Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl is an Australian composer and musicologist.

Biography

Michael Barkl was born in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

in 1958 into a musical family. He learnt classical piano from the age of seven, later becoming obsessed with the electric guitar after hearing the album

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Inducted ...

Band of Gypsys ''Band of Gypsys'' is a live album by Jimi Hendrix and the first without his original group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was recorded on January 1, 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York City with R&B musicians Billy Cox on bass and Buddy ...

as a teenager. From rock guitar he expanded his interests into jazz guitar, and then into bass guitar and double bass. At the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music he initially studied jazz improvisation with

Roger Frampton Roger Frampton (20 May 1948 – 4 January 2000) was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz. He taught at the Jazz Studies course at t ...

, and followed this with degree studies in composition with Vincent Plush,

Martin Wesley-Smith Martin Wesley-Smith (10 June 1945 – 26 September 2019) was an Australian composer with an eclectic output ranging from children's songs to environmental events. He worked in a range of musical styles, including choral music, operas, computer m ...

Warren Burt Warren Burt (born 10 October 1949) is an Australia-based composer of American birth. He is known for composing in a wide variety of new music styles, ranging from acoustic music, electroacoustic music, sound art installations to text-based musi ...

Ross Edwards Ross Edwards may refer to: * Ross Edwards (cricketer) (born 1942), Australian cricketer *Ross Edwards (composer) Ross Edwards (born 23 December 1943) is an Australian composer of a wide variety of music including orchestral and chamber music ...

Don Banks Donald Oscar Banks (25 October 19235 September 1980) was an Australian composer of concert, jazz, and commercial music. Early life and education Jazz was Banks' earliest and strongest musical influence. He learned the saxophone as a boy in Aust ...

and

Graham Hair Graham Barry Hair (born 1943) is an Australian composer, music scholar and retired academic. He was educated at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1964 and a Master of Music degree three years later. He then ...

. Postgraduate studies in composition and musicology were with Ann Ghandar, ,

Richard Toop Richard Toop (1 August 1945 – 19 June 2017) was a British-Australian musicologist. Toop was born in Chichester, England, in 1945. He studied at Hull University, where his teachers included Denis Arnold. In 1973 he became Karlheinz Stockhausen ...

and Greg Schiemer. He graduated with a master's degree in composition (

University of New England (Australia) The University of New England (UNE) is a public university in New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1938, it was the first Australian university to be established outside of a state capital. Its main campus is located in the regional city of ...

) and doctorates in musicology (

Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974 with antecedent history since 1887, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia and a founding father of Australian Fede ...

) and electronic music (

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (UOW) is an Australian public university, public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately south of Sydney. , the university had an enrolment of more than 33,000 s ...

). After working as a freelance bass player, Barkl joined

TAFE NSW TAFE NSW is an Australian vocational education and training provider. Annually, the network trains over 500,000 students in campus, workplace, online, or distance education methods of education. It was established as an independent statutory bod ...

in 1987 as foundation head of its contemporary music section. During this time he contributed a series of biographies of Australian composers to ''The Oxford Companion to Australian Music'', ''A Dictionary of Australian Music'', ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'' and ''

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...

''. Further publications documented the compositional techniques of

Franco Donatoni Franco Donatoni (9 June 1927 – 17 August 2000) was an Italian composer. Biography Born in Verona, Donatoni started studying violin at the age of seven, and frequented the local music academy. Later, he studied at the Milan Conservatory ...

and Riccardo Formosa, explored aspects of the economic and cultural contexts of music composition, and described the process of electronic music composition using the program

Pure Data Pure Data (Pd) is a visual programming language developed by Miller Puckette in the 1990s for creating interactive computer music and multimedia works. While Puckette is the main author of the program, Pd is an open-source software, open-source ...

. He also published educational texts on composition, harmonic analysis and improvisation, and a volume of memoirs. From 1997 Barkl was foundation Adviser (later, Chief Examiner) of Contemporary Popular Music for the

Australian Music Examinations Board The Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) is a federated, privately funded corporation which provides a program of examinations for music, speech and drama in Australia. The organisation had its beginnings at the Universities of Melbourne ...

