HIDDEN THOUGHTS

5-9 February 2018

Composer Katy Abbott develops a new work with Syzygy Ensemble and The Song Company.

Key creative personnel in residence at the UKARIA Cultural Centre:

Syzygy Ensemble

Lara Engle Flute Robin Henry Clarinet Leigh Harrold Piano Jenny Khafagi Violin

Campbell Banks Cello Daniel Richardson Percussion

The Song Company

Chloe Lankshear Soprano

Anna Fraser Soprano

Hannah Fraser Mezzo-soprano

Owen Elsley Tenor Robert Macfarlane Tenor Mark Donnelly Baritone

Andrew O’Connor Bass

Katy Abbott Percussion

Thomas de Mallet Burgess Percussion

PROJECT OVERVIEW Hidden Thoughts is a daring work by Dr Katy Abbott. Based on the anonymous

confessions of 200 women and featuring live audience participation, the work is in its

final stage of collaborative development.

Composed for The Song Company and Syzygy Ensemble, two of Australia’s leading

ensembles, Hidden Thoughts is a 60-minute work based upon responses to an online

survey devised by Dr Abbott and author Kaz Cooke, consisting of a series of questions

intented to uncover the most intimately held thoughts of the women who took part.

Concert audiences will be surveyed in the same manner and their responses integrated

into each performance, and it is for the purpose of this integration that Dr Abbott,

director Thomas de Mallet Burgess and the musicians of Syzygy Ensemble and The

Song Company will travel to UKARIA Cultural Centre for a creative development

residency, from 5-9 February 2018.

Hidden Thoughts is a bold artistic endeavor that seeks to explore – within the glare of

public performance – the thoughts and desires we keep closest, and to express the

inner narrator we strive to keep secret. Through its use of audience participation, the

internal conflicts arising from societal expectations and self-censorship will be

powerfully addressed in a live, communal experience. The value of the ideas behind the

work and its potential to engage audiences has already been recognized by the

Australia Council for the Arts, which supported the commission of the piece, and by the

University of Melbourne, which has contributed towards travel and accommodation

costs. Furthermore, ABC Classic FM will record the work for broad- and podcast.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Syzygy Ensemble

Syzygy Ensemble is an award-winning contemporary music group based in Melbourne. After

just one year of performing together they were awarded first prize in the chamber music

section of the Australian Concerto and Vocal Competition and, subsequently, were the only

Australian group selected to perform at the 2011 Gaudeamus International Interpreter’s Award

in Amsterdam. Since then, they have gained a reputation as one of Australia’a finest new music

ensembles, lauded for their virtuoso precision, innovative programming, and ability to connect

viscerally with their audiences. Apart from having a regular subscription series at the

Melbourne Recital Centre, Syzygy has had great success touring regional Victoria, allowing

remote audiences the chance to experience (and even participate in!) contemporary

masterworks such as “Quartet for the End of Time’, ‘In C’, and Rzewski’s ‘Les Moutons de

Panurge’. They were nominated for a Helpmann Award for a George Crumb tribute concert in

2012, and in 2014 were the recipient of the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Contemporary

Masters Award for their performance of Robert Dzubay’s ‘Kukulkan 2’. Last year they released

their debut CD, ‘Making Signs’, containing specially commissioned works by Gordon Kerry and

Brenton Broadstock, as well as premiere recordings by Brett Dean and Annie Hsieh.

The Song Company

The Song Company belongs to a land whose first peoples have always used songlines and

vocal music to pass knowledge and culture from generation to generation. As vocal

adventurers and cultural ambassadors our unique voices and personalities engage in the telling

of new stories and the re-telling of ancient stories through vocalisation as old as the human

voice itself. From our beginnings over thirty years ago we have developed an energetic

schedule of national and international touring, an annual subscription series in cities across

Australia, recording and broadcast projects, diverse education activities for all ages including

students in regional and remote areas, and outstanding collaborative projects with creative

artists from across the globe.

Our repertoire spans more than a thousand years – from antique manuscripts to scores fresh

from the printer today, and is breathtaking in its stylistic diversity and often virtuosic in its

demands. We are at the forefront of contemporary vocal music through our imaginative

commissioning program and relationships with both established and emerging artists and

composers. Since 2016 the award-winning British composer and conductor Anthony Pitts has

been at the helm as Artistic Director, bringing a new conception of exploration and excellence

in all that we do. We believe our vocal adventures are part of what makes Australia the land of

discovery for musicians and audiences alike for the years to come.

The Song Company Pty Ltd is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia

Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Dr Katy Abbott

Katy Abbott's (1971) music leads the listener through a narrative of sound, exploring concepts

of home, place and human nature, frequently exhibiting a cheeky humour and cleverly

juxtaposing contemporary flavours on traditional settings.

