DAVIDSON, R Big Decisions^#
oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and tape

Robert Davidson's music has been widely performed and broadcast throughout Australia (including performances by all of Australia’s professional orchestras), and around the world. His works feature as mainstays in the repertoire of ensembles such as Perihelion, Ensemble 24, Guitar Trek and his own ensemble Topology. Several works appear and are scheduled to appear on a number of CDs released on Tall Poppies, ABC Classics, Artworks, Vox Australis and other labels in Australia, France and Germany.

Davidson's music is received with critical acclaim internationally. His orchestral version of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata had a rave review in the industry leading British Strad magazine and has been broadcast on over 300 radio stations globally. His Landscape was awarded a Courbold Composition prize by the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra in 2000.

Following graduate studies in composition at the University of Queensland, he has worked as a freelance bassist, teacher, university lecturer, producer and arranger in addition to composing. He travelled to Kerala, South India in 1992 to study traditional music of the region. In 1995 he travelled to San Francisco, New York and London on a Churchill Fellowship which involved intensive private composition lessons at the residence of Terry Riley. He has since returned and interviewed many of today’s leading composers, including LaMonte Young, Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, Philip Glass, and Louis Andriessen. A book of interviews is currently in preparation, parts of which have been or are being published in Music Forum, Real Time and 24Hours.

Big Decisions is an extremely successful work for the Southern Cross Soloists. The piece features tapes from speeches and radio broadcasts surrounded the sacking of the Whitlam Government in Australia in 1975.


^# Especially written for the SOUTHERN CROSS SOLOISTS