April Music Mailout
Another of my monthly email blasts, which once again has only made it onto the blog about a week after sending… if you want to get these emails to your inbox in a more timely manner, sign up to the mailing list!
Hello Friends!
I’ve missed March, so I’m either dropping the ball or overachieving on my promise to not bother you more than once a month. But scraping this one into April, I have a few quick bits to tell you about:
/ Nonsemble with Jo Davie and Monique Clare - Tomorrow 1pm!
// Magic City Counterpoint Dream State Video
/// Nonsemble among QMA Finalists
//// Durriwiyn “Little Bird” Single
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NONSEMBLE WITH JO DAVIE AND MONIQUE CLARE
Tomorrow at 1pm, Nonsemble are performing a really sublime set of music with a pair of absolute legends, Jo Davie and Monique Clare. It’s a UQ Lunchtime Concert, which means you can rock up in person at the Nickson Room, UQ, or watch the livestream from anywhere in the world, either in real-time or after the show (not before though, the techs tell me that can’t be done).
Jo Davie is the wonderful vocalist for Cigány Weaver, also a singer-songwriter, composer and researcher. Jo is joining us for three songs - a new Nonsemble arrangement for her song “The Window”, a post-minimalist reinterpretation of indie-folk classic “Flume” by Bon Iver, and “Unkind” from Nonsemble’s 2016 song cycle, Spaceship Earth.
Monique Clare is a musical force who may be familiar to readers of this newsletter, from my gushing about her excellent music, which I hesitate to call indie-folk for fear of oversimplifying. Monique will play cello throughout the concert, and we’re going to play her 2023 QMA Award-winning song “Downhill Skiing”.
Nonsemble with Jo Davie and Monique Clare
UQ Lunchtime Concert
1pm-2pm Thursday 27 April
Nickson Room, UQ School of Music
Free, In-person and Livestream
Click here for info and stream
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MAGIC CITY COUNTERPOINT "DREAM STATE" VIDEO
Madeleine Cocolas and I are so excited to be sharing little bits of our forthcoming EP Dialogue with you. The most recent single, "Dream State", comes with a slightly mindbending lyric video, which we’d love for you to watch.
The next single - the title track "Dialogue" - is out May 19. So keep an eye out for that one as we get closer to this crazy interactive EP package we’re cooking up with Game Designers Fuzzy Ghost.
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NONSEMBLE AMONG QMA FINALISTS
We were as surprised as anyone to find ourselves among the Queensland Music Awards Finalists for the Contemporary Classical category. To share the honour with legends Camerata with Tenzin Choegyal, Tristan Barton, and our buddy Monique Clare was heartwarming and lovely. Monique deservingly took the category with her stunning track “Downhill Skiing” (I'll leave it up to you whether getting her to play it with us at our concert tomorrow is our small attempt to bask in her glow).
Amongst the Highly Commended for that category was incredible guitar virtuoso Libby Myers, with her studio recording of my composition “Unfettered and Alive”. So that was pretty cool too!
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DURRIWIYN “LITTLE BIRD” SINGLE
I may have mentioned in a previous email my work with Corella Recordings, UQ’s in-house record label which I’ve helmed for the past 2 years. A lot of really great stuff has come through it, but I wanted to tell you about a single we’ve just released which I’m very proud of.
Durriwiyn is Jamaine Wilesmith, an Indigenous singer-songwriter and UQ student who brought a set of songs to us 2 years ago which are finally emerging into the world. We’ve joked about calling his style “Dark Eurovision” which I still think is an apt descriptor. It’s dramatic and personal pop music with compelling vocals.
His debut single Little Bird, which I had the great honour of producing, is out now with more singles and an EP to come soon!
The Corella Recordings project is also a vehicle for hands-on learning for my students, and they've done a fantastic job assisting with production, distribution, and promotion for this single.
Also out next week from Corella Recordings is a wonderful EP from Muses Trio!
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Somehow this one’s gotten quite long so I’d better kill it there! Until next month!
Chris
P.S. As always, if you’re not digging these messages, I implore you not to suffer them a moment longer - please reply “unsubscribe” to stop getting them.