A Martin Wesley-Smith Retrospective

Featuring Quito

Venue

The Art Gallery of WA

Perth Cultural Centre, Perth

Date

7pm, Sun 29th Apri

Tickets

$30/$25

Book Now
or BOCS 9484 1133

Sheila Draper

8 Crosses

The Song Company/Ros Dunlop

Presenting the work of one of Australia’s most celebrated composers: Martin Wesley-Smith. The Song Company performs the award-winning music theatre work Quito, as well as a selection of Wesley-Smith songs. Clarinettist Ros Dunlop joins the computer music of Wesley-Smith in a performance of two works dealing with West Papua and Iraq.

Quito – Premiere Perth performance

Quito is a multi-media documentary music drama for six singers, keyboard, computer music and projected image about schizophrenia and East Timor by Martin and Peter Wesley-Smith.

‘… a sonic landscape full of allusions, cross-references, widely differentiated styles … and suddenly shifting textures – a truly “schizophrenic” narrative, a tour de force of contemporary audio art … A masterpiece.’ Sydney Morning Herald

Quito was the nickname of Francisco Baptista Pires, a young East Timor-born Darwin man who suffered from schizophrenia. In 1987, Quito was shot through the throat by police during a domestic disturbance. Three years later, he was found hanging by his pyjama cord in Royal Darwin Hospital. This powerful, award-winning work draws parallels between Quito’s story and that of the troubled nation of East Timor.

Papua Merdeka for Clarinet, Computer Music and Projected Image

Wesley-Smith confronts the result of the 1969 UN-sanctioned Act of Free Choice that handed the Dutch colony West Papua to Indonesia, and the claims of human rights abuse and exploitation. Papua Merdeka expresses solidarity for the plight of indigenous West Papuans.

Weapons of Mass Distortion for Clarinet, Computer Music and Projected Image

‘Collateral damage’ has come to denote the maiming and killing of innocent civilians, and Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous ‘deconfliction’ really meant the invasion of Iraq – at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, massive damage, and billions of dollars – all in the name of finding (non)existent weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of Mass Distortion critiques this Orwellian abuse of language – particularly the use of doublespeak – in undermining democracy.

Songs will include:

Nobody Cares Anymore
Tommy Tanna
The Fighters Who Fell
Mabo
She Wore a Black Ribbon
Recollections of a Foreign Minister
We Thought We’d Lost You, Johnny

Martin Wesley-Smith

www.shoalhaven.net.au/~mwsmith

Martin Wesley-Smith’s main interests are computer music, audio-visual works and choral music but he also composes chamber music, orchestral music, children’s songs, music theatre, and music for film. Two main themes dominate Martin’s music: the life, work and ideas of Lewis Carroll, and the plight of the people of East Timor.

Martin was the Australia Council’s Don Banks Fellow in 1988 and in 1997/98 he held an Australia Council Fellowship. He lectured in composition and electronic music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music for 26 years and established the computer music studio at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1986.

Other works

Teekee Tokee Tomak, Aurévélateur

For Marimba and Tape, Claire Edwardes

Freddie the Fish, Drawing Breath

Sound and Image, and Politics, paper presentation on Sun 29th April as part of THNMF Conference