NOMINATION: Work of the Year - Chamber
Chamber music is defined as works for between 1 and 12 players, with or without vocal parts, and with or without electronics
A work is defined as a single complete musical composition, or expression. This includes music with movements or sub-works (i.e. song cycles), installations, and real-time compositions (improvised music).
If you believe your work to be nominated in the wrong category or the details of your nomination to be incorrect, please contact the AMC via email at awards@australianmusiccentre.com.au before proceeding with the nomination.
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Nominee
Chris Williams
Title of the work
True Ceremony of the Sun
Performer
The Flinders Quartet
Performance Date
30/11/2024
Venue
The David Li Sound Gallery, Ian Potter Centre for the Performing Arts, Monash University, Melbourne
Nominator Statement
Chris Williams' first string quartet ('True Ceremony of the Sun') is a hauntingly beautiful work. Williams' fine control of the medium reimagines the string quartet's hallmark intimacy, and his rich musical imagination takes the listener on a profound musical journey.
Composed in 2024 for the Flinders Quartet as part of the Ascend Program, Williams' composition takes inspiration from the rugged terrain of Northern Scotland, in particular, a Neolithic burial chamber, Maeshowe, on the Orkney Islands. Throughout the work, Williams' treatment of the quartet is ethereal - harmonics and descending scales meld with sublime melodic writing, taking us deep into the burial chamber, and exposing our own relationship with mortality.
There is an honest depth to this composition - Williams avoid the "tricks" of the genre, steering clear of empty bombastic statements. Instead, his probing mind exposes and reconstructs the quartet, so that we feel we are hearing an ensemble whose narrative is not only rooted in the 18th Century but is capable of speaking with fresh sincerity in our own time.
Nominee
Chris Williams
Title of the work
True Ceremony of the Sun
Performer
The Flinders Quartet
Performance Date
30/11/2024
Venue
The David Li Sound Gallery, Ian Potter Centre for the Performing Arts, Monash University, Melbourne
Composed in 2024 for the Flinders Quartet as part of the Ascend Program, Williams' composition takes inspiration from the rugged terrain of Northern Scotland, in particular, a Neolithic burial chamber, Maeshowe, on the Orkney Islands. Throughout the work, Williams' treatment of the quartet is ethereal - harmonics and descending scales meld with sublime melodic writing, taking us deep into the burial chamber, and exposing our own relationship with mortality.
There is an honest depth to this composition - Williams avoid the "tricks" of the genre, steering clear of empty bombastic statements. Instead, his probing mind exposes and reconstructs the quartet, so that we feel we are hearing an ensemble whose narrative is not only rooted in the 18th Century but is capable of speaking with fresh sincerity in our own time.