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LIVING COLOURS:

Pacific sounds & Spirit

 

Bruce Crossman

 

OVERVIEW

 

A potent representation of Australian composer Bruce Crossman’s music, LIVING COLOURS is inspired by his strong spirituality and eclectic, multicultural interests. Both overtly and subtly, Crossman’s music seems to embody the expansive geography of Oceania. To this end, the works on the album draw explicitly on the native music of other Asia-Pacific cultures – particularly the Philippines, Korea, and China – and feature vast musical spaces that seem to symbolize the great distances that separate Australia from its neighbors. In his own words, Crossman describes his desire to evoke a “resonance of space” with his music, which arises from a “deep-felt emotion and sensibility linking heaven and earth.”

 

Crossman’s works are probing and profound, offering listeners an array of unique, primal listening moments. The sense of space that so deeply characterizes his music is epitomized in the opening of Double Resonances, for piano and percussion. The work begins with an echoing, disembodied piano sound – one of a few special timbres Crossman uses in the piece – which is only responded to by the percussion after a few minutes have passed. Double Resonances also represents one way Crossman makes his music eclectic: the use of non-western instruments.

 

Here, in addition to more conventional items in the percussion battery, Crossman calls for kulintang – a set of pitched gongs originating from the Philippines – and the ching – a type of Korean Samul Nori flat-gong – among other indigenously Asian instruments. Crossman essentially builds a new musical voice with this enhanced set of percussion instruments, which are paired with the piano to explore resonance in this piece.

 

Both these instruments also appear in the song cycle Gentleness-Suddenness. The composition may be the most overtly spiritual work on the album, as part of its text is from the Bible. Crossman’s writing features a kaleidoscopic array of musical elements, from instrumental noise common to Western avant-garde music to melodic and rhythmic elements of various Southeast Asian, East Asian, and Cantonese traditions.

 

The work’s vocal part is similarly eclectic, and mixes Biblical verses in English with Chinese texts and other specialized vocal techniques. At points, the intensity of the variegated sonic palette in Gentleness-Suddenness is overwhelming, which shows Crossman’s uniquely constructed music can be as powerful as is can be meditative.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

A composer with deep spiritual and global interests, the Australia-based Bruce Crossman sets out to create music which “embraces Asian traditional music, free form improvisation and European influenced interval-colour sonority towards a personal Pacific identity”

 

Crossman’s music features a unique combination of Western avant-garde and indigenous Asian musical sounds, which opens an intriguing field of sonic expression

 

The composer self-identifies his music as being heavily influenced by Christian, Eastern, and naturalistic spirituality, which manifests equally in works that both do and do not feature a setting of texts

 

The Sydney Morning Herald praised Crossman’s compositions for their “delicately nuanced sounds, fragile timbres and unforgiving rhythmic complexity”

 

ALSO ON NAVONA

 

AKANOS (NV5943)

Gráinne Mulvey

 

Release Date May 12, 2017

Catalog #: NV6095

 

 

TRACK LISTING

 

Bruce Crossman  composer

 

1  Double Resonances

Claire Edwardes percussion   Michael Kieran Harvey piano

 

Not Broken Bruised-Reed

James Cuddeford violin  Claire Edwardes percussion

Michael Kieran Harvey piano

 

Gentleness-Suddenness

Lotte Latukefu mezzo-soprano James Cuddeford violin

Claire Edwardes percussion  Michael Kieran Harvey piano

 

Where are the Sounds of Joy?

Tristram Williams trumpet  Peter Neville percussion

Michael Kieran Harvey piano

 

 

CREDITS

 

Double Resonances

Recorded June 29 2013 at Campbelltown Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia

Session Producer Stephen Adams and Matt Dewey

Session Engineer Andrew Dixon

(P) 2013 at Campbelltown Arts Centre for ABC Classic FM

 

Not Broken Bruised-Reed

Recorded June 29 2013 at Campbelltown Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia

Session Producer Stephen Adams and Matt Dewey

Session Engineer Andrew Dixon

Sound Diffusion Ian Stevenson

(P) 2013 at Campbelltown Arts Centre for ABC Classic FM

 

Gentleness-Suddenness

Recorded June 29 2013 at Campbelltown Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia

Session Producer Stephen Adams and Matt Dewey

Session Engineer  Andrew Dixon

Sound Diffusion Ian Stevenson

Texts Holy Bible, NIV; Young Lovers’ Edition Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu (play),

Pai Hsien-Yung (producer), Lindy Li Mark (English translation),

Milky Shan Man Cheung (Romanisations)

Sponsors Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown City Council and NSW

Government, ARTS NSW; Australian Federal Government, Australia Council for the Arts (Presentation and Promotion grant, 2013 Contemporary Music Program)

(P) 2013 at Campbelltown Arts Centre for ABC Classic FM

 

Where are the Sounds of Joy?

Recorded September 26, 2015 at Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Centre, Southbank

in Melbourne, Australia

Session Producer Duncan Yardley

Session Engineers Chris Lawson and Russell Thomson

Texts Young Lovers’ Edition Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu (play),

Pai Hsien-Yung (producer), Lindy Li Mark (English translation and Romanisation)

Sponsors ABC Classic FM Radio; Melbourne Composers League

(P) 2015 at Iwaki Auditorium for ABC Classic FM

 

All recordings licensed courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

 

 

Cover Image Luping Zeng - Butterfly Lovers (2016), oil

 

 

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw

A&R Brandon MacNeil

Audio Director Jeff LeRoy

Mastering Production Engineer Shaun Michaud, Nate Hunter

Engineering Manager Lucas Paquette

Art & Production Director Brett Picknell

Graphic Design Emily Roulo

Marketing Samantha Granville, John Higgins

 

 

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