Premier of New Work
‘Shelf Life’ and ‘For a Fine and Dear Friend’ : music for Flute alone.
Shelf Life and For a Fine and Dear Friend are two independent short pieces for Solo Flute composed on separate occasions some years ago. However, as they complement each other, together these short pieces make a notable contribution to the Melbourne Composer’s League Elbow Room Spring Concert. Johanna Selleck, a remarkable Melbourne-based composer and flute-player, has kindly agreed to perform my music in this concert.
Shelf Life was inspired by a poem by Sandra Powley written in 2010.
In this poem Sandra recalls weekly childhood excursions to the local library with her father.
Warm memories of the shared experience are revealed alongside her excited anticipation of
being transported to other worlds by the books yet to be borrowed and read.
For a Fine and Dear Friend was written for a long-time partner who wanted her guests to be the entertainment for her 50th birthday celebration.
I took the opportunity to write this music in respect of some-one who clearly supported and encouraged my passion for participating in music-making, and to follow my long-abiding and continuing interest in understanding the means by which music is so connected with emotion.
Every piece of music I compose and most of my academic work, beyond the initial BMus study I undertook as a result of her enthusiasm, continues to investigate this linkage. Here is yet another example.
Concert Details: Saturday 15 October 2022
St Stephen’s Church
360 Church St, Richmond, Victoria.
Tickets available at the door : $20 full/$15 Concession
Progress??
Theatre for the Listening Mind, and the Thoughtful Listener.
Progress?? is a quick piece of narrative Audio Art is made from a selection of the Found Sounds around Whittlesea, Victoria supplied by composer colleague, Gary McKie, during a residency he calls The Whittlesea Sound Project.
Whittlesea, Australia, has been swallowed up by the growing outskirts of Melbourne, Victoria. Gary’s Found Sounds were recorded both in the natural environment, a major shopping shopping centre, and the ordinary daily sounds heard in a typical Aussie suburban backyard.
the project’s creative brief
“The Whittlesea Sound Project is about discovering, or reconnecting to, the diverse sounds around us, as COVID-19 restrictions continue to ease, and we venture back into our communities throughout the City of Whittlesea and beyond.
Consider how being aware of the sounds around you effects your connection to place and ask yourself, “is there anything in my environment that could be changed to improve the quality of sounds and the way we are living?”
This project is supported by the Whittlesea Creative Community Fund.
MY CREATIVE ADVENTURES IN AUDIO ART, POETRY, AND MUSIC COMPOSITION
Here I share my work and play. Please browse freely and enjoy.
Full of great plans to comprehensively chronicle all my original work, but the improvisational nature of a creative’s daily life, means that items will gradually appear when the time is right among the warp and weft of other tasks.
*Links to places that sell my scores and recordings can be found in My Music Shop.
Waiting
Waiting, a setting of text by Sue Woolfe, for live performance by Hamish Gould (counter-tenor) in concert at St James Old Cathedral, West Melbourne on April 24th 2021.
The lyrics reveal the thoughts of a handyman with chronic social anxiety, who is somewhat creepily voyeuristic, as he longs to interact with the woman he loves.
Waiting was jointly commissioned by Panoramic Music and the Melbourne Composer’s League with funding provided by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
The song is composed for counter-tenor, accompanied by alto recorder, and digital samplers, all originally designed to be played live by human performers.
However, the virus times have affected the presentation of Waiting as much as anything else, in that the vocalist, Hamish Gould, wanted the concert to go ahead in any circumstances. Because of the pandemic, rehearsing and performing with other players could be problematic (given that currently Australian residents are still being infected with Covid-19).
So Hamish is live in performance and everything else is digital.
The concert begins at 4.30pm.
Ticket prices: $35 full or $20 concession.
The concert will also be live-streamed for free.
INTERSECTIONS
A celebratory realisation in prose poetry of the process of exploration and affirmation of self-identity among the myriads of possibilities open to those of us who choose to live outside the usually proscribed social norms. Even in 21st century Australia, the process of arriving at an openly-declared internal life as a same-sex female-attracted Lesbian remains fraught.
This creative excursion into text, is brought to life through reading out loud, for the enjoyment of the rhythm and flow of the sounds of the words as the playful narrative unfolds as a metaphor for a deeply personal process.
