Katy Abbott
Katy Abbott’s music is refreshingly genuine. She is part of a new wave of composers who emerged after the style wars that dominated Australian music in the nineties, and her work has no hint of either forced intellectualism or fluffy popularism.
Her prolific output of over 70 works reflects her interests in pop and vocal music, which she spices with edgy effects. Melody is used as a structural tool and is layered, twisted and sullied by experimental techniques.
Her chamber works span her career to date and are perhaps the best example of her capacity to immediately engage the audience in an evocative sound world. Each one has a strong sense of place or person, crafted with assertive clarity. Human qualities of beauty, melancholy and satire radiate from pieces like MultiSonics and No Ordinary Traveller, while her landscapes shimmer with heat waves (Sunburnt Aftertones) or resound with calls to prayer (Egyptian Wish). This is poetic, assertive music that is jubilantly of its time. Rosalind Appleby, music critic and author, 2010.
Katy Abbott creates music that can be described as contemporary classical, drawing from diverse influences. She has a particular skill for highlighting the musicality and poignancy of moments in daily human life that might otherwise seem mundane. Later compositions have also explored the concept of home and a sense of place. Her impressive body of work includes orchestral, chamber and vocal pieces.
She is an award-winning, acclaimed and widely published composer whose work has been performed in Australia and overseas by leading ensembles and several major symphony orchestras. Her music has featured at events in Europe, China, the USA, Canada and New Zealand. Abbott studied composition with Brenton Broadstock and Linda Kouvaras at the University of Melbourne, completed her Masters in 2002 and her PhD in 2007. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and three sons, and holds an artist space at Abbotsford Convent.
Artist's website: katyabbott.com
Press quotes
Katy Abbott writes, “in my music I am trying to capture the little things that make us human or happen to us because we are human. I seek to unpack the human side of life; humour, foibles, quirky things we do and say, beauty, grief and friendship”. In this, she has succeeded. The pieces on this CD range from an examination of the life of a female traveller in ‘No Ordinary Traveller’ for mezzo-soprano, to reminiscences of hearing calls to prayer in ‘Egyptian Wish’… If you’re interested in contemporary Australian composition, this CD provides an excellent example of approachable new music. ★★★
Katy Abbott is featured on the following titles
Sunburnt Aftertones
Katy Abbott’s chamber music, spanning her career to date, shows her gift for drawing listeners straight into an evocative sound world. Place, travel and instrumental colour shape these direct, pictorial scores.