Bright way to put Tassie in spotlight

PIANIST Shan Deng and composer Maria Grenfell have been selected to take part in the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival in Ohio this week.

The annual event has been held since 1980 and celebrates the contemporary arts through concerts, panels, art exhibitions, seminars, master classes and presentation of papers.

It aims to foster the latest musical ideas and highest musical standards.

Selected applicants are invited to participate, and the festival attracts leading performers and composers from all over the US and around the world.

Grenfell is head of the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music and composition co-ordinator, while Deng is classical piano co-ordinator and lecturer.

Tomorrow afternoon Deng, together with a US flautist and clarinettist, will play Grenfell’s work Poems of a Bright Moon, which was also performed by members of the Australia Ensemble in Sydney last week. Deng said it was one of her favourite pieces by Grenfell. “I really love it,” she said. “It has a really bright opening and catches your attention from the first note. “The three instruments work really well together. “The slow second movement is about a moonlit night and has beautiful harmonies to reflect that.

“The third movement is more rhythmical and energetic, with a strong pulse that gives an exciting ending.”

While at the festival Deng and Grenfell will have the opportunity to meet and hear the works of contemporary composers. They will also give master classes, and Grenfell has been invited to take part in a panel discussion on music and politics with other composers.

After the festival they will travel to California, where they will give a master class at California State University on Grenfell’s work Five Songs from the East, which she wrote for Deng and her father Wei Dung, who is a renowned player of the pipa (a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument).