CREDITS
Commissioned as part of the ‘ASQ Encore’ project with funds received from Creative Partnerships Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund for the Encore project, and made possible with thanks to generous support form the Thyne Reid Foundation.
Performed by the Australian String Quartet, 2020
Dale Barltrop – Violin I
Francesca Hiew – Violin II
Stephen King – Viola
Sharon Grigoryan – Cello
Composed by Alice Chance
Produced by Jakub Gaudasinski
Recording Engineer Tom Henry
Mixed & Mastered by Jakub Gaudasinski
Recorded at ABC Adelaide, South Australia, Kaurna Country, October 2020
Artwork – Jim Tsinganos Illustration
Art Direction – Cul-de-Sac Creative
Angelina Zucco – ASQ Chief Executive
Sophie Emery ASQ Operations Manager
Special thanks to Alice Chance for her valued support of this release.
PROGRAM NOTES
It’s undeniable that a great bit of fiddling can bring the house down. When ASQ came to me with the idea of a piece destined to be used as an encore, I thought it was the perfect chance to invite them to get their fiddle on. Nose-scrunch Reel is an original tune which draws heavily from folk and traditional Irish music. When I lived in Melbourne in 2016, I used to busk outside the supermarket playing Irish Reels on my accordion. I was still getting my fingers around the buttons which meant that occasionally some rather surprising harmonies came out. Their combination of wrong and right made me scrunch my nose up with delight. In this piece, I lean into such crunchy chords, made all the more nose-scrunch-worthy by the grit and scrub of bow chops and volatile melodies. In the score, I gave a list of words which might describe a performance of this piece. It included: Raucous, Grinning, Cheeky and Slightly Psychedelic?
BIOGRAPHY
Alice Chance is a sought-after composer, conductor, singer, artist, arranger, writer and aspiring French teacher. She is fortunate enough to work with all kinds of musicians and artists spanning contemporary classical music, choral music, musical theatre, theatre, and sound art. Her music often has a twist of playfulness, and it’s very important to her that listeners and performers feel welcome within it. You can often find Alice asking audiences contribute to her music with their phones, voices, imaginations, or all three.
She is a three-time finalist in the APRA AMC Art Music Awards in the category of Vocal/Choral work of the year, and was a recipient of funding from both Create NSW the Art Music Fund in 2021 for her upcoming work Heirloom with Rubiks Collective. Alice is also the vocal arranger and original music director of the musical FANGIRLS, and you may have spotted her in the Netflix documentary Wide Open Sky.
Alice grew up on the lands of the Darug people and those of the Eora Nation in Sydney, Australia, where she has worked with many of the country’s most dynamic ensembles including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Offspring, Gondwana Choirs, Gondwana National Indigenous Children’s Choir, Gerib Sik Torres Strait Islanders Corporation, the Australian String Quartet, The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, The Enigma Quartet, The Acacia Quartet, The Song Company, Musica Viva, Ella Hooper (Killing Heidi), Moorambilla Voices, Sydney Youth Orchestras, Adelaide Chamber Singers, Luminescence Chamber Singers, Willoughby Symphony and the Barangaroo Delivery Authority.
Alice’s works are performed in concert halls (Sydney Opera House, The Kennedy Centre, City Recital Hall, Angel Place), and cathedrals (St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney, Stanford Memorial Church California, Trinity Church Wall St New York City.) But her music is also performed in auditoriums, paddocks, and showers all around Australia. She graduated with First Class Honours from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she studied with Dr Paul Stanhope, Dr Anne Boyd, and Dr Daniel Yeadon. She is currently based in Paris where she is studying a masters in composition with Régis Campo at l’École Normale de Musique de Paris–Alfred Cortot and l’Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin.
