Stuart Greenbaum’s compositions are often inspired by our earth, travel, and space. Over the next two months Greenbaum’s small chamber and large ensemble works are being presented in Australia and Canada. From a world premiere performance of an intimate viola and piano duo, to a symphonic colossus for organ and wind symphony, Greenbaum’s music will delight.
“Melbourne composer Stuart Greenbaum’s chamber works, like all the best art, is in the world but not of the world.”
Will Yeoman, Limelight magazine
Pianists Ryan Baxter and Dr. Connor O’Kane present a concert for one piano, four hands. Greenbaum’s Sonata for Piano 4-Hands, presents three different solutions to the challenges of 16 fingers and four thumbs playing at the one keyboard. Running in parallel to this logistic puzzle is a contemplation of the sun and earth in the context of an expanding universe.
“Stuart Greenbaum’s Sonata for Piano 4-Hands takes inspiration from the cosmos, building a language inspired by the relationship between sun and earth – at times powerful and domineering, at others contemplative and spacious.”
Andrew Aronowicz, Limelight, January 2017
Organised Lounge, for percussion ensemble of 13 players, is a play on words in reference to the term ‘organised sound’ invented by French-born composer, Edgard Varèse. Specifically, this piece was created as a companion piece to his famous percussion ensemble work, Ionisation, for 13 players. As the title suggests, the influence of ‘lounge’ music pervades. Performed by Myriad Percussion, Greenbaum’s energetic lounge music is audibly and visually entertaining.
The Gradual Slowing of the Earth
The Gradual Slowing of the Earth concerto for organ and symphonic winds was composed in 2014. The Earth’s rotation has been gradually slowing for over four billion years. This has had a lasting impact on geophysical activity that shapes mountains, oceans, the interior of the planet and its crust. The slow-down is so microscopic (milliseconds per century) that we are unable to physically sense the phenomenon. Joshua van Konkelenberg, organist, joins Adelaide Wind Orchestra to present this 15-minute work.
Towards the Edge of Google Maps
Sebastian Coyce, viola, and Berta Brozgul, piano, present the World Premiere performance of Towards the Edge of Google Maps, duo for viola and piano. This composition is a musical response to a series of six digital drawings by Bulgarian artist Radina Stoïmenova. The drawings show abandoned places: dormant factories, halted construction, vehicles ditched at the sides of roads, broken power lines, unfinished fences, and blackened trees. Elevated freeways pass over and around these sites and the navigation maps point toward areas of dense population; but the sites themselves are now dead-ends, devoid of people or activity. Yet palm trees flourish and there is space and potential for life and community. Stoïmenova looks beyond the purely social or economic meaning and explores how places remain in collective memory.
Book Tickets Here – Sonata for Piano Concert 1
October 23 - 2024
CGR - Conrad Grebel University
140 Westmount Road North
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Book Tickets Here – Sonata for Piano Concert 2
October 25 – 2024
St Andrew’s Church
King & Simcoe
Toronto, Canada
Book Tickets Here – Organised Lounge
October 26 - 2024
Kenneth Myer Auditorium
Ian Potter Southbank Centre
Melbourne, Australia
Book Tickets Here – The Gradual Slowing of the Earth
November 9- 2024
Elder Hall, University of Adelaide
Adelaide, South Australia.
Book Tickets Here – Towards the Edge of Google Maps
November 22 – 2024
Abbotsford Convent, Rosina Auditorium
1 St Heliers Street
Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia
