Carl ROSMAN
clarinet, conductor

Carl Rosman studied clarinet with Phillip MIECHEL in Melbourne between 1989 and 1993, and has recently completed studies with Peter JENKIN towards a Masters degree from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, with the support of a University of Sydney Postgraduate Award. He performs with ELISION Ensemble as a clarinettist and conductor.

Carl has performed widely as a soloist, with appearances in Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Italy, England, the USA, Japan and South Korea, as well as throughout Australia. He has performed at the Huddersfield, Sydney Spring, Melbourne, Perth and Akiyoshidai Festivals, as well as at the 1997 ISCM World Music Days and the 1994 Darmstädter Ferienkurse, where he became the first Australian recipient of a Kranichsteiner Musikpreis. In July 1999 h participated in the third académie de musique du XXe siècle presented by Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris under Pierre BOULEZ and David ROBERTSON, as well as performing the complete solo clarinet works of Michael FINNISSY in recital in London.

He is a co-artistic director and founding member of Libra Ensemble, and a board member of ELISION Ensemble. He has also performed with Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), the Melbourne Symphony, the Gavin Bryars Ensemble, ChamberMade Opera, Perihelion and many other groups, and has been an artist in residence at the Akiyoshidai Festival, the Australian National Academy of Music and The University of Queensland.

Carl has conducted ELISION Ensemble, Libra Ensemble, Sydney Alpha, the Spring Ensemble, the Academy of Melbourne, KleZeyn Theatre, Nachtmusique, and ensembles of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Melbourne and the Australian National Academy of Music, in works by a wide variety of composers including Brian FERNEYHOUGH, Igor STRAVINSKY, Pierre BOULEZ (Le Marteau sans maître), Nigel WESTLAKE, Richard MEALE, George BENJAMIN, James DILLON, Morton FELDMAN, Michael SMETANIN, Helmut LACHENMANN, Chris DENCH, Liza LIM, Adam YEE, Elliott GYGER, Elena KATS-CHERNIN and Andrew FORD. His first appearance as conductor with ELISION Ensemble was in the July 1998 Brisbane concert Strange Customs, and the CD recording of music by Liza LIM recently released on ABC Classics, The Heart's Ear. He has recently conducted ELISION in performances of John RODGERS' Inferno at the Adelaide Festival, and two concerts in Sydney Alpha's 2000 season.

Carl has enjoyed direct working relationships with a wide range of Australian and international composers including Brian FERNEYHOUGH (whose Time and Motion Study I he has performed on four continents and recorded for Brian Ferneyhough Solo Works, ELISION release), Michael FINNISSY, Chris DENCH, Gavin BRYARS, James DILLON, Michael WHITICKER, Louis ANDRIESSEN, Liza LIM, Adam YEE, Benjamin MARKS, Richard BARRETT and many others. Works composed for him include Chris DENCH's ruins within for solo clarinet in A, Liza LIM's INGUZ (fertility) for clarinet in A and cello, Richard BARRETT's interference, for contrabass clarinet and a forthcoming work by Brian FERNEYHOUGH (for bass clarinet and ensemble). He also works as a writer on music, contributing programme notes for ABC Classics (including releases of works by Liza LIM and Carl VINE), Universal Music, Musica Viva and the ABC orchestras through Symphony Australia. He has had articles on works by Liza LIM and Chris DENCH published by Musik und Ästhetik, and has also written for the Sydney Morning Herald, Sounds Australian, Soundscapes, and International Record Review.

January 2001

"The real show-stopper of the first half, though, was undoubtedly Time and Motion Study I for bass clarinet, played with fervour and prodigious technical mastery by Carl Rosman. This was a real tour de force of neurotic and demoniacal energy, and I don't believe I have ever heard a better performance  . . . "
--Stephen INGHAM The Age, 27 September 1994

"Straordinario" [Extraordinary]
--Dino VILLATICO La Repubblica (Rome), 23 October 1994

" . . .  grace and tonal warmth."
--Gordon KERRY Sydney Morning Herald 15th March 1999

"Is that really a clarinet?"
--Stephanie BUNBURY The Age 13 July 1994

"There is not just a clarinet--even in a solo work, a single note (as when Rosman played Formosa's Domino, in Elision's second concert), there is an ensemble playing."
--Zsusanna Soboslay Moore RealTime December 1998/January 1999

" . . .  a brilliant performance of Chris Dench's hyper-complex, ultra-virtuosic funk (a virtual premiere, insofar as it was the first accurate performance)  . . .  the visual and body-language communication between the two players--percussionist Peter Neville and bass-clarinettist Carl Rosman--was electric; afterwards, they were clearly elated: they rushed up to one another, embraced, beamed, thrust each other's hands up into the air--just like a relay team that had won a gold medal. And why not? The achievement was of a comparable order: there were few people in the world who could have done what they had just done."
--Richard TOOP Sydney Review February 1996

"The works dating from the 1970s represent [Ferneyhough] at his most demanding. The performance of the bass clarinet piece [Time and Motion Study I] may be singled out for its almost explosive vigour--splendid."
--Fabrice FITCH Gramophone February 1999 KTC 1206

"A ceaseless torrent of notes--an outpouring of energy and wild, excessive stamina."
--Keith FIELD Herald-Sun (Melbourne) 5th December 1995

" . . .  characteristic style and colour."
--Gordon KERRY Sydney Morning Herald 15th March 1999

"[Time and Motion Study I] for bass clarinet is a spluttering catherine-wheel of sound which flares out from a core oscillating figure and this performance is a pyrotechnic display par excellence, the vital anchor holding fast amid the gestural upheaval around it."
--M. MORTIMER Avant (UK) Spring 1999 KTC 1206

"[John RODGERS' Inferno] expertly directed by conductor Carl Rosman sometimes appeared like a marionette conducting two tempi simultaneously."
--Martin BUZACOTT Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 9th February 2000

"[George BENJAMIN's Octet and Allain GAUSSIN's Eau Forte] demand extreme technical precision for their musical language to function. Again, Carl Rosman's efficient direction ensured this requirement was met."
--David VANCE Sydney Morning Herald 9th May 2000

"From time to time one still comes across the idea that modernist music, by its very nature, is ugly and inexpressive, and that the newly tuneful composers of the last couple of decades have saved the art from going down some blind alley. If evidence were needed to counter that notion, a recent CD of solo works by Brian Ferneyhough (Etcetera KTC 1206), played by the extraordinary musicians of the Australian group ELISION, would do the trick.

" . . .  perhaps the most sheerly stunning performance here is Carl Rosman's of Time and Motion Study I for bass clarinet, an earlier piece, from the 1970s rather than the '80s, going back to a steamier period in Ferneyhough's music. Rosman suggests something of the sound and atmosphere of a jazz improvisation, and perhaps for Ferneyhough the bass clarinet was a more eloquent, precise and versatile alternative to the baritone saxophone. But those extras are vital. The piece covers the ground from frenetic burblings to intense tones in a register one never thought this instrument could reach, moving to a powerful climax, after which all that is left is dust in the air."
--Paul GRIFFITHS New York Times 4th April 1999 KTC 1206