In March 2002, Australian clarinettist Ros Dunlop and composer Martin Wesley-Smith were invited to present a concert at the Northern Territory University in Darwin. Being so close to East Timor, a tiny half-island virtually destroyed by departing Indonesian troops in September 1999, they decided to go there to present two of Martin's audio-visual pieces about the country and the plight of its people. With Martin's brother, Darwin activist Rob Wesley-Smith, they presented six concerts, met many local people, and saw for themselves not only the devastation of the land but also the generosity and spirit, despite incredible adversity, of the people. In July, after East Timor had become independent, they went back, travelling further afield and presenting more concerts.

Many of the concerts on the current tour - the Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour - feature the two works - "X" and "Welcome to the Hotel Turismo" - that they presented in East Timor, plus a third - "Tekee Tokee Tomak" - composed since then, which uses some of the images captured on those visits. Martin's piece about Afghanistan - "Merry-Go-Round" - was also played there, attracting much interest (here was a situation that most people knew little about but which they could see was similar, in many ways, to their own). A new piece, composed since the "Coalition of the Willing"'s 2003 invasion of Iraq, adds even more topical relevance to this tour.

East Timor has been a cause celèbre for many Australian activists since 1975, when Indonesia invaded with tacit support from America, Australia and Great Britain. Most people saw the issue as uncontestable: Indonesia had no right to be there. What's more, its army, the TNI, treated the people with disdain, raping and killing with impunity. Now, after independence, it's a very different struggle - against poverty, corruption, environmental destruction, local ignorance of democratic processes, the machinations of powerful neighbours, and so on - as East Timor attempts to build a new society.

"Tekee tokee tomak" means, in Tetum, something like "Let's all get together", which we believe the East Timorese need to do, not only with each other but with people in other countries who are eager to help. After the initial enthusiasm that accompanied East Timor's independence celebrations, on May 20 last year, harsh reality, including recent riots in Dili, has set in. There's a tough road ahead, but if they employ the resilience they showed during the twenty-four-year Indonesian occupation, and if they receive the help they have been promised, success will be theirs.

In January 2003, Ros and Martin toured the UK and Hong Kong, receiving assistance via a Pathways grant from the Music Board of the Australia Council (the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body). They are hoping to receive similar assistance for this tour.

index: Ros | Martin

25 Measures
for solo clarinet [1996]

This quirky minature was written for clarinettist Peter Jenkin in 1996, when Kats-Chernin was in residence in the Peggy Glanville-Hicks house in Sydney. Its wit and charm is typical of the composer's style.

Aurora
for bass clarinet & CD [2001]

Aurora was composed as a collaborative project with Will Frasier, a wonderful musician who plays keyboards and creates sounds on computer. He is a member of a band called The Hive and studied composition at the University of Sydney. The work was created in three different stages: firstly, I recorded a sustained cluster on a Hammond organ, phasing the drawbars to create different rhythms as the partials of the pitches transformed; secondly, I recorded some bass clarinet improvisations that Will then processed digitally. That completed the CD part. I then created a free counterpoint over this - the only part of the music that is notated - with extensive improvised sections. At the time this piece was created, I was in the middle of a Canadian winter. I wanted to create the feeling of a huge space, the continual shift of focus suggesting the flickering lights of the Aurora Borealis.

© Margery Smith

Bastard's Broth
for bass clarinet & CD [1993]

Bastard's Broth was commissioned by Northern Arts (UK) and first performed by Steve Cottrell at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The title is a reference to the classic album by Miles Davis, "Bitches' Brew", and is a surrealistic melange of jazz styles in which the soloist fights a lonely battle with an unrelenting sequenced tape part.

Circles in the Sun
for clarinet & CD [2002]

Shortly before embarking on this piece, I read a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges titled The Circular Ruins. In it, a wizard paddles upstream to an overgrown abandoned ritual site in the forest, the sacred circle of the god of fire. There he begins the arduous task of dreaming a man. Yes, through his dreams, after untold torment and numerous false starts over several years, he did indeed produce a son.

The wizard spent years instructing his son in the mysteries of the universe and the cult of fire. When he was ready, the young man was sent downstream many miles away, but, first, the wizard destroyed in the boy's memory all recollection of knowing he was merely a phantom. Later, the wizard heard talk of a charmed young man, at a temple in the North, who was able to walk on fire. "Of all the creatures that people the earth, Fire was the only one who knew his son to be a phantom".

As the story ends, with fire engulfing his circle in the forest, the old wizard must come to terms with his own death. Prepared to walk into the flames, "with relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him." Like the story, the music is about circles with circles.

J.B.

Cut to the Chase
for clarinet solo [1996]

Cut to the Chase was written for clarinettist Peter Jenkin in 1996. Peter had requested a one-minute clarinet solo with the same virtuosity as Vella's "Tango", for clarinet and piano, but much shorter. The resultant gem demands that the soloist conceal breath intakes in order to reinforce the relentless moto perpetuo style. The title refers to early vaudeville routines when the artist, upon realising that the audience is not responding or that something has gone wrong, "cuts to the chase" - when he or she is chased around the stage to close the act.