Abbott's compositions have been performed, published and recorded around the world,

brought to life by many leading Australian ensembles including Halcyon, The Song Company,

Syzygy Ensemble, Ironwood Chamber Ensemble and several major symphony orchestras. Her

works have been played in UK, Europe, Asia and the USA and featured in Australian and

International music festivals including the International Alliance of Women in Music

(IAWM), conference in Beijing and the Melbourne, Perth and Canberra International Festivals.

A versatile creative talent, her body of work incorporates orchestra, chamber and music for

voice, an area where she exhibits a particular flair. She completed her PhD in 2007 including a

guide to writing for the voice as her thesis, working with Brenton Broadstock and Linda

Kouvaras at the University of Melbourne. Several of her works appear on the AMEB, ANZCA

and VCE/HSC syllabi.

Abbott won the 2013 Boston Metro Opera ‘Gold Medal for Art-Song’ for her new song-cycle

The Domestic Sublime and the 2011 Albert H. Maggs Award for Composition. She also spent

several weeks at Banff at the Centre for the Arts on an independent residency at the Leighton

Colony and in 2016 an artist residency at Bundanon Trust.

Orchestral works include The Peasant Prince commissioned Adelaide Symphony

Orchestra, and is the story of dancer Li Cunxin, which (ABC Classics /TSO recording pending

2018). Abbott's symphony Souls of Fire (2004), was released in 2008 as a recording with the

Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra. Introduced Species (2014) was commissioned for Melbourne

Symphony Orchestra Education Arm which explores the work of Australian artist Matthew

Quick and the North Pacific Ocean’s Garbage Patch/Trash Vortex. This work has been

programmed for 9 performances with Sydney Symphony in 2018.

Apart from these orchestral works, significant compositions include song-cycle No Ordinary

Traveler (2006) for Halcyon, MultiSonics (2010) for Australian bassoonist, Mark Gaydon, The

Domestic Sublime (2011) recorded by Greta Bradman and Leigh

Harrold, UndercurrenT (2011) for soprano saxophone and piano and Midnight Songs (2013)

for flugel, trombone, guitar and loop pedals; recorded by Ensemble Three on their 2016 album

Midnight Songs.

Abbott has four solo discs: Sunburnt Aftertones: The Chamber Music of Katy Abbott (Move

Records), The Domestic Sublime: the vocal music of Katy Abbott (ABC Classics) and

Famous (Leeward Side Records). Punch: the Brass Music of Katy Abbott (ABC Classics). Her

scores are published by Reed Music, Promethean Editions (NZ), The Australian Music

Centre and Morton Music.

Katy's current work (2017) is a festival piece for The Song Company and Syzygy Ensemble

based on the 'hidden thoughts' of women collected in an anonymous survey.

As well as freelance composition, Abbott is Lecturer in Composition at Melbourne

Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.

Thomas de Mallet Burgess

Thomas de Mallet Burgess (a graduate of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University) has established

an international reputation for directing award-winning opera and leading groundbreaking

research in opera/musical theatre performer training.

Opera credits include multiple productions for Canadian Opera Company, The Royal Opera

House Covent Garden, Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Ireland, English Touring Opera and most

recently to enormous critical acclaim for his own company Lost & Found Opera.

Other credits include theatre productions in the UK, Belgium, Romania and the commissioning

and development in Ireland of plays by new Irish writers on contemporary social themes.

He is author of the ground-breaking performer training work: “The Singing and Acting

Handbook” (published Routledge London and New York) and a regular visiting artist at

conservatories worldwide conservatories including: University of Cincinnati College-

Conservatory Music, USA; California State University, Fresno USA; Pepperdine University, USA;

Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London; The Royal Academy of Music, London; Rose

Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, London; The Royal Irish Academy of Music,

Dublin; Vadstena Academy, Sweden; and Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts

(WAAPA).

His strong commitment to the role of the arts in wider society has resulted in a sustained

history of collaboration with Outreach Departments of major organisations such as The Royal

Opera House Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, Opera North and English Touring Opera

(where as Education Consultant he pioneered a three-‐year groundbreaking programme on

music with the Deaf Community).

Before arriving in Australia he was Artistic Director at Wexford Opera House with responsibility

for creating a cohesive artistic vision for Ireland’s first, purpose-built state of the art opera

house and home to the Wexford Opera Festival.

He is currently living in Perth, WA where he founded and is Artistic Director at Lost & Found, a

new opera company with a mission to rediscover lost operas and present them in found spaces

that speak to the resonance of the work. Lost & Found has been hailed as “the nation’s most

innovative opera company” (Opera Magazine) and “one of the few genuinely disruptive arts

organisations in Australia” (The West Australian).

The company’s critically acclaimed productions have included Poulenc’s ‘The Human Voice’

(hotel room); ‘The Emperor of Atlantis’ (synagogue); ‘In the Shadow of Venus’ (three short

contemporary American works at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Winner of The

West Australian Arts Editor Award); Milhaud’s ‘Médée’ (former asylum for women); and Bizet’s

‘Don Procopio’ (Italian Club and outer suburban wedding venue).