Majesty, Destruction and Eternal Slumber is inspired by my thoughts as I saw the dragon sculpture for the first time [Ed: each new piece for Kammerklang Ablaze was inspired by a visual artwork, in this case Vanessa Yeoman's sculpture]. The majestic creature with all its power to destroy in eternal slumber, never to wake. But it lives and wakes in our imagination and there it roams free, ruler of its domain; with fire it disintegrates all who oppose its will with winding strings of flame. Shrouded in mystery, the dragon strikes with violent chords and clashing dissonances. It rests and dreams of sparkling treasures with uneasy chords and fades away into thought and myth just like it had begun.
Composer Bio: Sam Gillespie (b.1990)
Website:
soundcloud.com/sam_gillespie
Sam Gillespie is a Sydney-based composer writing a broad range of music for both live performers and automated computer music algorithms. He creates music that utilises technology while taking advantage of human perception of sound and maintaining a connection with a western music tradition.
His influences include Guillaume Dufay, Paul Hindemith, Luigi Nono, Olivier Messiaen, Alvin Lucier, Paul Lansky, Luciano Berio and Nico Muhly to name a few.
Sam became involved with music from a young age, congregational singing at church, playing piano, flute and later choral singing and synthesizers. He has always enjoyed improvising, which naturally led
to an interest in music composition, leading him on a path through technical and aesthetic studies in recording, mixing, improvisation, acoustics, traditional theory, sound design and software design. He is
currently an Honours student at the University of Sydney, studying Music Composition.
from
Kammerklang: Beta,
released August 12, 2015
Composer: Sam Gillespie
Solo Percussion: Kaylie Dunstan
Violins: Perrin Walker, Ainsley Warner
Viola: Darius Kaperonis
Cello: George Cayas
Sound Engineer: Jayson McBride
Performed and recorded live at Kammerklang Ablaze (2014).