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Ross Carey's work reflects an eclectic approach to music composition. He gains inspiration from his native Aotearoa/New Zealand—the interweaving of land and sea, sounds of the natural world—as well as from many other traditions, such as the Hindustani classical tradition in which music is seen as 'offering'; the gamelan music of Java; the keyboard works in the European classical tradition; 'contemporary classical' music; sounds of hymns and the early influences from his mother's original church music compositions; and from literature and arts of many other lands and eras.
Through his instrumental and vocal music composed using 'raw materials' of various origins -- written texts, the 'musicalphabet' of Udo Kasemets, pre-existing works (both his own and by others) -- or through an 'old-fashioned' reliance on the touch and sound of the keyboard, Ross Carey fashions new insights from the old. According to musician Irwansyah Harahap, he paradoxically captured the heart of the strength of the percussive gamelan, for example, in the quiet and sustained sounds of his Two Pieces for Three Gamelan Players. In Nga Hau o Kaiaua (The Winds of Kaiaua) composed for Alexa Still, solo flute alternates with taonga puoro (native Maori flutes) traversing the legend of how the Southern Alps of New Zealand gained their impressive height. Great Wall (Souvenir de Visby) premiered by vocalising pianist Gao Ping at the Asian Composers' League Festival in Wellington in early 2007, paints a historical portrait of the Swedish town of Visby on Gotland Island in seven connected episodes, and was composed during a stay at the Visby International Centre for Composers as an ISCM fellow. A Won for Buddha for piano four hands is not so much a narrative, but a 'musical offering', counting again and again through the tones of John Cage's In a Landscape until we arrive at a place of repose.
Other offerings include the elegiac Medicine Bundle no. 1: Flower Echoes of Springs, Sun and Mountainside commemorating the Bali bombing of 2002, and written for pianist Ananda Sukarlan. Elegy for string quartet, composed after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, received its premiere at the Auckland Philharmonia Ensemble Philharmonia concerts, in November 2006. Another elegy, Elegy (for a known) was composed for Toronto's Continuum Ensemble, and comments on our daily media diet of disaster reporting; in the crush of news we forget about the humanity of those caught in the crossfire.
In all of Ross Carey's work an authentic voice is heard, responding to concerns that are both musical and extra-musical. This approach also informs his work as a performer: he concentrates on performing not only his own pieces but those of other composers, especially from the Asia-Pacific region.
In April 2008 he will perform at the International Composing Women Festival in Beijing, China, in a concert of new compositions by (mainly) women composers from Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Canada. Other recitals have seen him perform with violinist Kirtley Leigh Paine in the 2007 Paradise Concert series in Cairns; at the National Library in Canberra; at the Universities of Canterbury, Christchurch, and Hong Kong; at Theatre Utan Kayu in Jakarta where, with pianist Andi Setiawan, he performed his own compositions; and at the Indonesia-America Institute, Medan, Sumatera, and Whakatane. The last mentioned concert was a fundraiser for those who lost homes in the mudslide at Matata in New Zealand’s eastern Bay of Plenty.
Ross Carey’s scores are available from the Centre for New Zealand Music (SOUNZ). He is a member of the Fellowship of Australian Composers and the Australasian Performing Rights Association.
He is currently teaching piano and musicianship at the Mitchell Conservatorium of Music in NSW, Australia.
Page created 12 August 2007. URL www.geocities.com/rossjcarey
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