Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

How does music respond to art which responds to our environment?

In 1992 nearly 29,000 rubber duck bath toys fell from a ship travelling from Hong Kong to the USA. The first beaching was 1500kms away in Alaska with ducks gradually washing up everywhere from Russia to Hawaii, shedding light on ocean currents and wind patterns. Artist Matthew Quick responded with his painting, Intrepid Traveller.

Inspired by Quick’s painting, composer Katy Abbott developed Introduced Species. The music explores the environmental issues of the North Pacific garbage patch in three movements. The story inherently informs the music’s structure. Both the title and the story influence the instrumentation and musical material.

But how?

Challenged by the University of Sydney’s own Ruth Barcan (Department of Gender & Cultural Studies), composer Katy Abbott with conductor Iain Grandage and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will deconstruct then reconstruct the composition, concluding with the performance of 20 minute work with accompanying projected visuals.

This one hour special event by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, co-presented with Sydney Ideas the University of Sydney’s public program, explores the crisis of the trash vortex in our oceans through sound and image and the dangerous cuteness of rubber ducks.

A unique event for music and arts lovers, composition students and the curious!

Image: 'Intrepid Travellers' by Matthew Quick.

Katy Abbott - composer & presenter
Iain Grandage - conductor
Ruth Barcan - University of Sydney
Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on (02) 8215 4600 or by email to info@sydneysymphony.com

Featured Australian Works

Introduced species : Symphony no. 2 : for orchestra (2014) by Katy Abbott — performed by Iain Grandage and Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Featured artists

• Performer Sydney Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor Iain Grandage