussionist. In the first movement for example, an ominous atmosphere is created by the tam-tam, from which the cello slowly emerges. This soundscape is punctuated with short snare drum bursts, as if revealing a glimpse of the manic, hellish energy yet to come.
About the composer:
Lee Bradshaw (he/him) is a Melbourne-based Australian composer.
Bradshaw’s music has been premiered and performed by Artists such as: Baiba Skride, Harriet Krijgh, The Flinders String Quartet, The Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Svizzera Italiana, Amira Medunjanin, Ivan Vukčević, Wilma Smith, Quartetto Energie Nove, The Fidelio String Quartet, Anna Sleptsova and Sally Anne Russell.
Via Crucis for solo violin was premiered by violinist Baiba Skride on March 22, 2020 at the 360 Concert Series in Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2020).
Lee is Composer-in-Residence for the Mediterranean Notes Festival in Montenegro, Montenegro - where his concert overture “Letters from Montenegro” was premiered in 2021 by the Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra and Veton Marevci at an open-air event in Luctica Bay in front of an audience of over 7000 people.
He is the creative director and producer of The Death of Beethoven - a recording cycle of the late-Beethoven String Quartets performed by Quartetto Energie Nove, in collaboration with Radio Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland.
Lee is Composer-in-Residence at St John’s Festival of Chamber Music, and was commissioned by Wilma Smith to compose the set string quartet piece for the 2023 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.
Lee Bradshaw signed a recording agreement with PARMA/Navona Records in 2021, and his Album The Ties That Band was issued on August 26th, 2022.
For more about Lee, visit his website: www.leebradshawcomposer.com/