The winner of the 2015 Freedman Classical Fellowship is clarinettist Aviva Endean.
Open this address to hear Aviva play and be interviewed by Andrew Ford on the Music Show:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/musicshow/freedman-classic-music-fellowship-winner/6784998
or see the direct link at the bottom of the page.
The prestigious annual Fellowship awards a classical instrumentalist of 30 years of age or less with a $15,000 scholarship to undertake a career-enhancing creative project.
Aviva Endean is a performance-maker, clarinettist and composer interested in expanding the audience experience of sound by creating site-specific, intimate contexts for listening. Her practice spans a wide variety of musical styles including experimental and improvised music, contemporary chamber music, world music, and inter-arts collaborations.
She has performed with leading new music organisations such as Chamber Made Opera, Golden Fur and New Music Network, co-directed new music ensemble Quiver, played with “Gypsy-death-core” band The Barons of Tang since 2009, and studied and collaborated internationally through the Vancouver Creative Music Institute, Bang on a Can Summer Music Institute, and in Germany and Amsterdam. Most recently she has been touring with Zulya and the Children of the Underground in regional Victoria.
The judges for this year’s Freedman Classical Fellowship were leading composer Nigel Westlake, Director of Artistic Planning for the Sydney Symphony Benjamin Schwartz, and Conductor of the Sydney Conservatorium Symphonic Wind Ensemble John Lynch.
The judges said “Aviva shows an exceptional command of both clarinet and bass clarinet in performing music she herself has composed and the innovative works of other composers. She has devised a Fellowship project that is multidimensional: the music is new and innovative, and its theatrical presentation will bring it alive for both informed audiences and audiences who have never heard such music”.
With her prize money, she plans a concert tour of Europe and an audio and video recording of her performances in their theatrical mode. Richard Letts, Director of the Music Trust said “Aviva is a wonderfully relaxed and articulate advocate for her ideas. She wants to empower audience members to find their own responses to the music and feel free to express their opinions about it.”
The winner of the Freedman Classical Fellowship is selected from a group of 15 nominees each year, selected by distinguished figures in classical music from each state, then four finalists who audition for the judging panel. The judges said all finalists were extremely impressive performers and proposed very imaginative projects, adding that all have great careers in front of them.
The Freedman Music Fellowships are organised by The Music Trust in a funding partnership with the Freedman Foundation. They are administered by SIMA.
