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Digital Audio Album
A Room of Her Own / Anne Cawrse ; Australian String Quartet.
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Work Overview
A Room of Her Own is my essay and personal reflection upon the requirements for prosperous creativity. In it, I explore the delicate balance between the realm of the creator and the work being created, taking inspiration from quotes gathered from Virginia Woolf's seminal text A Room of One's Own.
The work is in four movements, played attacca (without pause):
I. Web "...imaginative work (is) like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners."
II. Epigraph
III. Anon "I would venture to guess that Anon... was often a woman."
IV. Incandescence "The mind of an artist, in order to achieve the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in (her), must be incandescent.... There must be no obstacle in it."
The music opens with Web, a fragile meditation performed by solo cello, accompanied by an off-stage 'choir' of bowed crotales. In Epigraph, the off-stage performers return and introduce us to musical themes by composers Margaret Sutherland, Clara Schumann and Rebecca Clarke. These themes then become the primary musical material for Anon, an aggressive and hostile, but occasionally tender homage to forgotten voices of the musical canon. A poignant viola solo announces Incandescence: a hymn to self-awareness, acceptance, and vulnerability.
Notes on the quoted works can be found by following this link.
Work Details
Year: 2020
Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, cello (players doubling on crotales (C5-C6 8ve set), suspended cymbal).
Duration: 28 min.
Difficulty: Advanced
Contents note: I. Web -- II. Epigraph -- III. Anon -- IV. Incandescence.
Commission note: Commissioned by Elder Conservatorium of Music for performance by Australian String Quartet.. Commissioned with support of the John Bishop Memorial Commission
First performance: by Australian String Quartet at ASQ plays Beethoven Sollima Cawrse (Elder Hall) on 17 Oct 2020
Awards & Prizes
| Year | Award | Placing | Awarded for/to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Albert H Maggs Composition Award | First Prize | Anne Cawrse |
| 2021 | Art Music Awards: Work of the Year: Chamber Music | Winner | Anne Cawrse |
Analysis
Resonate article: 2021 Albert H Maggs Award to Anne Cawrse by Australian Music Centre
Subjects
- Inspired by: Literature & Poetry
Performances of this work
17 Oct 2020: at ASQ plays Beethoven Sollima Cawrse (Elder Hall). Featuring Australian String Quartet.
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