Sylvia Lim - Shades of Night

NOMINATION: Work of the Year - Chamber

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

Sylvia Lim

Title of the work

Shades of Night

Performer

Rubiks Collective

Performance Date

12/4/2024

Venue

Abbotsford Convent

Nominator Statement
Sylvia Lim's Shades of Night is a highly compelling sonic exploration of stillness, darkness and solitude. Inspired by William Degouve's paintings of shadowy night scenes, Sylvia's work contemplates the strange beauty of nocturnal spaces.

The piece explores our perception in the dark, evoking the indistinct and elusive, the transient and introspective.

By using unstable musical techniques and flexible forms to transform familiar instrumental sounds into the strange and new, Shades of invites consideration of our relationship to darkness, the transfiguration of once familiar environments, and moments of mystery we might encounter.

Created in close collaboration with Rubiks Collective, Sylvia's work creates a fascinating ambiguity and overlap in the instruments' sounds to recreate the indistinct outlines and subtle differences in shades we experience in dark environments.

The work required Sylvia to compose highly specific techniques, pitches and dynamics in order to successfully blend the sounds of the flute, cello and ondomo (a modern replica of the ondes Martenot), supported by a bed of gently rustling percussive textures that allude to rustling trees, quiet scurrying of insects, blinking lights in the distance and a range of other evocative nocturnal images.

Eligibility checklist

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