Tectonic

The Scale Variable concert "Tectonic" on 21 June, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia featured the music of Lindsay Vickery. Raised and trained in Western Australia, but now resident in Singapore, Lindsay has established himself as one of Australia's most inventive and erudite composers. His music, alternating between seductive and confronting, accessible and obtuse, always rigorous intellectual foundation, often referring to other art forms, particularly literature.
The evening's program spanned Vickery's career from the mid 90s to the present. A characteristic of his work is that he is always revising and updating his compositions, and a single composition might exist in several different forms, for a variety of instrumental forces. Others rely on scores that are more like playing instructions, so that each performance is completely original. Therefore, even works that I have heard many times before retain a freshness and ability to surprise.
The stand-out work of the evening for me was the title work, "Tectonic", a seething and relentless cascade of sound, featuring instruments and groups of instruments jarring and moving against each other, reflecting, as the title suggests, movement beneath the surface. I look forward to getting hold of a recording of this to share with listeners.
Mingling with the guests after the show, Lindsay seemed genuinely pleased to see everyone there, including many people he has known for years from his time in Perth. I wonder whether he is just a little homesick, despite recently having become a proud father once again. Wherever Lindsay ends up, we'll keep on claiming him as our own.