Etude for Barney
for clarinet solo [1990]

Phillip Rehfeldt asked a number of composers, and clarinet composer/performers, to write short pieces for Barney Childs. This was Eric's response.

Frenzy and Folly, Fire and Joy
for clarinet [1999]

"All the uproarious pipes we played! Frenzy and folly, fire and joy!". The quote is from Australian poet John Shaw Neilson, whose poems have inspired several of the composer's works. This one is in 'ballad' form with nine 'verses'. The characteristic feature is that, despite a recurring 'rhyme-scheme' and unifying ideas from verse to verse, each one shakes a new narrative 'twist' out of its sleeve to produce something mid-way between strophic and 'through-composed' form, as well as mid-way between tonal and atonal styles.

Hauturu
for bass clarinet [1992]

This piece ("Where the Winds Rest") was was inspired by a visit to the rugged island of Little Barrier (Hauturu), a bird sanctuary in the Hauraki gulf, with its largely unspoilt grandeur, rugged beaches and huge trees amid thick jungle, and the remarkable variety and sounds of the indigenous birds. Several new techniques for bass clarinet used include colour fingerings, tremolos and vocal effects, and soft aeolian breath sounds reminiscent of wind through trees.

Instant Winners
for Eb clarinet [1984]

Until recently limited to transcriptions, the solo literature for Eb clarinet has begun to include new music written immediately for the instrument and performed by specialists such as Virginia Anderson, whose work inspired these pieces. Of the nine short "Instant Winners," none much more than a minute long, any number may be performed in any order. They explore contrasting sonic resources (reed taps, multiphonics, squeaks, speaking, as fast as possible random finger movements, quarter tones, hum and play, foot stomping) or, should one wish to hear them as such, musical moods.

King Friday
for bass clarinet & CD [1996]

King Friday is in response to an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman was the guest and the two of them were at Joe Negre's music shop. Watching this episode unfold, I figured this was going to be ripe with possibilities so I immediately popped in a video cassette. Stoltzman was describing the members of the clarinet family when Mr. Rogers asked, 'What's that big one?' Stoltzman answered, 'Oh that's a bass clarinet. It's found mostly in bands. It's pretty obscure and hard to play. There isn't really much call for it.' I was livid. Since both King Friday and Mr. Stoltzman were living in the land of make-believe, I was inspired to write this piece.

[ML]

Merry-Go-Round
for clarinet, cello & CD-ROM [2002]
or, for this tour, clarinet & CD-ROM [2002]

photography by George Gittoes; additional photography, of model Holly Berri, by Alice Wesley-Smith

"Any outsider who sticks his finger in the Afghan pie finds it was a damn sight hotter than he thought and ruins the pie for the Afghans. Persia, Britain, Russia and now the United States have all found their goals unobtainable and the cost of seeking them unsustainable, but the greatest price has always been paid by the poor, bloodied people of Afghanistan." (Griffiths, John C., Afghanistan, A History of Conflict, Timat Publishing, 2001, p263)

Australian artist and photographer George Gittoes went to Afghanistan last year, returning with two and a half thousand photographs. I went through this vast collection and made a selection for this piece. The title comes, obviously, from the home-made wooden merry-go-round that George photographed, but it also reflects what the Afghan people must have thought when facing the latest of many invasions, this one by America and others (including Australia).

My thanks to George, Charisma (who commissioned it, with assistance from the Music Board of the Australia Council, and premiered it at the 2002 Darwin International Guitar Festival), Gabriel Dalton, Holly Berri and Alice Wesley-Smith.

M.W-S.

Scream
for bass clarinet [2000]

a highly virtuosic work for bass clarinet, Scream explores both ends of the instrument's range, delivering at lightning speed; it was first performed in the USA by bass clarinetist Henri Bok at the International Clarinet Festival in Oklahoma

Steep Steps
for bass clarinet [2001]

This is a short work for bass clarinet written as a present for Carter's clarinetist friend Virgil Blackwell. It is the latest in a succession of short solos and duos that he began in the mid 1990s, most of them dedicated to colleagues. The form of the piece is free and doesn't fall into any traditional plan. Throughout, Carter plays with dramatic contrasts in timbre among the bass clarinet's different registers. The title may come from the prominent leaps from register to register.

Tagore Songs (1, 2 & 4)
for clarinet & CD [1997]

1. Reflected ...from a far off world ...and vanished!
2. Swept by the mad cadence of the storm
4. Where roads are made, I lose my way

In India, a young performer learns her/his instrument by studying with a singer - so the music always has a vocal foundation. Tagore Songs emulates this improvisatory spirit, although the piece is in fact fully notated. The movement titles are fragments from writings of Bengali poet, philosopher, mystic, painter, musician Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), whose work holds even more power for Brockman now than it did twenty years ago.

Tekee Tokee Tomak
for clarinet & CD-Rom [2003]

images from East Timor by various photographers, including Ros Dunlop, Kathryn Morgan, Danny Ross, Alice Wesley-Smith, Martin Wesley-Smith and Peter Wesley-Smith

Tekee Tokee Tomak is my latest (last?) piece about East Timor, and comes directly from my two trips there in 2002. It records and reflects the positive spirit of the East Timorese people, acting as an antidote, perhaps, to the necessarily bleak nature of "Welcome to the Hotel Turismo" and "X" - a celebration of the truth of Xanana's slogan "To resist is to win!".

