Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Cybec Program, Mentor
Bruce Crossman, mentor for Cassie To, 2016-2017 MSO Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers Program, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Southbank, 27-28 January 2017.
Chinese New Year Celebration, Australia-China Institute for Arts & Culture
Joseph Tabua (electric guitar) and Bruce Crossman (electric keyboard): Improvisation on Qiyun Energies. Chinese New Year Celebration, Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture, Western Sydney University, Parramatta Campus, 15 February 2017.
Improvisation on Qiyun Energies:
Japan Federation of Composers/Melbourne Composers League Concert 2017
Bruce Crossman, Emergence from Darkness (solo harp), selected by the Melbourne Composers League for performance at the Japan Federation of Composers/Melbourne Composers League Concert entitled, “Asian Tradition/Asian Contemporary 2017-Mysterious instrument from Australia-Didgeridoo” in the prestigious Millennium Hall, Taito City, Ueno, Tokyo on the 29th March 2017. The work will be performed by Reine Takano (harp).
PARMA/Navona Records, compact disc release, USA
Bruce Crossman, compact disc release, Living Colours: Pacific Sounds and Spirit, PARMA/Navona Records (USA), Naxos distribution, 12 May 2017.
Poetic Energies Across Sonic Space, Australia-China Institute for Arts & Culture
Poetic Energies Across Sonic Space, Australia-China Institute for Arts & Culture, Western Sydney University, Playhouse, Penrith Campus (Kingswood), 20 July 2017:
“The most important consideration in the technique of performance then, is not the question of finger dexterity or any other technical aspect, but the question of how qi is manipulated. Qi in musical performance entails breathing, and breathing is essential in shaping the line.
Yun, like qi, means different things in different situations. In phonetic studies it means tone; in poetry it means rhyme; in painting it means rhythm. In music, it can mean resonance, residual feeling, melodic motion or musical expression.”
(Ho 1997, p.38)
Poetic Energies Across Sonic Space will explore the Chinese cross-artform attitude of the Chinese literati towards artistic creation and scholarship to express the dynamic relationship between Australia and China within contemporary Australia. Venerable ethnomusicological scholar Edward Ho in “Aesthetic considerations in understanding Chinese literati musical behaviour” (Ho 1997, British Journal of Ethnomusicology) notes this confluence of creative philosophy across artforms. This interaction of energies across artforms will be the basis of this interaction between poets, calligraphers and visual artists/photographers, musicians and composers in poetically inspired visuals interacting with sound. This symposium will be based on the intercultural engagement between China and Australia.
(1) Bruce Crossman, Blooms late when spring is gone… (solo erhu)—collaboration with Ying Liu (erhu) and Shen Wednesday (painter/calligrapher) with poetry by Tang Xianzu.
(2) Bruce Crossman, Strange Invisible Perfume (guzheng, percussion)—collaboration with Chiu Tan Ching (guzheng), Claire Edwardes (percussion), Luping Zeng (painter/calligrapher) with poetry by Tang Xianzu, Shakespeare, and Song of Songs.
Creativity Unlimited 2017, Western Sydney University
“an object has mŏt…when we come in contact with the object, our spirit by some means seems to enter into the spiritual rhythm of the object… ‘deep or inner mŏt’…”
(Hwang, 1978, pp.30-31)
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”
(Psalm 42: 7)
Creativity Unlimited is a music festival at Western Sydney University, which this year is focussing on the exploration of noise as momentary sonic grit or undulating sounds texture within East Asian and Contemporary Australian approaches to sound explored through scored and improvisatory concerts at the Music Precinct, Penrith Campus.
Bruce Crossman, Rushing Spirit Breath, Hyelim Kim (taegum) and Claire Edwardes (percussion), Noise as Momentary Sonic Grit and Rhythmic Undulation, Creativity Unlimited 2017, 10-11 August 2017.
Royal Northern College of Music/Saxophone premiere, England
Dying of the Light: Pacific Resonance for Peter (solo saxophone), Katia Beaugeais, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, England, 26-27 September 2017
Create NSW: Arts and Cultural Development Program
“I love to be beautiful: Like the early spring that no one sees, Like graceful fish diving deep, Landing swan, birds in flight. Shy Like Blushing Flowers, Hidden moon, and trembling blossoms.”
Tang Xianzu, Lindy Li Mark (translation), Young Lovers’ Edition Peony Pavilion (scene 3)
This music-theatre work—Shy Like Blushing Flowers—is a collaboration between Australian artists Bruce Crossman (composer/musical director), Simon Killalea (video artist), Ian Stevenson (sound design/diffusion) with performers Anna Fraser (mezzo-soprano), Claire Edwardes (percussion) and international collaborator Linda Yim (piano) from the renowned Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (HKNME). The springboard for this work is the text of Tang Xianzu’s Chinese opera “Peony Pavillion,” with hints of the Judeo-Biblical text “Song of Songs” and Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra”. From distinctively diverse cultures, these works appeared at both juxtapositional and similar times (1598 and 1606 respectively) and correlate thematically, exploring love permitted to exist as dream merged with reality, and the subsequent temporal/spatial separation of lovers (human and spiritual) and connection to Daoist “dao” and Christian “spirit.” The central protagonists from these classical works, the vivacious unmarried female and high status queen, are reinterpreted as a single persona in an intercultural fusion of gritty tension with poetic lushness, bringing about a deepening mutual understanding of Australian/Chinese cultures towards a contemporary Asian-Pacific artistic identity. Its multicultural nature aims to directly synergize English and Mandarin sounds as both a form of communication and as delicate and vigorous sound patterns within a Confucian living-colour aesthetic in music-theatre.
Bruce Crossman (composer), NSW Government & ArtsNSW 2016/17 Arts and Cultural Development Program (ACDP) with Ian Stevenson (sound design/diffusion), Simon Killalea (film/live projections), Anna Fraser (soprano), Claire Edwardes (percussion) and pianist Linda Yim (Hong Kong New Music Ensemble); record and present a 45-minute development showing of Shy Like Blushing Flowers at The JOAN, Penrith, 11 October 2017, 3-4pm.
Bruce Crossman 