MODART

Modart

MODART is a professional development project that provides opportunities for emerging composers to develop works for vocal ensemble, and which then receive public performance by The Song Company.

Biography: David Howell

David Howell is an English-born composer who moved to Australia in 1990. He attended Perth Modern School where he studied French horn. In 2000 he began his university studies at the University of Western Australia where he studied composition with Roger Smalley and Lindsay Vickery and horn with Darryl Poulsen. During his time at UWA he wrote many pieces including Hot Air Bassooning, Chipped Chrome, Neon Reflections and The Banshee. His works have also been performed at Club Zho including Electric Abyss, The Cricket and Sirens. David has worked in various collaborative projects, writing Half-light for choreographer Angie Dias and participating in the MODART03 workshop with The Song Company, where he wrote Acid Rain. He graduated in 2004 with honours and received the Dorothy Ransome Prize for his composition The Banshee. On completing his degree David moved to Melbourne where he studied conducting with Andrew Wailes and voice with Vivien Hamilton.

In August 2004 he was commissioned to write At the End of the Stars for Melbourne University Choral Society and the Australian classical players. He also wrote a set of six fanfares which was performed by the Royal Melbourne Philhamonic at Christmas. In 2005 David started his Masters of Music, specialising in composition, at Melbourne University studying under Stuart Greenbaum and Brenton Broadstock. He has recently finished a work called Platypus which was performed in New Zealand by the Australian Children's Choir. David is currently working on a score for a prodution of Hamlet which will be performed by the 'Dancing with Strangers' Theatre Company in October.

Program Notes 2005: Apocalypse and Gabriel

Written collaboratively by David Howell and Nela Trifkovic, this work uses the beauty and grace of the character Gabriel (angel from middle eastern and Indian mythology; Gibriel in Salman Rushdie's writing Satanic Verses) that is expressed through quasi-oriental melodies and spoken word to soothe the pain of the vocal characters (the horsemen, the whore the beast, etc.) as they approach the end of the world through the experiences of war and famine explored through various onomatopoeic approaches to vocal composition and colourful use of multi-lingual texts.

Program Notes 2003: Acid Rain

Music by David Howell, text by Michael Workman. In this piece I wanted to contrast the idea of a city landscape with the ruggedness and primitive nature of folksongs and ceremonial chants. The choir is divided into male and female parts with the female voices representing an imaginary distorted urban folk-song, whilst the male voices sing an irregular tribal chant. The female parts are sung offstage to create a sense of ethereal but tense ambience.