Marlēné Claudine Radice

BIOGRAPHY

Marlēné Radice is a composer specialising in notated electroacoustic composition by exploring how art and sound complement one another. Marlēné has been featured on Fbi Radio’s Ears Have Ears (NSW), the Sonic.Art Quartet (Berlin), The Music Box Project (NSW), Art Not Apart Festival (ACT), COUP Melbourne, Feminatronic, Future Creatives Festival (VIC), the Monash New Music Ensemble (VIC) and her electronic duo Erwartung (NSW). She has been commissioned as sound designer/composer for the National Museum of Australia (2017) and Questacon (2013). Marlēné completed a double degree in Music and Arts (Italian) at the Australian National University. In 2016 she completed her Honours in Composition at Monash University with Prof Mary Finsterer. She currently interns for Making Waves, and is on the committee for the Tilde New Music Festival..

Composer website: Marlene Claudine Radice Soundcloud

FEATURED WORKS

Something to Burn, for Viola, Electronics, Voices and Loop Station

‘Something to Burn’  was performed and composed by ALPHAMALE and Marlene Claudine Radice for COUP Canberra’s 2016 production of Caryl Churchill’s play, Vinegar Tom. Churchill’s lyrics exist to take the audience out of the story and make them think about what’s happening within the play from a wider perspective. The “something is going wrong and we need somebody to BLAME for it” attitude is one that is so, so present right now in the US/Australia and is a reoccurring theme throughout the play. We chose to update Churchill’s lyrics by building in some recent political speeches that inhabit the attitudes conveyed within her work and make them relevant to this specific moment in time. The reason that the playwright put the songs in was because she really wanted to drag this period piece into the present, we think we are really honouring that impulse with the samples.

Featured in Social Activism Waves (March 2017)

Netsuke, for Voice, Broken Violin and Electronics.

This work is about the abstraction of sound through repetition and distortion. The the role of the violin and voice has been combined with the vocalist singing into the violin whilst using the body of the instrument percussively throughout the performance. The title Netsuke is the Japanese word for ‘A Reevaluation’ which I have used in a literal sense in this context by reevaluation the role of my voice and the discarded instruments at my disposal.

Featured in Dream Waves (December 2017).

Retrograde, for voice, violin, electronics, and field recordings.

Retrograde motion references the movement of anything outside of the earths atmosphere that runs in a counter motion to the spin of the planet it orbits. In this soundtrack I wanted to experiment with how music made entirely out of reversed audio samples would be interpreted by a listener. The music is inherently unsettling as while we listen to sounds which are in reverse we cannot help but attempt to create meaning and order from sound that has been abstracted from its original form.

Featured in Radiophonic Waves (March 2018).

Not Long But Suspended, for Amplified Alto Flute with delay pedal, and Electric Guitar and effects pedals.

Not Long But Suspended explores the concept of drowning. The use of electronics in this composition operate as a musical metaphor for this concept as the sounds of the alto flute and guitar are suspended and distorted, cascading upon one another resulting in the blending of each instrument’s sonorities. Premiered by Unassisted Fold; Flavio Virizi (Electric Guitar) and Sonja Horlacher (Alto Flute) at HighSCORE festival, 2017.

Featured in Guitar Waves (December 2018).

Sawdust, Bone, White Ash, & Silk, for Pierrot Ensemble.

This piece explores my associations with death. The sawdust strewn, the bones of the dead, the remains in ash, and the silk shrouds that bind them all to the recesses of my mind.Premiered by the American Modern Ensemble at the inaugural Mostly Modern Festival, 2018.

Featured in Waves of Consciousness (February 2019)