From the media release
28 October 2014
Grammy Award nominated musician and composer Barney McAll has been chosen for next year’s Peggy Glanville-Hicks residency.
The residency is a partnership between the Australia Council and the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ Trust.
The announcement will be officially made tonight in Sydney at the Peggy Glanville-Hicks address, hosted by the New Music Network. The address will be given by composer, video artist and instrument designer Warren Burt.
Australia Council Acting Director Music Andy Rantzen said Barney McAll was the outstanding candidate in a strong field.
“The Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ Trust and the Australia Council are very pleased to be able to offer Barney McAll this opportunity for 12 months”, Mr Rantzen said.
“Barney’s acceptance of the residency marks his return to Australia after being based in New York for 17 years. We are delighted Barney has decided to move back to Sydney to undertake some exciting projects, and that we are able to facilitate a highly respected Australian artist bringing back such a wealth of international experience”.
Mr McAll said he was very grateful to be named next year’s Peggy Glanville-Hicks resident.
“Firstly, I want to say a huge thank you to Peggy Glanville-Hicks and the Trust because it’s just so difficult to find a block of time to dedicate to music and this residency honors music and its great importance”, Mr McAll said.
“I have taken in a great deal working with some of the greatest musicians in the world and touring internationally since the early 1990s and I see the residency as a chance to reflect and refine some of the concepts and ideas that I have been exposed to”.
Mr McAll said during his residency he was looking forward to reconnecting with his Australian peers and working with them on a number of projects.
These include writing solo piano pieces for next year’s Kinetic Jazz Festival in Sydney, which have been influenced by the gospel church music he has been playing in Queens, New York, and writing a commissioned piece for the Monash Art Ensemble to be premiered at the 2015 Wangaratta Jazz Festival
He will also write works for two pianos, homemade instruments, celeste and vibraphone with Eugene Ughetti and his mentor and this year’s Don Banks Award winner, Mike Nock.
“I will also be developing a multi-media performance of songs from my forthcoming album Global Intimacy, which looks at the detrimental effects of technology and social media on our psyches and on society – the 24/7 curating of the exhibition of the self as it were. The music will feature Gian Slater and Invenio, Sia Furler, and Josh Mease”, Mr McAll said.
Mr McAll said he would also hold private music lessons and workshops as part of his residency.
“I really want to invest back into Australia the way Australia has invested in me. I look forward to sharing ideas and concepts with many students”.
Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ Trust Chair Shane Simpson said the residency was given each year either to a young composer with wonderful potential or an established composer with a strong track record.
“Peggy bequeathed her house to be a composers’ haven – somewhere they could work with time and space, without having to worry about the rent”, Mr Simpson said.
“When you look at the achievements of the composers who have had fellowships, you see how wise she was”.
Past residents include Gordon Kerry, Liza Lim, Julian Yu, Mary Finsterer, Andrew Ford, Julian Day, Matthew Hindson, and Elena Kats-Chermin.
In partnership with the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ Trust, the Australia Council has offered the residency through a competitive grant round since 2012.
Applications are encouraged from composers and songwriters of all musical genres and the successful resident is provided with $20,000 to create new work and undertake professional development.
About Barney McAll
Grammy Award nominated pianist, keyboardist, composer and arranger, Barney McAll grew up in Melbourne, Australia and received a Bachelor of music from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1991.
From 1989-1997 Barney worked with Australian artists such as Vince Jones, Kate Ceberano and Renee Geyer touring Australia and Europe.
He moved to New York City in 1997 after being invited to join The Gary Bartz quartet and continues to tour internationally with Gary Bartz as well as with Fred Wesley and the JB’s, Josh Roseman and recently vocalist Daniel Merriweather. Barney is also musical director for international sensation Sia Furler.
Barney also leads numerous ensembles, including Sylent Running and MODAS (Mother Of Dreams And Secrets) and more recently his large ensemble GRAFT, which has been nominated for an ARIA award as well as an Australian Independent Record Association Award.
Barney has played on more than one hundred recordings and has release seven solo albums. He has also written the scores for a multitude of award winning films including; Liberia: An Uncivil War (DISCOVERY/ NY TIMES); Pushing The Elephant (Independent Lens); Motherland Afghanistan (PBS); We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis (PBS).
Barney was nominated for a Grammy award in 2007 and was also awarded a prestigious Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts for 2007-2008. Barney has also performed or toured with Kurt Rosenwinkel; Dewey Redman; Maceo Parker; Doug Devries; Kenny Garrett; Vernel Fornier; Badal Roy; Stefon Harris; Jimmy Cobb; Eddie Henderson; Gary Costello; Ben Monder; Mark Turner; Peter Apfelbaum; Bernie Worrell; Alan Browne; Billy Harper; Jim Black; Steve Turre; and Roy Ayers.
About Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was born in Melbourne in 1912 and died in Sydney in 1990.
She won an international reputation as a composer and music critic and is one of the few women of her time to achieve such distinction.
The majority of her works were written in America between the 1940s and 1960s and many have been recorded, including two of her four operas
One of those operas, The Transposed Heads, premiered in Louisville in 1954 and New York in 1958.
Her 1963 opera Sappho, recently recorded with an all-star cast (Toccata Classics), is yet to be produced on stage.
The recording of her Sonata for Harp, recorded by Marshall McGuire, won the 1996 APRA award for the most performed contemporary classical composition.
Peggy Glanville-Hicks returned to Australia in the 1970s and became an important figure on the national music scene.
In her will she bequeathed her house as a residence for composers.
