totally huge new music festival 2011

“A great festival is one that exposes participants and audience to new directions and ideas and the 2011 Totally Huge New Music Festival promises to do just that with an impressive program of Australian and international work.” (Tura website) The program will include concerts, installations, surround sound presentations, live broadcasts, workshops artist talks and more. Highlights include Space/Shifter, an installation by David Chesworth and Sonia Leber, and a surround sound concert by Philip Samartzis who has been Remote Artist in Residence in the Warmun community in the East Kimberley. Speak Percussion will perform two concerts: Gerard Grisey’s epic percussion masterwork, Le Noire de l'Etoile; and Flesh & Ghost featuring works by Anthony Pateras, Luke Paulding and Thomas Meadowcroft.

Special guest for this year’s festival is New York composer and turntablist Marina Rosenfeld renowned for her ongoing performance, Sheer Frost Orchestra: a graphically notated score performed by 17 females using nail polish bottles to activate electric guitars. For THNMF 2011 Rosenfeld who will present Teenage Lontana at the Midland Railway Workshops working with local teenagers to create a 35-voice choir and speaker installation. Rosenfeld will also be the keynote speaker of the Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference focused around the theme of Immanence.

Other artists in town for the festival include from Australia, Speak Percussion, Decibel Ensemble, Etica Ensemble, Pollen Trio and Ross Bolleter along with guests Mark Gasser (UK) and from Japan FourColor, minamo and moskitoo.

realtime writers at totally huge

RealTime Associate Editor Gail Priest will be joined by two Perth-based writers.

Sam Gillies
I am a West Australian based sound artist and composer with a taste for everything from chamber based electro-acoustic works to experimental sound art and conceptual pieces.

I studied at UWA, completing a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Communications Studies and English Literature, before completing a Certificate Level IV of Music Composition at The West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2008. I started studying a Bachelor of Music (Composition and Music Technology) at WAAPA in 2009 under the tutelage of Cat Hope and Lindsay Vickery, and will finish these studies at the end of 2011.

As a solo artist I am active in the Perth new music scene curating the regular NoizeMaschin!! event at The Artifactory hackerspace and performing at venues such as the Velvet Lounge and the Bakery and as part of TURA’s Club Zho series. I also perform with two local bands, The Shallows, an 11-piece indie rock band and Cycle~ 440, an electro-acoustic duo of piano and laptop.

In addition to my musical pursuits, I have been making my own films and multimedia experiments while pursuing an interest in journalism and academia, having contributed works to a variety of publications and conferences over the last four years. I also currently co-host the Difficult Listening program on public radio station RTRFM, along with Bryce Moore and Philip Everall.

Henry Andersen
Sound, for me, is a source of fascination. Sound, real or imagined, is a big part of the way in which I think about the world. It’s everywhere, inescapable and infinitely variable.

As a composer, what interests me most about music is gesture and contrast, taking disparate musical elements and making them into something that has its own unique logic and identity, but is still visceral. The kind of music I enjoy listening to shares these traits—a balance between what one hears directly (the sound itself) and what one hears indirectly (the intention behind a piece, its logic, its place within the artistic landscape.)

What one experiences when they listen to music is the synthesis of these two elements – all sound carries some connotation. It is these connotations that change the way that we experience music, from culture to culture, person to person and even day to day. Connotation and intention in music is something that I love to unpick and so, for me, writing music and writing about music go neatly together.