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Was born in 1973 and grew up in the coastal city
Wollongong, south of Sydney, where he played the violin, didgeridu and
tabla in the world-folk ensemble OSea Gypsies1. In 1995 he completed his
Bachelor of Music at the Sydney Conservatory and subsequently continued
his studies with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
He lived and worked in The Netherlands and Poland for two years. He also
completed a course in computer music at ircam in Paris. He is currently a
casual member of academic staff at the Sydney Conservatory.
Ricketson is an active promoter of new music, including co-founding and
directing Ensemble Offspring. His works are also in the repertoire of such
ensembles as Germany1s musikFabrik, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra,
Ireland1s Crash Ensemble, Alpha Ensemble in Sydney, Melbourne1s Libra
Ensemble, and Poland1s OOrfeusz1 Chamber Orchestra. His honours include an
award at the Andrzej Panufnik International Composers Competition in Kraków
(2001, for Chinese Whisper) and the 1998 Marienberg Spring Award for an
Ooutstanding1 Australian composition (Ptolemy1s Onion).
Ptolemy1s Onion and Just Below Nausicaa were performed during the
Gaudeamus Music Week in 1999 and Lamina represented new Australian music
at the unesco International Composers1 Rostrum in 1996. Ricketson has
received commissions from Symphony Australia, the Australian Chamber
Orchestra, and The Song Company. He is currently completing a major
music-theatre work in collaboration with the Sydney Opera House.
Selected works: Chirriar for small orchestra (1996),
Hol-Spannen-Luiden for solo percussion (1997), Bucolica for tenor
saxophone and bass clarinet (1998), Ptolemy1s Onion for bass flute and
string quartet (1999), Imagining le Verrier for solo cello (2001), Chinese
Whisper for string orchestra (2001), Shoal for six unaccompanied voices
(2003).
Trace Elements
Four unidentified genres for four undefined instruments
The perennial question of the relationship between the composer and the
musical past was at the fore of the conception of Trace Elements.
Negotiating a path between the extremes of Modernist rejection of
tradition, conservative idolisation of that which has preceded it and
postmodern commodification of preexisting cultural artifacts is a
problematic undertaking. How does one engage with Othe past1 without
deteriorating into reactionary ideology or playful and vacuous
appropriation?
The poetic inspiration for Trace Elements came upon reading an article
describing an ancient manuscript from the 1500s generally referred to as
the Cracow Lute Tablature. While the author (Levi Sheptovitsky) had
undoubtedly undertaken considerable research, it was the gaps of
information which attracted my interest the acknowledged discrepancies
of opinion regarding the intended instruments and their tunings, and
particularly the cataloguing of Ofour unidentified genres1 amongst the
otherwise recognised Renaissance dance and polyphonic forms. Like
architectural ruins, the remnants of these unidentified practices proved
evocative to the imagination and formed the basis for constructing a
fantasy musical world built upon the traces of these elements. Unlike
Penderecki however, whose use of preexisting musical forms is arguably
motivated by a desire to return to that which is familiar as a means of
bridging a common musical language, my engagement is motivated by the
opposite to come face to face with an Ootherworld1 of musical
possibilities and confront my current compositional habits. The first
major decision in this regard came with the choice to notate the score and
parts entirely in a form of tablature the wind instruments are
represented via a 6-hole venting system and the string instruments via a
system of string and harmonic numbers. Therefore, although premiered as a
quartet for flute, clarinet, violin and cello, the work is notionally
scored for an indeterminate ensemble. By using tablature to represent the
generic physical actions required to produce sound on a particular family
of instruments, the work becomes theoretically possible on any combination
of 2 wind and 2 bowed string instruments. Embracing this flexibility has
required a strong gesturalist approach to the formal construction of the
work and many musical elements such as pitch, register, tone-colour are
conceived of in relative not absolute terms. While many other references
to the music represented in the Cracow Lute Tablature occur, such as the
frequent use of a Ocantus firmus1 and Omensural polyphony1, the nature of
the engagement remains decidedly symbolic not representational. Trace
Elements has been generously commissioned by the 46th OWarsaw Autumn1
Internat-ional Festival of Contemporary Music.
Damien Ricketson
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