Claire Edwardes & Peggy Polias
DIALOGUE and DEMO – Composer/Performer Interface
Claire & Peggy discuss their collaborative process for Peggy’s composition Receptor (merimba solo)2021.
Composition of Receptor commenced in 2020, as the COVID-19 Pandemic took hold worldwide. This piece is a response to the pandemic, specifically the physicality of the tiny virus entity: protein spikes and complex spiral molecules wreaking so much havoc and tragedy. The piece is in sections titled “Binding,” “Sequencing,” “Defending” and “Fading,” in reference to the health and research battle waged against the disease, with optimism towards the eventual end of pandemic. Composed with admiration for the health and science workers on the frontline and with much sympathy for the millions of people who have sadly succumbed.
Claire Edwardes
From the set of Play School to the mainstage at the Sydney Opera House, Claire Edwardes is ‘the sorceress of percussion’ (City News, Canberra). The only Australian to win the ‘APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Individual’ three times, Claire leaps between her role as Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring and concerto performances with all of the Australian and New Zealand orchestras plus numerous European orchestras.
Add her genre-spanning solo concerts, teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium, a broad spectrum of collaborations, premiering hundreds of new works by composers including Harrison Birtwistle and Elena Kats-Chernin, to passionately advocating for gender equity in music and you begin to appreciate her astonishing energy.
Perhaps her most significant contribution, beyond her endless quest for excellence in performance, is in breaking down the barriers between art music and audiences, through her enthusiasm for bringing new music to unexpected places – including bowling clubs and old power stations.
Peggy Polias (1981) is a Sydney-based composer, music engraver and she co-curates the new podcast Making Waves. In 2015, Polias was awarded the inaugural Peter Sculthorpe Music Fellowship and in 2018 she commenced a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, participating in the Composing Women program under the supervision of Prof. Liza Lim. As part of this undertaking she has composed for NY flautist Claire Chase, Sydney Chamber Opera and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows.
Peggy Polias – Receptor (marimba solo) 2021
Composition of Receptor commenced in 2020, as the COVID-19 Pandemic took hold worldwide. This piece is a response to the pandemic, specifically the physicality of the tiny virus entity: protein spikes and complex spiral molecules wreaking so much havoc and tragedy. The piece is in sections titled “Binding,” “Sequencing,” “Defending” and “Fading,” in reference to the health and research battle waged against the disease, with optimism towards the eventual end of pandemic. Composed with admiration for the health and science workers on the frontline and with much sympathy for the millions of people who have sadly succumbed.
