Music 2 Resource kit – Introduction and Biography sketch

~ mitchelljamesdavis

This resource kit will be based on “Hectic Jacaranda” by Damien Ricketson (2019). It is 5’30” in length, a single movement work, written for Pipa, Classical guitar and an electronic backing track.

View the score here : Since taken down for privacy. Please support Damien’s work through his AMC profile https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/ricketson-damien

Listen to the recording here : since taken down for privacy. the youtube link below provides the same audio.

Watch a performance of the work in Sydney here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSqvFHvDMGs

Biography sketch of Damien Ricketson

Damien Ricketson was born in 1973 (3) and quickly devoted his professional life to music. This is achieved with his work at the Conservatorium as an academic and as a composer in his own right. At a young age he studied composition at the Sydney Conservatorium, before moving on to study further overseas with Louis Andriessen (2) who was a mentor for him as a composer and has since been cited as a musical influence by Damien (program notes of Hectic Jacaranda). 

His professional life in composition and music began with his own venture; “Ensemble Offspring” formed in 1995 (2), performing music written by Damien and any composers who sought to maintain modernity and exploration in their creative work. Moving on from Ensemble Offspring in 2015, Damien became the Program leader of the composition department at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and remained in this post until 2019 (1). Damien continues to lecture and teach at the Conservatorium today in the composition department.

Damien continues to be an active composer alongside his professional life as lecturer at the Conservatorium. Some of his major works in recent years include “The Howling Girls” from 2018 (an opera), and “The secret noise” from 2014, which includes dance elements. His recent “Hectic Resonance” series from 2019 into 2020 is Damien’s creative response to the coronavirus pandemic (4) as the work took on new meaning and value with it’s themes of “connection and distance” lending itself easily to musicians who adapted to a lifestyle without live performance or rehearsal with fellow musicians, instead employing digital home recordings, social media and video to make music with other musicians and share with an online audience.

Sources

  1. https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/ricketson-damien
  2. https://www.sydney.edu.au/music/about/our-people/academic-staff/damien-ricketson.html#collapseBio
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Ricketson
  4. https://curiousnoise.com/hectic-resonance
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Published by mitchelljamesdavis

Mitchell Davis is currently a music education student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, born in 1997 in Sydney. Following a positive experience with music education in primary and secondary school combined with a personal interest in music as an art form and pastime, the decision to become a secondary school music teacher was naturally made. Complimentary to studying music education, Mitchell also holds ongoing experience working casually in a youth centre in his home town of Liverpool, New South Wales. After studying a Certificate IV in Youth Work, It was here that he initially found his confidence and appreciation for working with young people to achieve positive outcomes, predominately running various sport and recreational youth programs both in local Liverpool school environments and at the youth centre's facilities. Mitchell's specific area of musical expertise is in contemporary popular music. He is a guitarist and songwriter who enjoys genres such as heavy metal, extreme metal, hard rock, blues and pop. He has begun to write, release and perform his original music in order to gain greater experience in the world of contemporary music and give more value to his skills in becoming a music educator.

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