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American Research Fellow to perform Music of Difference at Sydney Conservatorium
Catherine Branch graduated last spring from Rice University in Houston, TX as a flute performance major. Since then she has been traveling as a research fellow of the Thomas J Watson Foundation, exploring the role of art in disability advocacy around the world. A concert performance of music that reflects her findings will be presented at the Sydney Conservatorium on 26 June 2009.
When in London, Catherine started exploring the concert as a vehicle to increase awareness of the experience of disability. A letter explaining this project and asking for scores was mailed to various composers and faculties in the US and Australia, and this call out received many responses, including several American and Australian composers that offered pieces reflecting upon disability from a wide range of perspectives.
Her upcoming concert in Sydney will reflect on the decidedly unique nature of everyone's experience and embrace diversity and uniqueness as a commonality between us all, music. By sharing a program of pieces that reflect on disability from a range of perspectives, Catherine hopes to initiate a dialouge about the positive implications of difference.
The program opens with music by a composer Robert Schumann, who has a prominent place among the masters of Western classical music. But a lesser-known aspect of this great man's life is his lifelong struggle with mental illness and disability.
Following is a work by a talented young American composer, Angelique Poteat. A Perspective is Angelique's colorful musical exploration of her relationship with her older sister who has a physical disability.
Next on the program is a work called Hibakusha. Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many survivors were plagued with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. These survivors are known as Hibakusha. Aaron Alon's haunting work for solo flute seeks to capture the profoundly isolating nature of the Hibakusha's condition, sometimes described as ‘a frozen dream.'
Composer Robert Bradshaw does not himself have a disability, but after a series of conversations with Catherine about the nature of physical disability, Robert wrote a powerful piece that explores the rhythms of unconventional movement, using music to frame physical disability in a beautifully positive context.
Finally, the program closes with a piece by Melbourne-based composer Dindy Vaughan. Dindy has written a witty work about the nature of being "normal" with blind Australian soprano, Jordie Howell.
Catherine will perform these works with Australian musicians Mariana Green, Jin Tang and Jordie Howell. An opportunity to discuss the works and draw on perspectives of diversity will follow.