Ø (2005)
Øis built on the concept of ‘difference creating balance’. Commissioned as part of a cultural exchange exhibition between Australia and China, the work employs Chinese instruments, sounds, and performance techniques alongside and within a Western, modernist pre-compositional and instrumental framework. The creative work seeks to facilitate a creative dialogue between different cultures, both of which are strengthened through the discourse. Whilst both formal structure and pitch are examined in detail in this paper, Western and Oriental approaches to improvisation, ensemble and imagery (which are important tenets of Ø) are not.
The composition successfully negotiates complementary at various levels. These include: the aural and the visual; determinacy and indeterminacy; acousmatic composition and traditional instruments; and Western and Oriental approaches to music and performance. These complementary structures are reflected, along with the notion of balance, in the derivation, transformation and manipulation of pitch within Ø. These inter-relating complexities may be seen as idiomatic of a work that exists at the nexus of modernism and postmodernism (Gabardi, 2001) with a resultant interdependence that exists at the execution or performance stage through collective, controlled improvisation.
