ANDREW BALL

Thrilled to announce the launch of my new album Forbidden Languages through Made Now Music. I’ve been writing and recording this suite of solo saxophone pieces for the last couple of years and it’s great to see this labour of love become a finished product! On the album I explore ways of creating layered textures and generally making the sax sound rather alien – through extended techniques, preparations, and exploiting hyper-idiomatic quirks of the instrument. I’m planning to make the notated music available in the near future. You can stream and download Forbidden Languages here.

Excited to announce that I am now a represented artist with the Australian Music Centre! You can check out my Associate Artist page here.

I’m excited to launch a new project this year called ‘Forbidden Languages’! This is a suite of new compositions for solo saxophone, in which I explore/ exploit unique and idiomatic characteristics and techniques on the instrument. The individual pieces are all broadly informed by symbolism and mythology, and the concept of alien, imaginary, irrational, dreamlike, ephemeral “language”.

I’m premiering the set of works at Tilde new music festival in Melbourne, Saturday January 21st. Come along if you’re in town – otherwise keep your eyes peeled for more performances and recordings! Here is a cheeky preview of two of the pieces:

I’ve been hard at work lately on a commission for the Australia Ensemble. Very exciting to work with the performers David Griffiths and Ian Munro, on this substantial clarinet sonata entitled Three Dreams in Pulse. Inspired by the rather abstract concept of our distorted recollection of dreams, the piece appropriates and transforms rhythmic cycles that are idiomatic to a mix of cultures (from delta blues, to traditional Korean and Afro-Cuban patterns). The work was commissioned by Andrew Kennedy, and is dedicated to clarinettist Catherine McCorkill. You can catch the premiere if you’re in Sydney on the 14th May – details on the Australia Ensemble website: http://www.music.unsw.edu.au/australia-ensemble/subscription-concerts/bright-young-things-may-14-2016

Road testing some new concepts for an upcoming solo saxophone composition project! We saxophonists sometimes enjoy sounding ‘not’ like a saxophone. Exploring ways in which idiomatic yet unconventional layering and combination of microstructures, articulation, inflection, etc can relate conceptually to a ‘language’ or syntax (in an abstract sense). Stay tuned – this will be part of a larger suite of pieces!

To keep these updates as sporadic as possible (whoops) – heres a bunch of 2015 news all rolled into one post!

April: new work “View of a Fractured City” was premiered by Andrew Kennedy‘s chamber quintet in Sydney. An absolute monster of a piece, an absolutely captivating performance by absolutely wonderful musicians, and an absolute pleasure to attend the premiere!

June: Barega Sax Quartet have launched our new album “Three Serpents”! It’s been a labour of love and we’ve put a lot of work into this project – from commissioning new local compositions as far back as 2011, polishing, performing, recording and releasing a really fun and energetic set of music. It’s been a pleasure to collaborate with some genuinely world class composers: Michael Bakrnčev, Louise Denson, Tom Green, Andrew Garton (and more wonderful people TBA on Volume 2!) Three of my own works are also featured: “Three Serpents“, “Antikythera Mechanism“, and “Spring and Rust“. You can stream for free below (and purchase if you wish of course.) We’re proud of the result and are excited to share with the world!

July: True to form, I’ve been writing a lot of music with saxophones in it. I have 3(!) brand new works to be premiered at the World Saxophone Congress/ SaxOpen in Strasbourg, France. “Abandon control cast fire” is a frenetic, capricious, adrenaline-charged sax quartet for Barega – a truly terrifying piece to rehearse! “Gravitational Lens” has been commissioned by Diana Tolmie for the Queensland Conservatorium Saxophone Orchestra – groovy, but rhythmically warped, like the more ‘noisy’ version of an MC Escher. And finally, “Shadowed Pathways” is an experiment into a pulsating semi-aleatoric large ensemble approach – written for the newly-formed Australian Saxophone Orchestra.
Super excited. Stay tuned for recordings…

August(ish): Excited to announce that I’ve also just completed a huge commission for the Queensland Youth Orchestras Wind Ensemble, entitled “Wings of Daedalus”. A challenge I’ve immensely enjoyed writing for; I’ve found my inner ‘band nerd’. Colourfully mechanical steampunkish vibes, and a pretty strong theme of ‘flight’ – can’t wait to hear where the ensemble takes it!

My composition ‘Clockwork Ghost’ is featured alongside some very switched-on composers in this month’s Making Waves playlist. This is a brilliant new initiative for new music in Australia, co-curated by Brisbane expat Lisa Cheney – please head over to the page to check out the full set of really (really) awesome works! …Big thanks to Collusion Music for commissioning and recording my work back in 2012!