Paul Stanhope
Paul Stanhope writes chamber and choral music charged by landscape and light: sea, rainforest, dawn and open space. His scores for voice, strings and choir balance precision with verve, and he has shaped that sound from the podium as well as the page.
Sea Chronicles sets soprano against string quartet with a keen ear for weather and distance. Geography Songs, drawn from Michael Dransfield, move from gutter to rainforest and carry a spiritual sense of the natural world. Dawn Lament for solo viola takes its cue from an Aboriginal poem and sits among the elegies that suit the instrument’s mellow middle voice. He has also written for clarinet and piano, compact vocal chamber pieces, and sacred choral works such as Ubi caritas that feel both original and usable. As conductor of the Sydney Chamber Choir he has given lucid, confident readings of recent Australian choral scores, including substantial programmes of Clare Maclean.
Compositions by Paul Stanhope appear on
in depth
Emerging Brisbane-based ensemble Collusion has produced a disc of inspiration, imagery and energy in their first release for Move Records, In Depth. An enticing melting pot of influences, In Depth is comprised entirely of music written in the last twenty years.
A Year in Paris
Clarinet and piano music by Poulenc, Carmichael, Benjamin, Cahuzac, Debussy, Stanhope, Brumby and Françaix. Nicole Canham spent a year in Paris studying at the Versailles Conservatoire.