Media Release

UOW composers to feature at international music festival

10 April 2007

Four academics and three post graduate students from the University of Wollongong’s Faculty of Creative Arts will take part in the Sixteenth Annual Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival in the USA this month.

This annual three-day event features an international selection of electroacoustic music and also includes lecture demonstrations, studios and paper presentations. It attracts patrons from all corners of the globe and provides a platform for them to exchange and experience a wide range of cutting-edge music from today’s contemporary composers.

This is the first time an Australian university has been invited to feature at the acclaimed music festival. Along with only one other international university, the team from the Faculty’s School of Music and Drama has been specially invited to present a concert of original art music alongside their contemporaries from Queens University Belfast, Ireland and the University of Florida, Centre for Performing Arts.

The Australian contingent will contribute six works, collectively titled Electroacoustic music from the University of Wollongong, in Concert II on Thursday 12 April 2007. The concert will culminate with a piece called Earth and Space that was specifically commissioned for the festival and composed by Dr Houston Dunleavy, Acting Head, School of Music and Drama with text by Laura E Goodin.

This principal piece, conducted by Michael Soloman, will be performed live by nine instrumentalists from the University of Florida in conjunction with electronics. The performance will feature the voice of Lotte Latukefu, Lecturer in Voice at the Faculty of Creative Arts, whose accomplishments include performances with Opera Australia, Chambermade Opera, Opera North, ACT Opera, Sydney Metropolitan Opera and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

Dr Dunleavy, who left for the USA on Saturday 31st March, has pursued a national and international career as a composer and conductor since 1985. He has worked extensively in the USA, Scotland, France and Australia and has amassed many commissions and awards during his career. His solo piano piece From such Dreams premiered at the Chengdu International Contemporary Music Festival in China and his compositions are also included in the Australian Cultural Collection of the new Library of Alexandria in Egypt. He took up his teaching position with the University of Wollongong in 1995.

“This is a very exciting opportunity to showcase, at an international level, the work of the composers in the School of Music and Drama,” said Dr Dunleavy. “This is one of the most important festivals of its kind in the world, and it's a tribute to the staff and postgraduates that we have been invited to attend.”

The program for the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival includes compositions from two other Creative Arts faculty members, Associate Professors Greg Schiemer and Stephen Ingham and incorporates music from three postgraduate students; Terumi Narushima, Warren Burt and Wendy Suiter.

Further information is available at > http://emu.music.ufl.edu/femf/fest16prg.html

The Program:
Concert II - Electroacoustic music from the University of Wollongong, Australia

Houston Dunleavy, curator
Thursday, 12 April, 2007, 3:00 p.m.
University of Florida Center for the Performing Arts, Black Box Theater

Tritriadic Chimes: bells in just intonation – pre recorded
Written by Terumi Narushima, PhD, Music Composition, University of Wollongong

AKOY... – pre recorded
Written by Associate Professor Stephen Ingham, Senior Lecturer, Sound - Composition and Production, University of Wollongong

17 Pieces for Adelaide (nos. 2, 10 & 17) – pre recorded
Written by Warren Burt, PhD, Music Composition, University of Wollongong

Air – pre recorded
Written by Wendy Suiter, MCA-R, Music Composition, University of Wollongong

Tempered Dekanies – pre recorded
Written by Associate Professor Greg Schiemer, Senior Lecturer, Sound - Composition and Production, University of Wollongong

Earth and Space – performed live
Written by Dr Houston Dunleavy, Acting Head, School of Music & Drama, University of Wollongong.
Text by Laura E. Goodin
Performed by instrumentalists from the University of Florida in conjunction with electronics. Vocals by Lotte Latukefu, Lecturer Performance (Voice), University of Wollongong.

Further information:
Tanya Barton-Saad, tanyab@uow.edu.au 02 4221 5853