INTERSECTIONS was specifically composed for a new anthology of lesbian travel writing, Walking to the Edge, to be launched on 21 March 2021, at the Jika Jika Community Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
BE BOLD SPEAK OUT, IWD 2017
This conceptual audio piece addresses women’s visual artistic contributions for International Women’s Day 2017, on the theme: Be Bold for Change.
Sue Bessell invited 21 local women artists to contribute to a group exhibition at Project Contemporary Artspace, Keira Street, Wollongong, Australia, on the theme of Be Bold for Change. As a an audio artist, I have sought to raise consciousness of the ephemeral intangible nature of sound, while seeking to encourage women artists everywhere to be conscious of using their artwork to voice their feminist awareness.
My contribution to this exhibition lives entirely in the conceptual world. There is no particular audio for you to engage with here, except for the internal dialogue in your head about the place of art as political statement, and the boldness required of women as artists who make an explicit public addition to our culture.
The next step for you is to engage in conversation with, and encourage, women to speak out in their artwork about our gendered life experiences: to paint, sculpt, film, photograph, compose, record, and sketch their thoughts and responses, and then be bold enough to present their visual, musical, and actual voices in public places both in real life and virtual spaces such as this website.
Flagged for Conversation
Frances Burnham (artist) and I (Ceridwen Suiter – composer) have been in constructive conversation since 2008 on contemporary social and economic topics. We have formalised this into an ongoing collaborative arts-based project both in the physical and the virtual worlds, to extend the conversation between citizens, arts workers, and business, regarding culture and art practice, economics and social values.
For International Women’s Day 2016, our goal is to stimulate conversation about current Feminist issues as part of our ongoing project. Our installation “Flagged for Conversation” aims to stimulate conversation on 21st century issues facing women.
The conversation will begin with a performance at the exhibition opening on March 4, 2016.
Putting vision into practice, visitors to the gallery are invited to write a response: a catch phrase, a word, or to draw an icon or visual symbol on prepared and embellished green, white and purple flags, which will then become part of the installation.
AND/OR
Visitors are welcome to participate in our online conversation by logging into our website forum: ‘ethec’ (extending the conversation) and express their thoughts. Please note all comments will be moderated and responded to appropriately.
steps to . . .?
Is the growing city really progress or is it closing the door on old ways which might still be of value?
This 1 minute question mark premiered at Federation Hall, Melbourne, 9th July 2014…. as part of the 60*60 project curated by Susan Frykberg & Warren Burt for Australasian Computer Music Conference (ACMC2014).
Fine Hand-made Field Recordings carefully selected for piquancy.
Recorded and Composed by Ceridwen Suiter
EisforExpression
Technology Inspired Visuals/Soundscape by Ceridwen Suiter and Flossie Peitsch.
The Gallery exhibits itself as a post-conceptual place where ‘Artistic Expression’ squares off against ‘High Art’. Galleries amass reputations and memories as exhibitions come and go. This work taps, denotes and speaks the volumes from the gallery’s collective memory. Transitory expressions that have passed through its doors appear to linger. As surprising and distinctive forms emerge from the walls one can actually hear ideas pulse and roll to the auditory surface of the space.
Oct 8th – Oct 19th, 2013 ANU FOYER ART GALLERY
College of Arts and Social Sciences Building 105, Childers Street
The Australian National University; Canberra ACT T: +61 2 6125 5841
Composer in Residence: National Rural Women’s Conference 2013
A Country Women’ s Chorus (2013) created over three days by audio artist Ceridwen Suiter, with delegates of the inaugural National Rural Women’s Conference, at the National Convention Centre, Canberra. The content of the music is derived from the acoustic ecology of place, namely found sounds from the conference venue and field recordings of the attending delegates and their music experiences. This environmental music captures the spirit of the conference and tapestry of sounds that envelope the every day lives of Australian rural women. The newly composed music performed at the closing ceremony of the conference, provides an aural document of three days of women gathering together.
The project is an initiative of Robyn Archer, the Festival director, Centenary Celebrations of the Founding of Canberra, Australia. She sought the deliberate inclusion of the arts in many activities taking place in Canberra during the centenary celebrations. The Canberra Convention Bureau, and the Board of the National Rural Women’s Coalition and Network actively participated in making this project happen, while the conference attendees enthusiastically embraced this opportunity to participate in making new music.
* * * DR WENDY (CERIDWEN) SUITER * * * 