A Wiko Year in Berlin
(long newsletter post…) My year as composer-in-residence at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute of Advanced Studies) or ‘Wiko’, has recently come to a close (1 Sept 2021-30 June 2022). This is a residency like no other in which the ‘obligations’ comprise attending 4 lunches and a dinner during the week and giving a talk to ...
Annunciation Triptych (2019-2022)
Three scores sit on my desk in Berlin. They make up my large orchestral cycle, Annunciation Triptych (2019-2022) comprising: I. Sappho/ Bioluminescence (2019-2020)II. Mary/ Transcendence after Trauma (2020-21)III. Fatimah/ Flowers of Jubilation (2021-22) The various parts of this 50-minute cycle were commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the WestDeutscherRundfunk Sinfonie-Orchester, and the Symphonieorchester des ...
World as Lover, World as Self
I’m very excited to post that I’ve just finished composing a work: World as Lover, World as Self, for solo piano and orchestra, commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage for a premiere at the 100th Anniversary (!) edition of the festival on 15th October this year. The work is written for the fabulous pianist Tamara Stefanovich with ...
News: Happy New Ears Prize
I’m incredibly honoured and touched to have been awarded the 2021 Happy New Ears prize from the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation. The composer Hans Zender (1936-2019) with his wife Gertrud Zender set up the prize referring to John Cage’s invitation to “listen without prejudice”. Awarded since 2011 in close collaboration with the Bavarian Academy ...
Videos in pandemic-times
One emergent positive amongst the many negative impacts on the arts in these pandemic times has been the opening up of access to concerts and festival events from all over the world (as long as one has a good internet connection). In the past weeks, I’ve been able to catch fresh premieres from the 2021 ...
more than human songs
[Image credit: Riot Ensemble, ‘the arrival of the plastic’, Kings Place London, 14 Feb 2020] I’m very privileged to have several ‘in the flesh’ performances of my music coming up. My large 40-minute work Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus (2018) will be performed by the group that premiered and recorded it, Ensemble Klangforum Wien, with ...
on ‘Sex Magic’ (2020) for contrabass flute, electronics & kinetic percussion
[image of pre-Columbian Nariño ocarina, Met Museum New York, public domain] Sex Magic is a 45-minute piece for contrabass flute (with alto ocarina, Aztec ‘death whistle’, bell, pedal bass drum), live electronics and installation of kinetic percussion written for & dedicated to Claire Chase. The work was commissioned by Claire Chase to be Part Vii ...
more thoughts about the Annunciation
I’ve just completed writing the second orchestral piece of my Annunciation Triptych called ‘Mary/ Transcendence after Trauma’ for which I recently posted some sketches. I wrote about the first part, Sappho/ Bioluminescence earlier this year and now there’s one remaining part to compose, ‘Fatimah/ Flowers of Jubilation’. Mary/ Transcendence after Trauma was commissioned by the Musica Viva concert series ...
Ricordi newsletter
Ricordi newsletter: Spring Highlights: what’s new with Liza Lim Also: Interview with Lorelei Dowling about music & ecology for IDAGIO Live
once around the room (work-in-progress), *& now complete
15 June 2020 I’m quite deep into composing an orchestral work now and it’s like this whole other reality that’s going on continuously and simultaneously with everything else at uni and more generally. An odd feeling because that other ‘room’ is held in focus even whilst having conversations, doing emails, teaching etc, so the other ...
Questions for the new year 2020
I quit Facebook [update: for awhile…] and consequently had muuuch more time to read for pleasure – books given as Christmas presents where you can buzz through the pages in a couple of days: Terry Pratchet/Neil Gaiman’s classic Good Omens & Gaiman’s How the Marquis got his Coat Back and a rather psychedelic book called Path Notes of an ...
Current projects – Sappho & Squid
Excerpt from Sappho #94 from Anne Carson’s ‘If Not, Winter. Fragments of Sappho’, New York, Vintage Books, 2002. I’m currently working on several projects that celebrate ideas of spirituality bound together with feminine energy and erotics. There’s a 3-part work for orchestra called Annunciation Triptych and the somewhat provocatively titled Sex Magic, a big work for Claire Chase ...
CD release | radio portrait, March 2019
New CD – Speak, be Silent 15 March 2019: new CD release from the Riot Ensemble on HCR/NMC with works by Chaya Czernowin, Rebecca Saunders, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Mirela Ivičević and myself. Violin soloist Sarah Saviet and the Riot Ensemble conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum give a very passionate account of Speak, Be Silent. CD launch concert: ...
The deep time of language
Back in 2005, I wrote a work called ‘Mother Tongue’ for soprano Piia Komsi & ensemble commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris, Ensemble Intercontemporain and ELISION. The work sets poems by Patricia Sykes about the ecology of languages and knowledge, and the fragility of particular knowings in the face of language loss. There is ...
Latest news – April-June 2018
I’ve had an exciting few months with the world and national premieres of a number of large works and the privilege of working with extraordinary musicians and inspiring human beings. The most recent work to come to fruition was Atlas of the Sky (2018), a 75-minute staged work premiered 3 days ago at the Melbourne Recital Centre, ...
Extinction Events & Dawn Chorus
[sketches fr. Extinction Events & Dawn Chorus] Liza Lim: Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus (2017/18) Work commissioned for Klangforum Wien by Wittenertage für Neue Kammermusik & with the support of the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund (Australia).Premiere: 29 April 2018, Witten & 7 May 2018, Vienna for flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon/contrabassoon, trumpet, horn, tenor-bass trombone, piano, ...
Miscellany: recent music & talks
I gave a keynote talk for a conference at Sydney Conservatorium of Music in September called ‘How to make a woodblock sing (using composition to experiment with thought)’. Eugene Ughetti performed the said woodblock piece, a 15 minute solo called ‘An Elemental Thing’ (2017) and the video is set to start at that point in ...
On gender disparity, structural luck and other things people have been saying for a very long time
I had the privilege of being invited by Dr Natalie Williams to give a keynote at the Women in the Creative Arts conference held at ANU’s School of Music during 10-12 August 2017. My fellow keynote speaker was Prof. Cat Hope, Head of Music at Monash University whose talk, ‘Stepping Aside: Gender equality and privilege ...
Time, possession & ventriloquism in my operas
I recently participated in a very stimulating workshop on opera, ‘Sound & Story’, convened by the composer Hans Thomalla and held at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 28-29 June 2017. Here’s my talk text (long read – who knew that the scroll format would come back into vogue after all these centuries…) The Future-present-past voice: possession ...
Liza Lim 