MEET THE COMPOSERS

Lachlan Skipworth 2017 Cybec Composer Participant

Hailed by The Australian as possessing a “rare gift as a melodist” and by Limelight as expressing “both exquisite delicacy and tremendous power”, Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth writes orchestral, chamber, vocal and experimental music. His vivid musical language is coloured by three years spent in Japan where his immersion in the study of the shakuhachi bamboo flute inevitably became a part of his muse. Winning the prestigious Paul Lowin Prize for orchestral composition in 2016 established Skipworth’s reputation, and led to a string of major commissions and a stint as composer-in-residence with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include performances by Diana Doherty, Genevieve Lacey, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Australian String Quartet, the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Skipworth’s recordings continue to gather critical acclaim, including a five-star review for his debut album and an ARIA nomination for his second, as well as frequent radio play across Australia.

Afterglow

Dusk has always held a special beauty for me, particularly the pervading sense of stillness as the colours in the air slowly shift and fade, quietly settling before the darkness comes. In composing afterglow, I hoped to capture musically these moments caught between the lingering sense of what was and the anticipation of what is to come. To depict this, the piece conjures not only the slow turning of colours, but also the soft rustle of leaves after a gust of wind, and the bubbling of foam that follows a broken wave.

After a short introduction, the string section begins to murmur gently as pizzicato flickers leave trails of sustained sounds in their wake. Despite a series of increasingly colourful interjections, the cluster harmony is bound tighter and tighter until finally broken apart by a tutti flourish that retreats to end the first section. A series of open-voiced chords follow, subtly twisting as the harp, piano and vibraphone weave a path through the floating harmonies. After a sparsely orchestrated interlude, the music swells to a climax of tutti surges from which soaring melodies emerge. Gradually the sound recedes to leave the piano and harp whispering a high interlocking figure that is surrounded by an eerie chord in the strings, a musical afterglow of sorts.