It was such a thrill when the first ANAM Set piece hit our inboxes a few weeks ago. We had all seen the tantalising pictures of ANAM cellist James Morley working with Liza Lim, two cello bows in his hands but to see the finished work, Cello playing - as Meteorology, on an actual music stave with Liza’s characteristically beautiful musical calligraphy was quite moving. In some ways it was the first tangible glimpse of The ANAM Set legacy. I’m perusing the manuscript as I type this, and it looks like a work of subtle timbral beauty, inspired by both the animacy and the intimacy a cellist develops with their instrument over time.
ANAM cellist James Morley (SA) with composer Liza Lim. Photo by Pia Johnson
Less than a fortnight later, “an anti-opera for piano, toy piano, extended rock kit, and vocal/guitar playback” dropped into our DMs. Not so subtle, perhaps, but Michael Kieran Harvey’s composition, Death Cap Mushroom for pianist Hannah Pike (and her percussionist partner Alex Bull) is an angrily political work bathed in dark humour, deliberate banality, and metal virtuosity of the ‘Bang-on-a-Can’ variety.
In some ways, Michael’s and Liza’s works are aesthetic opposites, but they both draw heavily on analogies from the natural world, and that seems to be an emerging theme as more ideas from The Set start to crystallise. Maybe the climate crisis is causing artists to commune with nature in a more urgent way, or perhaps the stasis of last year’s lockdowns made us slow down and reflect on our surroundings more. Whatever the reason, the world outside our four walls has stimulated the imaginations of our composers in a multitude of ways. There’s Lim’s meteorology and Harvey’s mushrooms; Chris Dench has drawn parallels between the pincers of fiddler crabs and the stance of trombonists; Ross Edwards is paying homage to ‘Mother Earth’ via fragments of mediaeval Marian chant.
The personal connections continue to be revealed too: it’s been discovered that Cathy Likhuta and cellist Charlotte Miles (paired together) have close relatives that work in the same scientific fields; Alex Voltz and violinist Emily Beauchamp met at a National Music Camp in 2020. Oh, and Elena Kats-Chernin did end up dropping in for that FIFO visit. She crammed about 10 hours’ worth of wisdom and enthusiasm into a 3-hour meeting with clarinetist Oliver Crofts, who not only workshopped ideas with her for his ‘Set’ piece, but also played her a couple of movements of her clarinet concerto. Her reaction? “I’ll never worry again whether parts of the piece are playable or not, because you’ve proven that it is all perfectly playable”.
The Set project continues to inspire, and grow beyond its boundaries!
ANAM Artistic Director Paavali Jumppanen, composer Elena Kats-Chernin and ANAM clarinetist Oliver Crofts (WA)
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