about
"GreyWing Ensemble is known for presenting works with pointed social commentary, and though none of the pieces was overt in this regard, by performing works of non-European composers, championing female artists and commissioning new music from Western Australian composers, their bold programming is a positive shift in the Perth concert scene." (Cool Perth Nights)
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GreyWing focuses on new australian music and environmental music and has presented over 40 premieres since their debut performance in April 2016. An important thematic strand in the GreyWing performancesis music featuring field recordings, images and other data from nature and the environment. In 1918 GreyWIng released two albums on the local label Tone List reflecting these two aspects of their work Lines of Flight and nature forms i. Two more albums. Artificial Field and Ex Machina will be release in December 2019. In July 2018 GreyWIng together with Breaking Waves and Gerygone launched a monthly site-specific project Limited Hangout: in the field featuring works by local composers responding to and performed in specific the sonic/physical environments.
GreyWing has presented four concerts for tura new music: Tokyo Sound Space Ark (2016), Rio 1917 (2017), Ex Machina (2018) and [text] (2019) as well as performances at outcome unknown, the Audible Edge Festival and elsewhere.
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Some Press
"The members of GreyWing Ensemble have strong credentials, putting on some of the most envelope-pushing concerts in Perth’s recent memory, all exploring new music from a breadth of fresh perspectives (...) what unites these three excellent performers, Catherine Ashley (harp/electric harp), Jameson Feakes (electric guitar) and Lindsay Vickery (clarinet/bass clarinet/laptop) is a strong enthusiasm to push the possibilities of new and experimental music. The pieces here are mostly cut-throat commentaries on contemporary politics, and in communicating that intent, the instrumentation of GreyWing Ensemble matters less. What matters most is that three great musicians and thinkers, with an inclination to exceed not just their instruments but the traditional remit of new music as a political engagement, are doing a great job of pushing that agenda forward."
(Michael Terren: Live Review: Greywing Ensemble, Cut Common) |
Album Releases
LOF (Lines of Flight) and NatureForms are great releases. (...) Moreover these are all very much concert works in which the silences between carefully calculated interventions, are part of a deep listening experience.
(Jonathan Marshall: Montaged blocks and slow accumulations: Live musique concrete with GreyWing Ensemble, SeeSaw Magazine) GreyWing Ensemble will be releasing two albums on 25 March: nature forms I and Lines of Flight. On the first, they turn field recordings into graphical scores, while on the second they use linked iPads to toy with the very nature of recorded improvisation (Tone List). 2018 Spring Music Preview ~ Experimental - A Closer Listen |
[text]
In what might be their most diverse program yet, the pieces explored spoken language as accompaniment for absurdist actions, problematising meanings and emphasizing the allusive qualities of text. (...) ‘Text’ showcased GreyWing’s ambition and versatility; but most importantly, did so by bringing some of their loosest, most invigorating playing yet.
(Eduardo Cossio: Exhilarating and absurd, SeeSaw Magazine) |
Rio 1917
Given the central place of musical Modernism, Surrealism and Impressionism in the programming, this is definitely not a Latin music concert as the phrase normally suggests. The material is extremely diverse, ranging from the slightly Gothic, Bernard Herrmann-esque feel of the Villa-Lobos sextet, through to some surprisingly approachable pop fusion in the mode of The Necks (Turley’s Nocturnal), while others are virtuosic explorations of formal instrumental challenges (Lara’s fabulous Parábolas na Caverna for flute). There are even pieces which approach acoustic noise-music (the controlled chaos of Cossio’s Ghost).
Jonathan W Marshall: GreyWing: back to & forward from Modernism, Realtime Magazine) |
Tokyo Sound Space Ark
The ensemble was self-assured in interplay and their sensitivity to timbre was effective in recreating the elusive world of Yuasa, a composer whose fleeting musical language seems more focused in the present moment rather than on sequential structures. (...) Piercing sine tones, drones at low volume and white noise gave the music an icy quality; the daring piece affected the audience’s sense of time with its slow evolving, Myburgh’s (and the performers’) attention seemed to be directed at space and time, not as mere props for music to happen, but as the elements of importance.
(Eduardo Cossio: GreyWing Ensemble: Tokyo Sound Space Ark, Cool Perth Nights) |