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.
'Branchings' consists of 13 movements, all of which explore various facets of performance by either one or two players. Franklin completed 'Branchings' in 2024, releasing the final recordings on his YouTube channel, after releasing previous movements in stages (the 7th and final movement was released to the public 9 April 2024). The techniques employed are a further development of those devised by Franklin for his previous extended work, Songs from the Lake, for shakuhachi and live-electronics, completed in 2020 and released in 2021 (NEOS 12027). In Branchings, the shakuhachi is again paired with live-electronics, but all layers in all movements were created and recorded as single, unedited performances. Although in the recorded version of the work Franklin took the role of all performers through multitrack recording, the work is a chamber work, designed and suited for live performance by one or two players equipped with appropriate instruments (shakuhachi, synthesizers, theremin, live-electronic sound processors). Such a live-performance, instrument-based approach to the use of electronics contrasts with the more usual, studio-based approach to electronic composition. In its marrying of the technological instruments with the apparent simplicity of the shakuhachi, in a chamber music context, and its exploration of the meeting points between these highly disparate instruments or technologies (seemingly contradictory both in their sound worlds and their performative conception - live-electronics as embodied instruments alongside the whole-of-body, breath-based nature of the shakuhachi), it is completely unique - like much of Franklin's work, and, indeed, his musical practice.