Anne Norman
Anne Norman is a performer, improviser, composer and teacher of shakuhachi based in Melbourne. She works as a freelance artist across music-theatre productions, solo and collaborative recitals, broadcasts and recording.
She has also undertaken a PhD on the intercultural reception of shakuhachi through the Department of Japanese Studies at Monash University.
After 14 years of training on western flute (B.Mus., University of Melbourne), Anne took up the shakuhachi in 1986 while living in Japan. In 1988 she returned to Australia to complete a Masters in Ethnomusicology at Monash, then spent a further two years in Japan on a Japanese Government grant, studying shakuhachi performance at the Tokyo University of Fine Art and Music. Her teachers are Nakamura Shindo of the Ueda school in Kobe, Tajima Tadashi of the Watazumi-do tradition in Osaka, and Yamaguchi Goro of the Kinko school in Tokyo.
She has performed in Japan and Australia with musicians from traditional and contemporary Japanese music, European art music, jazz, avant-garde and other cultural heritages. She has composed, improvised and performed for theatre and dance, and has collaborated with visual artists and poets.
In 1993 she collaborated on the CD Jouissance, which recontextualises the music of Hildegard and Abelard by interweaving Gregorian chant with shakuhachi, double bass, Buddhist bells and other percussion. She is artistic coordinator of the group Nadoya, which has developed hybrid arts work fusing music and movement art (neo-butoh) with interactive technology, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
Artist's website: annenorman.com
Anne Norman is featured on the following titles
On the Wings of a Butterfly
Cross-cultural music by Australian composers. This 2005 collection from Lê Tuấn Hùng gathers works by Ros Bandt, Brigid Burke, Warren Burt, Deborah Kayser and others, and was nominated for an ARIA Award.
Composer
Scent of Time
Six Australian composers take Asian instruments and voices beyond their own traditions. From dan tranh and sheng to shakuhachi and erhu, the programme is cross-cultural concert music at its most exploratory.
Composer
Breath of Creation
Flutes of two worlds. On shakuhachi, baroque flute and recorder, two performers renowned in their own fields join forces in a display of virtuosic delights and evocative sound-scapes.
Composer
Arranger
Anne Norman also appears on
Shifting Landscapes
Shifting Landscapes is Australian flautist Kathryn Moorhead’s survey of the flute’s contemporary sound world, gathering works that push the instrument past its familiar range through extended technique, colour, and texture.