News Archive

A musical composition inspired by The University of Western Australia's iconic Winthrop Hall is one of several new pieces of music featured on a CD created to commemorate the University's 2013 Centenary year and demonstrate UWA's leading research edge in musical composition and performance.

Written by UWA graduate and honorary research fellow Iain Grandage, the composition "Worlds Within and Without" alludes to the physical journey from inside the University to beyond, as well as to the expansion of a person's mind and the effect this can have on the outside world.

The composition is performed on the organ that dominates the interior of Winthrop Hall, where UWA students go for exams, graduations and concerts. The hall was named after the University's founder, Sir John Winthrop Hackett, who at the beginning of last century was determined to help the development of the fledgling state by creating its first university. The first students started in 1913 but music was not offered on campus until 1959.

One of the first music graduands, Jennifer Fowler, now a leading composer in UK, has a composition featured on the CD. A total of 14 composers of the calibre of James Ledger, Christopher Tonkin and Cat Hope wrote original pieces for the project. Important names in the classical music world - Carl Vine, Richard Mills and Roger Smalley - also contributed works. More than 50 performers with strong connections to the University contributed to the CD, Luminosity: Musical Treasures from UWA.

Another piece to reflect WA life is "Diurnal" by graduate and internationally critically acclaimed guitarist Craig Ogden. It begins with a musical representation of dawn and ends with the sun setting over the ocean.

The CD of new works features a smorgasbord of musical delights, with a range of pieces for a variety of traditional and electronic instruments and voice. UWA graduate and soprano Sara Macliver performs honorary doctoral fellow Carl Vine's "Aria", with lyrics written by Australia's Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Patrick White. UWA's Winthrop Singers perform "Gaudete" by musicologist and composer Emeritus Professor David Tunley, who founded a number of choral ensembles at UWA.

Luminosity: Musical Treasures from UWA will be launched by Janet Holmes à Court in UWA's Callaway Music Auditorium in the Music School from 11.15am on Sunday 10 February as part of the University's Alumni Weekend festivities to mark the start of UWA's 2013 Centenary year.

The CD launch will be accompanied by a performance of Carl Vine's Aria by Sara Macliver and Tommaso Pollio , and Paul Wright will play James Ledger's piece See How they Run.

The centenary CD was developed by UWA Friends of Music, the UWA Centenary Planning Committee and a group of UWA alumni. Its cover design is by former UWA student, author and Academy Award-winning film-maker Shaun Tan.

Media references

Winthrop Professor Jane Davidson (UWA School of Music)  (+61 8)  6488 7176
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783