Category: programme note
A Sutured World, ‘cello concerto
I’ve spent the last months painstakingly and sometimes painfully writing a ‘cello concerto. The ‘cello is an instrument I think I know pretty well, having written several solo pieces for it as well as featuring it in numerous larger works. But so many times in composing this piece I had the sensation of scrabbling around, ...
The Tailor of Time (2023): time paradoxes and the sentiency of notation
I recently gave a keynote address for the ARTikulationen conference ‘Researching Across’ at Kunstuniversität in Graz and discussed two recent works: The Tailor of Time (2023) and Multispecies Knots of Ethical Time (2023). My talk focussed on some ideas or ‘thought experiments’ around multiplicity; on some perspectives, perceptions and experiences which resist notions of the ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
Travels in hyper-reality
I have criss-crossed multiple time zones in the last 6 weeks: Melbourne-Shanghai-Melbourne-Beijing-Melbourne-Salvador da Bahia-Melbourne – the constant bead in this roaming necklace is home in Australia, with each contrasting pendant ever more distant, strange and colourful. It’s a privilege to be invited to travel for one’s work and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt as ...
Tree of Codes, ‘cut-outs in time’ an opera
Tree of Codes (2013-15), ‘cut-outs in time’, an opera Premiere season: 9, 12, 14, 18, 20 April, 2016, Staatenhaus, Cologne Opera Liza Lim – Tree of Codes information and libretto (read-only downloadable doc) new info: Tree of Codes – programme notes Field recordings as ‘cut-outs of the real’ in Tree of Codes Text about the opera: Michael ...
Winding bodies: 3 knots shortlisted for 2015 BASCA Award
Winding Bodies: 3 knots has been shortlisted in the large chamber music category of this year’s BASCA awards. Here’s what I wrote about the piece: A knot is the magical image of time turned back on itself – think of a knot and you start thinking of the actions and process of tying it! The ...
September: 2 CDs and a premiere
I’m excited about September. It brings the launch of two CDs embodying the fruit of special collaborations with the musicians of the Cikada Ensemble and with the ‘cellist Séverine Ballon. Cikada will launch their disc, which was recorded live at last year’s Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, on 12 September at the Ultima Festival in Oslo. ...
the averted gaze
I was recently given a list of interview questions and was quite unable to answer them. At first I felt that this was a reluctance on my part because I would be giving too much away. Then realised that actually, I am unable to know the answers. Whatever they might be, they don’t cohere into ...
Speak, Be Silent (2015)
Just remember, when you’re in union, you don’t have to fear that you’ll be drained. The command comes to speak, and you feel the ocean moving through you. Then comes, Be silent, as when the rain stops, and the trees in the orchard begin to draw moisture up into themselves. – Jalaluddin Rumi, excerpt fr. Mathnawi V: ...
Hat Art Orchestral Works CD
The CD of my orchestral works is finally officially out on Hat Art and offers perhaps a less well-known view of my work. It includes The Compass for orchestra with solo parts for flute and didgeridoo, co-commissioned by the Sydney Symphony and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra; Pearl, Ochre, Hair String for orchestra which features a ...
vigil music for Reza Barati
Just wanted to add something to the vigils being kept for Reza Barati, the 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker killed in the Manus Island riot last week. Thank-you Ashot Sarkissjan for the soul-music. Philtre (1997) for solo retuned violin, performed by Ashot on Monday 17 Feb 2014 in St Paul’s Hall in Huddersfield.
‘in raptures the world will writhe before you’
There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you. [Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo ...
Knot thinking…
Excerpt from conference paper: ‘Knots and other forms of entanglement’ (Lim, 2013) …One could think of this musical language as textilic: a music of intertwining fibres and chaotic entanglements, structures of mesh-work or of threads becoming woven textures. A key aspect of this quality of ‘textility’[1] is the notion of sound rooted in a dynamic ...
The Weaver’s Knot
The Weaver’s Knot (2013), a string quartet based on aspects of hardanger fiddle playing and written for the Arditti String Quartet on the occasion of their 40th anniversary for performances in 2014. The ‘weaver’s knot’ (also known as a ‘sheet bend’ in knot parlance) is a traditional technique used for hundreds of years in textile ...
Liza Lim 