New Creativity Seminar at 2021 SNU Online Winter Music Festival: Korean Music
Heaven to Earth: Border House (sanjo gayageum, taegŭm) and Gyeonggye: Border (solo taegŭm) were featured in the seminar New Creativity: Korea and Australia Music Collaboration at the Korean Music Department, College of Music at Seoul National University’s 2021 SNU Online Winter Music Festival: Korean Music Camp on Thursday 18 February 2021.
The seminar on new creativity for Korean music was an international public zoom seminar with the panel, chaired by distinguished ethnomusicologist Dr Anna-Yates-Lu (centre), and included Korea’s leading gayageum performer, Professor Yi Jiyoung (SNU) with Dr Bruce Crossman (Western Sydney University) and Dr Hyelim Kim (Bath Spa University, UK).
It also included beautiful creativity between Seoul National University and Western Sydney postgraduate students who discussed their intercultural collaborations and presented their music—including Jinju Yang (PhD, WSU) on “Married Life,” Robert Moss (DCA, WSU) and Eon-hwa Lee on “Two Faces,” and Hayoung Yun and Joe Tabua (DCA, WSU) on “Waterways.”
Seminar at Note-ify 2021, Himig Sanghaya Chorale/ACL Philippines, Manilla
Bruce Crossman presented on his Chinese opera-inspired work Shy Like Blushing Flowers in a zoom Composition Seminar at Note-ify 2021, Himig Sanghaya Chorale/ Asian Composers League Philippines, Manilla, Philippines, with convenor Professor Marie Jocelyn Marfil (University of the Philippines), 8pm Philippines (10pm Australia), Saturday 29thMay 2021. See: Himig Sanghaya Chorale
The Note-ify seminar on new creativity for intercultural Asian-Pacifc music was an international public Facebook Live presentation and was joyous fun, with thesession chaired by distinguished Filipino composer Professor Jocelyn Marfil (University of the Philippines).
Composition Seminar 2021 at Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Australia
Bruce Crossman will present on his Chinese opera and Japanese Honkyoku influenced music in a zoom Composition Seminar, chaired by Dr Gerardo Dirié at Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, Australia on 29th April 2021.
Melbourne Composers’ League Compact Disc Recording for pianist Raymond Shon
Bruce Crossman completes Cicada Swells (in O ch’ae chul kut) for Korean-Australian pianist Raymond Shon, for the Melbourne Composers’ League Compact Disc Recording curated by composers Dr Andrián Pertout and Dr Houston Dunleavy, 28th February 2021.
Composition on ABC Classic Breath by Breath album, saxophonist Katia Beaugeais
Bruce Crossman’s solo soprano saxophone work, Dying of the Light: Pacific Resonance for Peter, was released on ABC Classic Breath by Breath album with Katia Beaugeais (soprano saxophone), 19 July 2021, Sydney Australia. The music was composed as part of a collaboration with soprano saxophonist Katia Beaugeais to explore new techniques for the instrument such as “a range of extended techniques – air wind sounds, flutter-tongue, paint brush tongue stroke articulation” as part of her practice-led doctoral work.
ABC Classic described the album process: “To create Breath by Breath, Katia invited four outstanding Australian composers, Katy Abbott, Anne Boyd, Rosalind Page and Bruce Crossman, to join her in experimenting with the full sound palette of the instrument…These extended performance techniques transport both performer and audience to another place, making Breath by Breath essential listening.”
See Album at ABC Classic: Breath by Breath
Keynote, Music & Spirituality Symposium, Sydney Sacred Music Festival
Bruce Crossman presents a Keynote on Strange Invisible Perfume at the Music & Spirituality Symposium, Sydney Sacred Music Festival and the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC), Western Sydney University, 13 September 2021. He will speak on his approach to creativity, ‘Dangerous Ideas for Creativity—Allowing the Spirit to Sing,’ including on an intercultural collaboration with the Hong Kong-based guzheng performer Chiu Tanching.
Heaven to Earth Border House album, on Navona Records, North Hampton, USA
Bruce Crossman’s Heaven to Earth Border House album released on Navona Records, North Hampton, USA on 24 September 2021.