The music comes from various sources, including snippets from previous pieces of mine and samples of songs written and/or recorded in support of the East Timor cause. The talking head belongs to Sister Susan Connelly, of the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies in Sydney - a champion of justice for all, particularly for East Timorese refugees in Australia that the Australian government wants to send home.

My thanks to many people, including the photographers, The Anin Murak Quartet (Antonietta Magno, Milca Esmeralda Pinheiro, Maria dos Santos and António de Padua Martins Soares), Louise Byrne, Geoffrey Collins, Sister Susan Connelly, Jon Lewis, Midnight Oil, Nicola Quilter, The Solidarity Choir, Tall Poppies Records and Rob Wesley-Smith.

M.W-S.

Weapons of Mass Distortion
for clarinet & CD-ROM [2003]

photography by George Gittoes and others

These days we are seeing more and more of what in 1946 George Orwell exposed (in "Politics and Language") the deceits and devices of "doublespeak". For example: "collateral damage" really means the maiming and killing of innocent civilians; "removal with extreme prejudice" means assassination; "incontinent ordnance" are bombs which hit schools and hospitals by mistake; "active defense" is invasion; and an "energetic disassembly" is a nuclear explosion. During the Vietnam War, "limited duration protective reaction air strikes" meant bombing Vietnamese villages. In Australia, asylum-seekers, who have committed no offence, are dismissed as "illegals". As Melbourne barrister Julian Burnside points out: "(Language) can hide shocking truth, it can deceive a nation, it can hand electoral victory to the morally bankrupt."

Rumsfeld's word "deconfliction" meant invading Iraq, at the cost of thousands of lives, massive damage, and billions of dollars, to stop it using (apparently nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction and giving them to terrorists to whom it had no links. This piece looks at the abuse of language and the use of doublespeak in undermining the democracy in whose name the Coalition of the Killing invaded Iraq.

Welcome to the Hotel Turismo
for bass clarinet & CD-ROM [2000]

It is September 1999 in Dili, East Timor. The arrival of the Australian-led INTERFET military coalition has forced the thugs of the Indonesian army and its militias to flee, leaving thousands dead and the entire country in ruins. The Hotel Turismo, though trashed, still stands, its blackened rooms providing shelter for soldiers, journalists and homeless East Timorese - refugees in their own country but free at last.

A Turismo employee, "John" Pereira, who has worked there since before the Indonesian invasion of 1975, reflects on what the hotel has seen during the resultant carnage. When the ruined piano in the foyer mysteriously starts to play by itself, he takes out his metaphysical bass clarinet and joins in ...

This piece was commissioned by Tall Poppies Records, with financial assistance from the Music Fund of the Australia Council. Technical facilities were provided by the Electronic Music Studio of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Originally for the cellist David Pereira (no relation to "John"), I arranged it for bass clarinet last year so that Ros could play it in Timor (our first performance there was in the Hotel Turismo itself!). The graphics came from a variety of sources, including the Internet. I have permission from many copyright owners to use their material; others, however, I have not been able to identify and/or contact. If any of them is aggrieved, s/he should contact me (mwsmith@shoalhaven.net.au). My thanks to them all.

M.W-S.

X
for clarinet & CD-ROM [2000]

In 1999 the world watched as the Indonesian army and its puppet militia tore tiny East Timor apart. Meanwhile, popular resistance leader Gusmão (the "X" of the title) languished in Cipinang Prison in Jakarta. I composed "X" during those tragic months.

"X" was commissioned by American clarinettist F. Gerard Errante, who premiered it at the Seoul Arts Centre in 1999 as part of the "Sixth Computer Music Festival of Seoul" presented by KEAMS (The Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society). Financial assistance came from the Music Fund of the Australia Council. Technical facilities were provided by the Electronic Music Studio of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. My thanks to all who assisted, especially to the mostly anonymous photographers who, in some cases unwittingly, supplied the images. As with "Welcome to the Hotel Turismo", any aggrieved copyright owner is welcome to discuss the situation with me (mwsmith@shoalhaven.net.au).

A recording of an audio-only version of this piece, played by Ros Dunlop, has recently been released on the CD "X" (Great White Noise GWN003). It will be available for sale at the concert - or it can be ordered from
http://www.greatwhitenoise.net/rosdunlop/html/cdsales.html.

For more information, see http://www.shoalhaven.net.au/~mwsmith/x.html.

M.W-S.

You Can Take It Anywhere!
for clarinet & delay [2000]

This was written for American clarinettist Gerard Errante on one of his visits to Australia. Judy writes: "In this work, the juxtaposition of intervals creates a whole world of harmony for solo instrument. A lot of careful work went into the actual pitch of the notes which followed one another - 'careful' for reasons of ease to facilitate a linear harmonic structure. The performer uses this to be free with the way s/he takes it."