S l'1 \-\ ' U Ifif57 ' . .

New mUSIC's welcome addItIon made up the printed program, seemed to illustrate
MUSIC some of the implications of its title well enough
LISION with its . tightly-ruled musical behaviour; and
Melbourne--based contemporary music group, in music by Michael Whiticker's Venus Asleep used explosive
Dollarbide, Shanahan, Ford, Leak, Myers, Reeder and Whiticker. rhythmic pulsation as a frame for passages of
Pitt Street Uniting Church. April 30. intermittently Messiaen-ic melody, resonantly and
memorably projected.

O
NE.' thing is immediately and forthrightly Peter Neville's talented realisation of Graeme
evident in the work of Elision, the new Leak's And Now For The News was quite different in
new-music performers from Melbourne: texture and weight from the composer's own
they don't play favourites. performance . of this piece last year, but was
By that 1 mean that they are not committed to comparably effective in its interaction of percussive
representing anyone school of composers (though shapes with recorded Vietnamese speech rhythms.
they do incline to younger ones). In their first
program here, they offered highly controlled music Draw Near To The B~ll, by Haydn Reeder, came
- full of complex metres, unanimous accents and just a little late in the evening to receive the kind of
'incesant counting of beatS - 'alongside pieces which super-attentive reception that its finely imagined
nood1e away in a region where sounds are fingered, use of prepared-guitar sounds deserved. This was a
slow'l}' and hesitantly; like prayer beads. piece for'listeners able to enjoy small differences in
painted china and calligraphy.
. Elision as a word connotes removal or exclusion,
e-Ven"'the~pretence that
sometfiing-deesn 'texist-~. b.ut BY<its sid;e, Andrew Ford's On Canaan's Happier
this group seems healthily inclusive. Shore was 'rumpled and clumsy in its organisation
Among the precisely conducted pieces was of homely traditional song and surrealistic
Madness in Paradise (so called for reasons that the distortion and' change. I am not sure whether
composer's explanation did nothing to elucidate) by listeners who missed performances of Ford's
Theodore Dollarhide, a musician of American origin moving theatre :pieceabout the Yorkshire dales,
but recently hailing from Latrobe University. and its highlighting of the musical prophet-
shepherd Neddy Dick, would have found it so fulJ
I sympathise warmly w'ith the view that the of meaning and understanding. I sensed, below
exploration of effects , and techniques made and within its apparent naivety of device, the force
familiar by a great master should not be taboo to a of its composer's obsessions.
new generati-on of . inquiring musicians. Dollar-
hide'srecaH of early Stravinsky metricalities was Elision's instrumentalists are not uniformly of
refreshing in its way, though it did bring to mind virtuoso calibre. The white shirts and off-red ties are a
Auden's im,a ge about simple-minded .barbarians bit infantile. The use of variable coloured lighting
swilling the great wines of the chateau. must have cost much time and trouble- for small
effect. The stage management, while copious, willing
In this instance, I found ' more to engage the and prompt, seems to have made a fetish of itself.
imagination (as distinct from the diligent chroni-
cling 'ofiriter'e sting incidents) in the neighbouring Yet the group justifies its activity plentifully with
piece, Ian Shanahan's Arcturus Timespace, with its its eagerness and professional readiness to perform
sounds gathered from wheedling mandolin, metal and its access to some performers who should
bowls, china and- glass bric-a-brac and playback develop brilliantly. It is a happy and welcome
tape by a performer (Stephen Morey) crouched in a addition to contemporary music performance in
nest ofsound-producing objects like a hen in straw. Australia and its return visits will be awaited with
Peter Myers's Power .Games. a piece which high expectations and friendly interest.
received n<? explication 1n the scraps of paper that ROGER COVELL