Ren Walters Wins APRA Composer's Commission at 2009 Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
On Friday May 8th from 7.30-9.30pm in the Iwaki Auditorium at ABC Southbank, the Melbourne Jazz
Fringe Festival presents its 4th annual APRA Composers Commission Concert. Following the acclaimed
success of previous winners Jex Saarelaht, Colin Hopkins and Erik Griswold, the performance of 2009
winner Ren Walters' new work “Surrounded by C” will be one of the highlights of this year’s festival.
Ren Walters is one of the most significantly unique voices in contemporary improvisation in Australia. A
guitarist, bandleader, composer and performer in rock, jazz, fusion and free music since 1971, Ren has
been a leader in instigating music performance venues and spaces in Melbourne. He has been a member
of the Australian Art Orchestra and has travelled extensively (USA, Europe, South Africa) with his own
bands. Ren has composed for and performed with music for contemporary dance, film, video and
multimedia, and is also a practising graphic/visual artist, focussing on painting, collage and computer
based design. He regularly performs real-time composition and precomposed works with "THIS
Ensemble", Dur-e Dara, TIP, Adrian Sherriff, Stephen Magnusson, Adam Simmons, TD5, and others
around Melbourne and in particular at The Make It Up Club and Bennetts Lane Jazz Club. His current
musical activity is largely based around recording/documenting gig and studio performance, and nonperformance 'domestic music making'.
Selected from a growing list of outstanding applicants, Ren’s work “Surrounded by C” is for voice artist,
3 brass instruments (primarily using mutes and other physical modifying devices, 3 clarinets (primarily
bass clarinets), small percussive objects, and real-time manipulation and amplification with focus on
placements of sounds in the space using a 5.1 surround sound system. The key performers are voice artist Carolyn Connors and percussionist Dur-e Dara.
The Melbourne Jazz Fringe APRA Composers Commission Concert will also feature singer Gian Slater
(National Jazz Awards and Freedman award finalist) with the Silo String Quartet. Gian recorded her
latest album ‘Creatures at the crossroads’ with the virtuosic pianist, Will Poskitt, who tragically passed
away late last year. Gian has re arranged selections from the album for the Silo String Quartet.
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