Michael Askill
Michael Askill's percussion colours Australian chamber music and film scores with marimba sparkle, log-drum drive and a keen sense of landscape. He is a founding voice of Synergy Percussion and a composer of his own rhythmic pieces.
On record he drives Ross Edwards's Marimba Dances and Dragonfly Dance, answers Sculthorpe's Sonata for Viola and Percussion, and gives Westlake's Antarctica and Blue Mountains scores their ice, sandstone and penguin circus bite. His own Omphalo Centric Lecture and Call of the Wild sit among Westlake's chamber hits: bright patterns, dancing rhythm, and a taste for the instrumentally unexpected. With Dave Samuels and Synergy he pairs Australian works with Cage and vibraphone reconstructions that cook up a storm.
Credits
Threading the Light
Threading the Light was composed between 2008 and 2012 as the cornerstone of a PhD in composition. Spurred by its 2022 world premiere by The Cooperative after a decade’s wait, Felicity Wilcox presents this personal, ethereal and strongly symbolic work.
Michael Askill is a member of
Synergy Percussion
Marimbas lock and skins crackle as Synergy Percussion drives Edwards's Dragonfly Dance, Westlake's Kalabash and Malachite Glass, and Pratt's hocketing Fantasy. Australian percussion writing at full tilt.