Porfyrius’ Shuffle
a circle for solo piano
Composed while in residence at the Banff Centre, Canada, with the support of an Australia Council Project Fellowship.
Performances:
Zubin Kanga
• New Music Network Series, Sydney Conservatorium, July 2007
Andrew Infanti
• Rational Rec, London June 2007
Mark Knoop
• Royal Academy of Music, London March 2007
Naomi Edemariam
• Moonshadows Series, Galiano, Canada, March 2006
• Premiered, Ralston Recital Hall, Banff, Canada, March 2006
“Ricketson's free-form piece Porfyrius' Shuffle showed the composer's ear for mobile textural subtlety” Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald, 27/07/2007
About Porfyrius' Shuffle:
In the fourth century A.D. Optatianus Porfyrius penned together a poem, Carmen XXV. The poem is striking. Carmen XXV is written so that four out of every five words in each line may be ‘shuffled’ to create a new variation of that line. The content is self-reflective. It tells of ‘dysharmonic junctions’, ‘uneven meters’, ‘rough tones’ and ‘confused words’ that ‘torment the singer’. The poem has over a billion possible variations.
Porfyrius' Shuffle also exhibits a multitude of possible forms. The musical material is a short but infinite loop from which the pianist chooses a starting point. A second loop, of differing length, describes an expressive path from which the pianist also chooses a starting point. The expressive loop is overlaid with the musical loop so as to guide decisions such as speed, volume and emotive character. Porfyrius' Shuffle is the first of a series of solo etudes that explore attributes of the infinite.
Porfyrius’ Shuffle was written while in residence at the Banff Centre with the support of an Australia Council Project Fellowship. Many thanks to Kevin Fitz-Gerald and Naomi Edemariam for their feedback. Premiered by Naomi Edemariam on the 8th March, Rolston Recital Hall, Banff. (Damien Ricketson)
Access Porfyrius' Shuffle
An audio excerpt and the score of this work may be available to download on the Music page
