PROGRAM NOTE: The work is inspired by Australian artist Dale Frank’s series of paintings of the same name. The series of paintings offers the viewer “a portal to another place; a place that transcends the physical to encompass the psychological.” For me, the paintings offer a place of wild imagination, a portal in which fears can be relinquished, and hunger can be replenished. Yet the paintings also reveal an introspective loneliness and sadness. I was interested in exploring polar states of interior and exterior. I wanted to create sounds which flowed between these two states, between solid and liquid, and colours which mixed and dripped into one another like the colours on the canvas.
Kitty Xiao is an Australian composer, electronic musician and pianist. Central to her aesthetic is a search for unity in contemporary culture, human psyche, art and machine. Her music moves between the world of concert music to performing as an electronic artist of experimental noise and techno. Working closely with analog synthesis has greatly informed her attraction to the visceral qualities of sound, sensation and spontaneity in music. Both practices often explore high polarities and extremities, process and perception, vulnerability and imperfection. Her music involves electro-acoustic and acoustic compositions, and live modular sets which explore the relationship between sound and physical embodiment, the space it occupies, its tactility, and intensity. Her music is represented by the Australian Music Centre, Move Records, and she is the recipient of the 2021 Denis Diderot [ A-i-R ] Grant, Château d’Orquevaux (FR), 2021 Sounds Australia Export Stimulus Program (AU), 2020 Belle S. Gitelman Award (US), 2019 Howard Hanson Large Ensemble Prize (US) and the Alfred Kitchin Scholarship (UK).
Performance of her music include: Ensemble Modern (DE), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (DE), Switch~ Ensemble (US), OSSIA New Music (US), line upon line percussion (US), Sarasota Orchestra (US), Transient Canvas (US), Panoramic Voices (US), Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra (US), Frequency Shift (US), Modular World (US), Sydeboob (US), Elysium Dance (UK), Brighton Fashion Week (UK), Slow Rise Music (CAN), Arts Centre Melbourne’s 5x5x5 (AU), Australian National Academy of Music (AU), Melbourne Composer’s League (AU), Plexus (AU), Clan Analogue (AU); her work being featured on their album Coordinates. She was nominated for Best Original Score by the 2019 Olympus Film Festival in Los Angeles for her work on the short film Solus.
Her works have been part of the Red Note New Music Festival (US), Image/Sound Festival (US), line upon line percussion Winter Composer Festival (US), Ascension Arts Festival (US), Yarn/Wire Institute (US), Adelaide Fringe (AU), Mapping Melbourne Festival (AU), Tilde New Music Festival (AU), and upcoming at cresc biennale in Frankfurt (DE). Kitty released her first album Novum with Nimbus Trio in 2016 with Move Records, formed the Six Piano Collective and was Artistic Director of the Six Piano Project in 2017.
Kitty is resident composer of 2021-2022 Château d’Orquevaux (FR), 2021-2022 International Ensemble Modern Academy (DE), 2021 Darmstädter Ferienkurse (DE), 2021 SICPP at New England Conservatory (US), 2020 line upon line percussion (US), 2020 Red Note New Music Festival (US), 2019 American Composer’s Orchestra Earshot program (US), 2019 Yarn/Wire Institute (US), 2017 Tilde New Music Academy (AU), 2016 Keep Composer’s Weird (US), 2016 Australian Art Orchestra CMI (AU).
Kitty holds a Master of Music (Composition) at the Eastman School of Music (US), a Master of Music (Performance) from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (UK), Master of Teaching (AU) and a Bachelor of Music (AU) from the University of Melbourne and attended Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (AU).