Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl OAM is an Australian composer and musicologist.
Michael Barkl was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1958 into a musical family. [1] He learnt classical piano from the age of seven, later becoming obsessed with the electric guitar after hearing the album Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys as a teenager. [2] From rock guitar he expanded his interests into jazz guitar, and then into bass guitar and double bass. [3] At the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music he initially studied jazz improvisation with Roger Frampton, and followed this with degree studies in composition with Vincent Plush, Martin Wesley-Smith, Warren Burt, Ross Edwards, Don Banks and Graham Hair. [4] Postgraduate studies in composition and musicology were with Ann Ghandar, Gerald Florian Messner , Richard Toop and Greg Schiemer. [5] He graduated with a master's degree in composition ( University of New England (Australia)) and doctorates in musicology ( Deakin University) and electronic music ( University of Wollongong). [6]
After working as a freelance bass player, Barkl joined TAFE NSW in 1987 as foundation head of its contemporary music section. [7] [8] [9] 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 and The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. [10] [11] [12] Further publications documented the compositional techniques of Franco Donatoni [13] and Riccardo Formosa, [14] explored aspects of the economic and cultural contexts of music composition, [15] [16] and described the process of electronic music composition using the program Pure Data. [17] [18] [19] He also published educational texts on composition, [20] harmonic analysis [21] and improvisation, [22] and a volume of memoirs. [23] From 1997 Barkl was foundation Adviser (later, Chief Examiner) of Contemporary Popular Music for the Australian Music Examinations Board. [24] [9]
Barkl's music exhibits a combination of influences from European styled modernism to jazz. [25] [26] An early work, Rota (1981) for piano trio, is clearly influenced by twentieth century Italian music, specifically Franco Donatoni. [27] Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awarded segnalata in the 1981 International Valentino Bucchi Composition Competition. [28] 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. [29] [30] Drumming (1983) was characterised as "an exciting piano piece", "bring[ing] together Indian tabla drumming with jazz pianism", [31] 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". [32] Subsequent works, such as Cabaret for orchestra, Blues for bass clarinet and percussion (based on a Charlie Parker riff), Disco for percussion quartet, Red for recorder (based on Jimi Hendrix’s Red House) and Smoky for harpsichord, developed Barkl’s jazz-inspired instrumental style [33] [34] until a complete change emerged with a series of lengthy electronic works composed using the open source patching language Pure Data. [35] These used large banks of computer generated oscillators to build thick textures of sine waves, saturating the aural space.
Michael Barkl was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours (Australia) for "service to the performing arts and music education". [36]
Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl OAM is an Australian composer and musicologist.
Michael Barkl was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1958 into a musical family. [1] He learnt classical piano from the age of seven, later becoming obsessed with the electric guitar after hearing the album Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys as a teenager. [2] From rock guitar he expanded his interests into jazz guitar, and then into bass guitar and double bass. [3] At the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music he initially studied jazz improvisation with Roger Frampton, and followed this with degree studies in composition with Vincent Plush, Martin Wesley-Smith, Warren Burt, Ross Edwards, Don Banks and Graham Hair. [4] Postgraduate studies in composition and musicology were with Ann Ghandar, Gerald Florian Messner , Richard Toop and Greg Schiemer. [5] He graduated with a master's degree in composition ( University of New England (Australia)) and doctorates in musicology ( Deakin University) and electronic music ( University of Wollongong). [6]
After working as a freelance bass player, Barkl joined TAFE NSW in 1987 as foundation head of its contemporary music section. [7] [8] [9] 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 and The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. [10] [11] [12] Further publications documented the compositional techniques of Franco Donatoni [13] and Riccardo Formosa, [14] explored aspects of the economic and cultural contexts of music composition, [15] [16] and described the process of electronic music composition using the program Pure Data. [17] [18] [19] He also published educational texts on composition, [20] harmonic analysis [21] and improvisation, [22] and a volume of memoirs. [23] From 1997 Barkl was foundation Adviser (later, Chief Examiner) of Contemporary Popular Music for the Australian Music Examinations Board. [24] [9]
Barkl's music exhibits a combination of influences from European styled modernism to jazz. [25] [26] An early work, Rota (1981) for piano trio, is clearly influenced by twentieth century Italian music, specifically Franco Donatoni. [27] Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awarded segnalata in the 1981 International Valentino Bucchi Composition Competition. [28] 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. [29] [30] Drumming (1983) was characterised as "an exciting piano piece", "bring[ing] together Indian tabla drumming with jazz pianism", [31] 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". [32] Subsequent works, such as Cabaret for orchestra, Blues for bass clarinet and percussion (based on a Charlie Parker riff), Disco for percussion quartet, Red for recorder (based on Jimi Hendrix’s Red House) and Smoky for harpsichord, developed Barkl’s jazz-inspired instrumental style [33] [34] until a complete change emerged with a series of lengthy electronic works composed using the open source patching language Pure Data. [35] These used large banks of computer generated oscillators to build thick textures of sine waves, saturating the aural space.
Michael Barkl was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours (Australia) for "service to the performing arts and music education". [36]