COMPLEXIONS -Four Preludes for Chamber Orchestra was composed in 2019 for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's Modern Music Ensemble. It presents four distinctive character pieces based on the 'Four Temperaments', a proto-psychological theory which promotes four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. The Four Preludes serve to create unity and/or contrast within any program of works, with the number and order of movements selected in conjunction with character and style of the other repertoire. The complexity of each temperament and their overlapping traits is represented through this extensive exploration and manipulation of serial-influenced procedures, which articulates the connectedness and intricacy of our physical being.
Array and Disarray is a trio for Clarinet, Violin and Marimba based on a 3 x 4 matrix of randomly arranged numbers from 1 to 12. Each number is assigned a pitch from the chromatic scale (C, C#... to B), an interval (perfect unison, minor 2nd… to major 7th), and rhythmic duration (semiquavers, quavers… to semibreve). The matrix is explored through a variety of permutations, creating number of different tone rows, limited interval sets and rhythmic motifs which are developed through a number of arithmetic series and sequences, including the triangular number sequence (1, 3, 6, 10…), pascals triangle, and even Pi! The work is structured in 3 distinct sections, the first utilising all intervals through all-interval/all-note rows and chords, gradually diminishing over the middle section until only few intervals remain in the final section. The subsequent algorithm becomes the foundation of the work melodically, harmonically and rhythmically, through which the potential in instrumental attack and decay is investigated as well as the wide arrangements of both pure and composite tone colour available in such a diverse instrumentation.