Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl OAM (born 9 August 1958) is an Australian composer and musicologist.

Biography

Michael Barkl was born in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

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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 guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

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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 New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

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 ...

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Ross Edwards Ross Edwards (born 1 December 1942) is a former Australian cricketer. Edwards played in 20 Test matches for Australia, playing against England, West Indies and Pakistan. He also played in nine One Day Internationals including the 1975 Crick ...

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

Richard Toop Richard Toop (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's teachi ...

and

Greg Schiemer Gregory Marcellus Schiemer (born 16 January 1949) is an Australian electronic music composer, instrument builder, and teacher. His artistic preoccupations include creative engagement with new technology, music created for non-expert performance a ...

. 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 Australia with approximately 22,500 higher education students. Its original and main campus is located in the city of Armidale in northern central New South Wales. UNE was the first ...

) and doctorates in musicology (

Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia. Its main campuses are in Melbourne's Burwood suburb, Geelong Waurn Ponds, ...

) and electronic music (

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...

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

'' and ''

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''. 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 cultural context 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 project with a large d ...

; 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.

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 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

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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 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 saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...

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

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patching language

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

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s, saturating the aural space.

Honours

Michael Barkl was awarded a Medal of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

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