About the Creators

PĒTERIS VASKS was born in 1946 in Soviet-occupied Latvia. The son of a Baptist pastor in an atheist state, he was stigmatised and pre-cluded from studying double bass at the Latvian Academy of Music. Instead, he enrolled at the Academy in Vilnius, Lithuania. He performed with the Latvia’s national opera and symphony orchestras before turning to composition. Early influences included Polish composers Lutosławski and Penderecki as well as Latvian folk traditions. By the 1980s he’d forged a unique musical vocabulary and become known in the West through violinist Gidon Kremer’s championing of his music. He was contracted by the German publisher Schott in 1990, the year before Latvian independence.

His style is characterised by a radiant simplicity, but you’ll also hear drama, brilliance and, especially in his orchestral works, sumptuous romantic lines. As a Latvian, he belongs to a geographical group of composers whose work emerged from an atmosphere of oppression and the struggle for independence in the shadow of the former USSR: Pärt in Estonia, Rautavaara in Finland, Kancheli in Georgia and Gorecki in Poland. Vasks’ music responds to the culture and environment of his homeland and its turbulent history, and the spiritual element of his music taps into our desire for beauty, and for hope.

MARIA LOPES is a Sydney-based composer, singer and musician, and music has been a part of her life since she was a small child. Growing up with music-making in the family home, she began singing in church settings as a choir member and cantor, conducting and directing church music in her late teens. The Sydney folk music scene also provided an outlet for her songwriting skills to emerge. After completing a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, she went on to perform in recital with pianist Beryl Potter on the Sydney music club circuit. Composition and singing reemerged in her life during postgraduate study working as a clinical music therapist.

She has performed as a vocal soloist with jazz pianist Kevin Hunt for the Whitlam Institute, Music at Manly and SALT Festival in Port Lincoln, and at the Hub Springwood and Eastwood Ryde Leagues Club. She has sung with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs since 2013 and is a member of the Chamber Singers.

For Maria, composition is a natural extension of improvisation. Her writing process is intuitive and lyrical in style, drawing heavily on background research from which her ideas take shape.

PHOTO: PIA JOHNSON The STUART GREENBAUM sound has overt connections to jazz, pop and minimalism but is equally grounded in the Western art music tradition. He studied composition with Brenton Broadstock and Barry Conyngham at the University of Melbourne and is now Professor and Head of Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. He has composed more than 230 works, including 24 sonatas, seven string quartets, five piano trios, seven concertos, five symphonies and two operas. He was a featured composer at the 2006 Aurora Festival, resident composer at the 2009 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, and Composer in Focus at the 2009 Bangalow Music Festival.

In 2009 he was Australia’s representative for the Trans-Tasman Composer Exchange, working in Auckland with NZTrio on a new piano trio, The Year Without a Summer, which toured nationally for Chamber Music New Zealand, and was performed for the ISCM World New Music Days (Sydney, 2010) and at the City of London Festival (2011).

In 2019 he was featured composer with the Flinders Quartet, resident composer with Melbourne Youth Orchestra and resident fellow at the Akiyoshidai International Art Village in Japan; and in 2020 he was a composer in residence at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Sweden.

ROSS BAGLIN was born in Melbourne in 1961 and graduated in English literature and psychology at the University of Melbourne 23 years later. Amidst a career as a senior business executive with several large companies, he has sustained a 40-year artistic collaboration with composer Stuart Greenbaum, resulting in two operas, several large choral works, song cycles and art songs. He has also published poetry in Poetry Review. Today, he lives in London and manages a start-up company, but visits Australia whenever it’s allowed.