This new art music album’s creativity flows transnationally from Sydney to Hong Kong to Seoul to London with exciting musicianship from Hyelim Kim (taegŭm), Yi Ji-young (gayageum), Chiu Tan Ching (guzheng), Claire Edwardes (percussion), Anna Fraser (soprano), Linda Yim (piano), Timothy Phillips (percussion) and Michael Kieran Harvey (piano) with electronic remixes/composition by sound artist Ian Stevenson. Its two main works—Shy Like Blushing Flowers and Heaven to Earth Border House, were inspired by the ancient Chinese Kunqu classic, Young Lovers’ Edition Peony Pavilion, by Tang Xianzu in lucid English translations by Lindy Li Mark and the spatial beauty of the poetry of “Border House (Notes to a Bird)” by Australian poet, Kate Fagan. Special thanks are due to William Lane, artistic director, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, who encouraged the early seeds of this project to flourish.
Yi Jiyoung (gayageum), Bruce Crossman, Hyelim Kim (taegŭm) (photos: Kim Jin-hwan, Vincent Tay, Jinhwan Lee)
Spirit-Presence in Musical Connections Amid the Global Pandemic – Series 2
Spirit-Presence (2 shakuhachis) was featured in Musical Connections Amid the Global Pandemic – Series 2, curated by Dr Nicholas Ng the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University on 8th October 2021. The idea by the beautifully curated flow of music from Australian composers, was “to help relax the mind and create feelings of peace and calm” amidst “the continuation of the global pandemic and its severe repercussions.” Performed with spacious beauty by Tomotsune Bizan and Kikuchi Kouzan (shakuhachis), Spirit-Presence was inspired by ecstatic glossolalia (speaking in tongues) of the Christian tradition with the spacious bellbird sounds reverberant in the lower Blue Mountains bush, near where I live in Western Sydney. The beautifully meditative performance is accompanied by slow moving filming of Mulgoa Nature Reserve, which inspired the heart of the music.
Gyeonggye: Border music featured at Western Sydney University’s Research Creations Showcase 2021
Bruce Crossman’s Gyeonggye: Border with Hyelim Kim (solo taegŭm/Korean Temple bowl/chanter) was featured at the Korea-Australia Music Exchange: Something Inexplicably Subtle: Intercultural Lateral Thinking from Heaven to Earth at Western Sydney University’s Research Creations Showcase 2021 on Friday 29th October.
International Creative Exchange between Korea and Australia—Beyond Area 21: K-Music Makers, 24-26 November 2021
Two doctoral candidate composers from Western Sydney University, Jin Ju Yang and Robert Moss, had their music and creative views of life under the pandemic featured in Beyond Area 21: 24-26 November 2021. On Wednesday 24 November at 3pm Seoul time, the collaborations between Seoul National University and Western Sydney University postgraduates Robert Moss (Guitar) & Eonhwa Lee (Gayageum) in the composition Two Faces and Jinju Yang (Gayageum) & Soojeong Ko (Hageum) in Married Life were featured in a live broadcast in Performance 1: From Sydney to Seoul as part of this intercultural exchange Beyond Area 21 by K-Music Makers to commemorate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Australia. A/Prof Bruce Crossman, made a short film as an introduction to this exchange.
Australian National Academy of Music commission, for pianist Kane Chang
Bruce Crossman’s solo piano work Fragility and Sonorousness for Chinese-Australian pianist Kane Chang premieres at The ANAM Set, Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, Australia on the 1st December 2021. The work was commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) as part The ANAM Set (2021) and written for Kane Chang and received its world premiere on 1st December 2021 at the Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne. The ANAM Set was funded by the Restart Invest (RISE) Fund—an Australian Government Initiative.
ANAM describe it as “sixty-seven Australian composers who will be participating in THE ANAM SET, arguably one of the biggest commissioning projects every undertaken in Australia…Each of the composers has been commissioned to write a six minute work with one of ANAM’s sixty-seven young virtuoso musicians, with each new work to be performed in 2021.” See The ANAM Set Composers
Bruce Crossman (photo: Vincent Tay); The ANAM Set Composers (photos: ANAM)
Bruce Crossman 