What's On at UWA

Free 50min Concert every Thursday during Semester at 1:10pm

Choral Evensong with the UWA Winthrop Singers. Feat. Gibbon's "Short Service" and Weelke's "Hosanna to the Son of David."

Music as the ‘missing link’: the evolutionary pathway from animal communication to language.

A growing consensus drawing on research in a wide variety of disciplines has over the last fifteen years or so argued the need to revisit Darwin’s conjecture of 1871 that language may be descended from an existing, musical medium of communication that developed from animal calls. This paper focuses especially on the aspects of human musical behaviour and language that have evolved in our species in relation to perceptual and productive capacities that respond to the properties of the Harmonic Series.

Principles for designing an effective, post-compulsory Music curriculum suitable for Western Australia.

A new post-compulsory Music course known as the West Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) Music course was recently introduced into Year 11 and 12 in Western Australian (WA) schools after a convoluted process of creation, and its implementation into classrooms has been problematic. Given criticism levelled at its process of creation and implementation, does the WACE Music course embody effective, recognised principles to support the effective teaching and learning of music? The aim of this study is to investigate the principles which should form the basis of an effective, post-compulsory music curriculum, suitable for WA. The study involved a literature review which seeks to produce a set of principles for teaching and learning frameworks based upon international best practice in music education, and applicable in the unique geographical, historical and multicultural WA context. In addition, the study employed a researcher-designed survey instrument to examine whether Western Australian music teachers perceived these principles to be evident in their practical experiences of the WACE music course. With the subsequent publishing of a draft Australian National Arts Curriculum, it is an appropriate time to review the principles which should underpin an effective Music curriculum for senior secondary students in the WA context.

Free 50min Concert every Thursday during Semester at 1:10pm

Kristin Bowtell (returning Court Music Fund award-holder)

The Embodied Score: Conductors' Interpretive Decision-Making

Conductors are expected to develop a personal interpretation of each piece in advance of the first rehearsal, yet the conducting and performing literature gives little guidance beyond ‘gain experience’. Contemporary research in neuroscience, learning theory and philosophy suggests that musical expressivity originates in bodily processes, (particularly motion) and that cognition is not purely located in the brain but is distributed throughout the body. This indicates that conductors who seek to develop their range of musical expression (and hence increase their interpretive options) should utilise the body as a musical interface and source of ideas, rather than merely as a machine that inputs and outputs sounds on behalf of the disembodied brain.

Free 50min Concert every Thursday

Opening the season, conductor and virtuoso violinist Paul Wright conducts a program affected by classical sensibilities featuring some of the period’s best-loved works.

Grainger: Duke of Marlborough Fanfare; Schubert: Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished); Bach: Violin Concerto in E Major (Soloist: Paul Wright); Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 Classical

Tickets: Standard $25, Concession $20 - available here: https://sa2.seatadvisor.com/sabo/servlets/EventSearch?presenter=AUUNITHEATRES&event=art1 or on the door.

David Symons: Antill After Corroboree: A Return to Conservatism?

This paper investigates one of the widespread perceptions in much critical comment on the music of John Antill following the composition of his famous ballet Corroboree – namely, that the composer reverted to a ‘quieter’ and more conservative musical style in his later output in the 1950s and 1960s. The generally negatively-toned criticisms of Antill’s later work are assessed from two standpoints – that of musical ‘style’ or ‘character’ and that of musical ‘language’ or idiom. While Antill never wrote another work as ‘barbaric’ or ‘abrasive’ in manner as Corroboree, his later works explore a wider expressive palette in which there are some examples of the milder English ‘pastoral’ style, but the predominant ‘language’ is that of between-the-wars neoclassicism or neo-tonality of Bartok, Hindemith and Stravinsky. In this respect Antill shares a general stylistic range with the more progressive Australian composers of the same period such as Margaret Sutherland, Dorian Le Gallienne, Raymond Hanson and Robert Hughes.

Clint Bracknell - Songs from the South: The Wirlomin Project and Southern Noongar Song

Aboriginal people, language and song inform a rich sense of place in Australia. Wirlomin Noongar people from the southwest are in the process of claiming, consolidating, enhancing and sharing their endangered cultural heritage. In this context, I will examine the value of community-driven Aboriginal language revitalisation and the potential function of local Aboriginal song idioms in broader cultural sustainability activities.

Makoto Takao - Glocal Emotion: Performative Practices of Jesuit Conversion in Early Modern Japan

This thesis will explore Jesuit conversion policy in Japan during the Christian Century (1540-1650). It will specifically analyse the means by which performative practices were employed as a way of fostering faith through the use of music, drama, and visual arts. These modes of communication embody inherent emotive potency, and the measure of their success can be best identified as degrees of affectivity amongst the converted.

Free 50min Concert every Thursday during Semester at 1:10pm

PLEASE BE ADVISED: - THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Louise Devenish (DMA candidate)

Service for the Council of Christians and Jews. Featuring Hebrew choral works: - Arr. Singer's Hine Matov - Salmone Rossi's Halelluia (Psalm 47) - Lewandowski's' Enosh - Bernstein's Adonai roi (Chichester Psalms)

Callaway Series is unreserved and ticketed at the door. All tickets are $10.00. Doors open 15 minutes prior to the event.

Eva-Marie Middleton: Choral Performances of the Past

The archive of recorded music available for academic study now extends back for over a century. One of the avenues of study provided by this resource is a stark portrayal of differences in performance style over that period. This seminar will look specifically at changes in the performance practice of early choral music. Six recordings of Tudor music made in the 1920s will be analysed for their stylistic features and contrasted with the performance approaches of today's choirs.

Free 50min Concert every Thursday during Semester at 1:10pm

Choral Evensong with the Winthrop Singers. Feat. Gabrieli's Magnificat, Holst's Nunc Dimitus and Monteverdi's Beatus Vir.

In celebration of the University’s centenary, UWA School of Music joins with UWA Choral society for an extravagant evening of sound. As part of the celebration, an orchestra of over 170 will perform Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring on it’s 100th anniversary before being joined on stage by the combined forces of the UWA Symphonic Chorus, UWA Choral Society and soloists for the exuberant Rachmaninoff composition, The Bells. This is a concert of epic proportions. For tickets, please visit: https://www.music.uwa.edu.au/concerts/artistry

Victoria Rogers: John Blacking, Composer

John Blacking (1928–90) made his mark as an ethnomusicologist and social anthropologist and his enduring reputation stems from his work in these areas. Yet his interests were more far reaching and included cognition and language, dance and movement, the biology of music making, music psychology, and – perhaps surprisingly – composition. The very existence of Blacking’s compositions raises a number of enticing questions. What was the nature of his musical language? What might a study of his compositions tell us about his ethnomusicology? What might his ethnomusicology tell us about his compositions? These questions give rise to the central focus of this article: the intersection of Blacking’s composition and ethnomusicology. The article concludes that Blacking’s conceptualisation of music as an expression of social processes and cultural values extended beyond non-Western musics, infusing the compositions which he himself created within the musical paradigm of his own culture.