3:00pm, 24 March 2002
Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane

Soloists of ELISION Ensemble

Experience the legacy in sound that the ELISION Contemporary Music Ensemble continues to develop in its new home. ELISION's mission of constant innovation and radical exploration is as robust and challenging as ever, and this programme of chamber music showcases both the sensuous and explosive virtuosity that are the hallmarks of ELISION's characteristic soundworld.

ELISION's collaborations with a number of artists during the 90s were groundbreaking in the depth and intimacy they established between creator and performer. The radical idioms and extremes of performance practice explored by Richard BARRETT in his large scale works for ELISION would have been inconceivable without the mutual respect and trust between ensemble and composer, and the long, open process of co-operation encouraged during any collaboration with ELISION. basalt for trombone and voice is the solo version of the fourth movement from Barrett's negatives (1990-1993), while abglanzbeladen . . . auseinandergeschrieben is the opening solo for vibraphone taken from his Paul Celan-inspired work Opening of the Mouth (1992-97).

Strategies for rethinking the physical relationship between player and instrument have figured prominently in the development of ELISION's distinctive performance practice. Timothy O'DWYER's work as an improviser on numerous projects with the ensemble have concentrated on developing further a `radically idiomatic´ approach to improvisation, where an instrument's acoustical resources are explored above and beyond the traditional idioms that normally constitute `technique´. O'Dwyer's work Sige (1999 revised 2000) for bass saxophone and pre-recorded materials uses trilled multiphonics, harmonics, circular breathing and vocalizations to create a sense of ceaseless multiplicity whose paradoxical uniformity of texture is enveloping and unsettling in much the same way as the artwork that inspired it: Kapoor's Void.

The additional two works on the programme, Michael FINNISSY's Two Motets (1989) and Gabriele MANCA's In Flagrante (1990), display the intimacy of the classical guitar in combination with solo soprano. The virtuosity of performers Geoffrey MORRIS and Deborah KAYSER unfolds a world of colour with its own distinctive place in ELISION's canon.

An Empire is at best a polyglot assemblage of individuality, unified only by the strength of will and imagination that inspired its formation. ELISION's commitment to the diverse originality of the composers it with whom it works, and the independent talents of its musicians, ensures that its legacy will be a vital contribution to the ongoing drama that is the creation of new art: radical; challenging; rewarding.