Music

Barkl's music exhibits a combination of influences from European styled modernism to jazz. An early work, ''Rota'' (1981) for piano trio, is clearly influenced by twentieth century Italian music, specifically

. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awarded ''segnalata'' in the 1981 International

Valentino Bucchi Valentino Bucchi (29 November 1916 – 8 May 1976) was an Italian composer. Biography Bucchi was born in Florence, Italy, the son of musicians. He studied at Luigi Cherubini Conservatory of Music in Florence. He died in Rome, Italy. Works T ...

Composition Competition. A pair of subsequent orchestral works, ''Voce di testa'' (1981) and ''Voce di petto'' (1982), while maintaining the Italian association through their titles, added more jazz influence, however slight. ''Drumming'' (1983) was characterised as "an exciting piano piece", "bring ngtogether Indian

tabla A ''tabla'' is a pair of hand drums from the Indian subcontinent. Since the 18th century, it has been the principal percussion instrument in Hindustani classical music, where it may be played solo, as an accompaniment with other instruments a ...

drumming with jazz pianism", while ''Ballade'' (1984) for six instruments, structured as a reverie interrupting a café piano solo, brought Barkl to the attention of the critics,

Roger Covell Roger David Covell AM FAHA (1 February 1931 – 4 June 2019) was an Australian musicologist, critic and author. He was Professor Emeritus in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, and continued until ...

describing him "one of the most musical of younger Australian composers". Subsequent works, such as ''Cabaret'' for orchestra, ''Blues'' for bass clarinet and percussion (based on a

Charlie Parker Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz Saxophone, saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of beb ...

riff), ''Disco'' for percussion quartet, ''Red'' for recorder (based on

’s ''Red House'') and ''Smoky'' for harpsichord, developed Barkl’s jazz-inspired instrumental style until a complete change emerged with a series of lengthy electronic works composed using the

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

patching language

. These used large banks of computer generated oscillators to build thick textures of

sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or sinusoid (symbol: ∿) is a periodic function, periodic wave whose waveform (shape) is the trigonometric function, trigonometric sine, sine function. In mechanics, as a linear motion over time, this is ''simple ...

s, saturating the aural space.

Honours

Michael Barkl was awarded a Medal of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

in the

2018 Queen's Birthday Honours (Australia) The 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for Australia were announced on 11 June 2018 by the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove. The Birthday Honours were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and ...

for "service to the performing arts and music education".

Selected works

Orchestral

*''Voce di testa'', 1981 *''Voce di petto'', 1982 *''Iambus'', 1982 *''Cabaret'', 1985 *''Rondo'', 1986

Ensemble

*''Ballade'' for six instruments, 1984 *''The laird of Drumblair'' for seven instruments, 1987 *''Disco'' for four percussion and electronics, 1990

Chamber music

*''Night Words'' for viola and piano, 1977 *''Music for two trumpets and tape'', 1978 *''Rota'' for piano trio, 1981 *''Expressive and ferocious'' for string quartet, 1985 *''Blues'' for bass clarinet and percussion, 1986 *''Vamp'' for guitar, 1988 *''Red'' for descant recorder, 1996 *''Smoky'' for harpsichord, 1997 *''Coming Out'', Fanfare for viola and double bass, 1998 *''Here…'' for clarinet, piano and cello, 2008

Piano

*''Jazz music'', 1979 *''Jazz music II'' for two pianos, 1979 *''Drumming'', 1983 *''Five pieces'', 1995

Choral

*''Water, where are you going?'' SATB, 1984

Vocal

*''Night words – the ravishing'' for mezzo-soprano and piano, 1977

Concert band

*''Backyard swing'', 1986

Music theatre

*''The animals Noah forgot'', 1988

Electronic

*''Rosalia'', 1980 *''The paradox of Pythagoras'': nos 1–27, 2007 *''Music of the spheres'': Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, 2007 *''Music of Grace: The heavy dark trees line the streets of summer'', 2007 *''Music of Grace: The cat dances and the moon shines brightly'', 2007 *''Music of Grace: The crystals in the cave absorb the light as if they have not seen it in a million years'', 2008

References

External links

*https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/barkl-michael Retrieved 19 June 2019. {{DEFAULTSORT:Barkl, Michael Australian composers Australian musicologists 1958 births Living people Musicians from Sydney Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia University of New England (Australia) alumni Deakin University alumni University of Wollongong alumni