With Tura New Music celebrating their 30th year of operation, the Totally Huge New Music Festival (THNMF) kicks off this week and is set to surprise yet again with its freshness and vitality.
The 13th THNMF runs from October 19 to 29 in 2017, and features internationally acclaimed artists Anne LeBaron (USA), Kouhei Harada (Japan) and Rick Snow (USA) alongside Australian new music leaders Speak Percussion (Melbourne), Ross Bolleter (Perth) Decibel Ensemble (Perth/Melbourne), Chris Tonkin (Perth), Lawrence English (Brisbane), Callum G’Froerer (Perth/Berlin) and Catherine Ashley (Perth).
Renowned US artist Anne LeBaron will not only be presenting her cutting edge performance work at the THNMF but will work with local artists prior to it, developing new work for the Festival. Her compositions embrace an exotic array of subjects encompassing vast reaches of space and time and she is widely recognised for her work in instrumental, electronic, and performance realms. Anne is the Keynote Speaker at the Festival conference and will present University and public masterclasses, workshops and lectures. Her Public Concert is at on October 27 at Subiaco Arts Centre.
Fluorophone by Speak Percussion, a program of works that explore light sources as musical instruments promises an incredibly unique experience Festival experience. A kaleidoscopic sound world is created in which the central instruments radiate, flicker, glow and burn moving between noise, theatrical music and virtuosic instrumentalism. Catch it October 25 at Subiaco Arts Centre.
The iconic Midland Railway Workshops will host the largest and closing event of the festival on October 29. A Wave and Waves by Michael Pisaro will be performed by Speak Percussion and 96 local percussionists. In this rare, deep listening experience the audience sits among the performers to experience the music as if part of an ocean of sound. Performances are at 1pm and 4pm and this is only the third time the work has been performed since its premiere in 2016 at the Melbourne Festival.
Internationally the Totally Huge New Music Festival has developed as a key new music event. This biennial Festival is a vital platform that brings the world to Western Australia to connect with our artists and vice versa. The exchange of sounds and ideas that result from the THNMF feed the innovation, development and profile of our contemporary artists.
Artistic Director of the Festival, Tos Mahoney says THNMF offers the WA community a powerful and enriching music and sound experience that they would otherwise never access. “THNMF promotes local and national artists by offering a unique platform for audiences to experience alternative perpsectives. It also builds relationships between international and national artists that will benefit the WA art community now and in the future by enabling valuable skills exchange that would otherwise not be accessible for young and emerging artists in WA.”
The full schedule of Festival events is available at http://thnmf2017.tura.com.au/.
The Totally Huge New Music Festival runs from October 19 to 29.