James Nightingale

Continuum Sax, Australia’s foremost saxophone quartet, would like to commission Tim Dargaville to compose a 4 minute work for saxophone quartet.

If our fund raising campaign is successful and the new piece is written, Continuum Sax will record the new work later in 2012.

Continuum Sax take pride in recording works that are written for them and have released three recordings of music mostly by Australian composers: Continuum (2001), Icon (2005) and Length and Breath (2012). Composers represented on these recordings include Paul Stanhope, Margery Smith, Andrew Ford, Rosalind Page, Damien Ricketson, Robert Davidson, Stuart Greenbaum, Matthew Hindson, Martin Kay, Raffaele Marcellino, Paul Witney and Russell Gilmour. Later this year Continuum Sax hope to record the new work, Kolam, by Tim Dargaville, new pieces by Martin Kay, and Apollogy by Gerard Brophy.

The professional rate for composing, as set by the Music Board of the Australia Council for the arts, is $514.00 per minute for an ensemble of our size. If we can raise $2000.00 Tim will write a work of about 4 minutes in length. If we can raise more, we’ll get a longer piece of music, so please keep contributing even if we’ve reached our initial target.

Tim Dargaville is an award-winning composer based in Melbourne who has a national and international reputation for creating innovative new work for theatre and concert performance. He has written for high profile artists and arts organisations including Michael Kieran Harvey, Diana Doherty, Graeme Leak, The Australian Virtuosi, The Seymour Group, the Melbourne Theatre Company and Adishakti Theatre Arts Laboratory (India). He has previously composed pieces for Continuum Sax’s soprano saxophonist, Christina Leonard and a new commission from him for saxophone quartet will be a welcome addition to the repertoire of Continuum Sax and that of the saxophone quartet in general.

Tim Dargaville writes about the piece that he proposes to write for Continuum Sax, Kolam for saxophones:


In late 2006 and early 2007, I was lucky enough to spend 3 months as an Asialink artist in residence at Adishakti Theatre Arts Laboratory, Pondicherry, South India. Living with the company, with my partner Rosalie Hastwell, and (then) 12 year old daughter Ruby, I saw kolam making on a daily basis, particularly by the village women who worked for the company as domestic staff. Ruby, as is appropriate for a young girl in Tamil Nadu, learned the craft of kolam making from village elders Krishnavini and Renuka. She had daily lessons, and learned through sign language, as there was no shared language between her and the two women.

As Ruby practised kolam making, I started sketching a percussion work for members of the company, inspired in part by the geometric motifs of the kolam, and also by the rhythmic flow accompanying the rehearsals of traditional dance forms at Adishakti's theatre. The work that came from these experiences is characterised by a tightly woven sonic fabric, where each player interweaves their part around the others, much as the lines and curves of a kolam weave around the grid of dots that begin it. So, I called this new work “Kolam”, and it became the first of a series of short, dynamic ensemble works that celebrate rhythmic interplay. Another “Kolam” also exists – this time for 4 bass clarinets, written for Henri Bok of the Dutch group Duo Contemporain. I am very keen to extend the series, and am excited by the prospect of creating a new “Kolam” for the members of Continuum Sax.