CG has completed Onward and Upwards, a ten minute piece for children’s choir, adult choir, piano and percussion. Its first performance is 23 January 2010 at the Verbruggen Hall, Sydney, by Gondwana Choirs and Synergy Percussion conducted by Lyn Williams.
Christopher Gordon AFI Music Award 2009
CG’s score for Mao’s Last Dancer took the Best Original Music Score category at the AFI Awards 2009 on 12 December 2009.
A video of CG’s acceptance speech can be viewed on the Interviews Page
The soundtrack album of Mao’s Last Dancer will be released in Australia and New Zealand on 16th October 2009 by Sony. The album contains all of the music CG composed for the film as well as his arrangements and performances of excerpts from three well known ballet classics highlighted in the movie. This rich and varied album features some of Australia’s most highly regarded classical musicians along with an ensemble of Sydney’s leading Chinese musicians.
The soundtrack album will be released in other territories as the film opens around the world.
Bruce Greenwood and Kyle MacLachlin
After being voted runner-up best film at the Toronto International Film Festival on the weekend Maos’ Last Dancer received its Australian Premiere this evening at the State Theatre in Sydney.
Daybreakers was voted the runner-up most popular film in the Midnight Madness (horror) program at the Toronto International Film Festival
Lightfall for Horn and Orchestra was premiered this evening by the Sydney Symphony at the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House, with Robert Johnson, soloist, and Richard Gill conducting. Two further performances will be given over the next two days.
CG has kept an extensive blow-by-blow blog about the composition and preparation of the concerto at www.hornconcerto.net. A webcast of the premiere can be viewed and pdfs of the full score and the solo part are available for download.
Mao’s Last Dancer will receive its world premiere in the the Special Presentation program and Daybreakers will receive its world premiere in the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The festival runs from 10th to 19th September 2009
Emily Dickinson
CG has just completed a setting of the Emily Dickinson poem, Will There Really Be a “Morning’? for mixed choir and piano. It was written for the Australian Boys Choir to commemorate their 70th anniversary and will be premiered by the ABC and the Vocal Consort at the Elizabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne on 23 August 2009.
A new recording especially made for this website is now uploaded.
Night Is What Remains, a 16 minute work for strings, is performed by:
Sun Yi, violin and Timothy Walden, violoncello with the Magic Fire Orchestra conducted by CG
A score is also uploaded in pdf form, along with composer’s notes.