Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl , born 1958, is an Australian composer and musicologist.

Biography

Michael Barkl was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1958 into a musical family.Bebbington, W. 1997. Barkl, Michael Laurence Gordon. In The Oxford Companion to Australian Music (ed. Warren Bebbington). Melbourne, OUP:48. 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. From rock guitar he expanded his interests into jazz guitar, and then into bass guitar and double bass.Saintilan, N., A. Schultz & P. Stanhope. 1996. Michael Barkl. In Biographical Directory of Australian Composers, Sydney, Australian Music Centre. 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.Lee, S. 1995. Michael Barkl. In Sound Ideas (ed. Brenton Broadstock), Sydney, Sounds Australian:279–280. Postgraduate studies in composition and musicology were with Ann Ghandar, , Richard Toop and Greg Schiemer.Broadstock, B. (ed.) 1995. Michael Barkl. In Sound Ideas (ed. Brenton Broadstock). Sydney, Sounds Australian:48–49. 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).

After working as a freelance bass player, Barkl joined TAFE NSW in 1987 as foundation head of its contemporary music section. 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.The Oxford Companion to Australian Music (ed. Warren Bebbington). Melbourne: OUP, 1997. Also published in A Dictionary of Australian Music (ed. Warren Bebbington). Melbourne: OUP, 1998.Nigel Butterley, Mary Finsterer, Barry Conyngham, Malcolm Williamson. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (ed. Stanley Sadie). London: Macmillan, 2000.Malcolm Williamson. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ed Lawrence Goldman). Oxford: OUP, 2006. Further publications documented the compositional techniques of Franco DonatoniEtwas ruhiger im Ausdruck: Franco Donatoni’s Crisis. Beau Bassin, LAP, 2018. and Riccardo Formosa,Vertigo: Riccardo Formosa’s Composition Technique. Saarbrücken, LAP, 2010. explored aspects of the economic and cultural contexts of music composition,Composition, Perception, Analysis: The Musical Observer. Saarbrücken, LAP, 2010. Music in Mind: Three Hundred and Forty-One Aphorisms. Beau Bassin, LAP, 2017. and described the process of electronic music composition using the program Pure Data.Composition: Pure Data as a Meta-Compositional Instrument. Köln, LAP, 2009. Pure Data as a Meta-Compositional Instrument: Compositions Volume 1. Beau Bassin, LAP, 2018. Pure Data as a Meta-Compositional Instrument: Compositions Volume 2. Beau Bassin, LAP, 2018. He also published educational texts on composition,Creating Original Music: a harmonic approach. Saarbrücken, LAP 2009. harmonic analysisAnalysing Harmony: The Great American Songbook. Köln, LAP, 2009. and improvisation,Constructing a Jazz Solo: an Approach for Non-Jazz Musicians. Saarbrücken, LAP, 2010. and a volume of memoirs.The First Rule of Show Business: An Exegesis. Beau Bassin, LAP, 2018. From 1997 Barkl was foundation Adviser (later, Chief Examiner) of Contemporary Popular Music for the Australian Music Examinations Board.

Music

Barkl's music exhibits a combination of influences from European styled modernism to jazz.Dench, C. & I. Shanahan (eds). 1995. Michael Barkl. In An emotional geography of Australian composition II. Sounds Australian, no.46, Winter:11.Sitsky, L. 2011. Australian Chamber Music with Piano, Canberra, ANU Press. An early work, Rota (1981) for piano trio, is clearly influenced by twentieth century Italian music, specifically Franco Donatoni.Bebbington, W. 1998. Barkl, Michael Laurence Gordon. In A Dictionary of Australian Music (ed. W. Bebbington). Melbourne, OUP. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was awarded segnalata in the 1981 International Valentino Bucchi Composition Competition. 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.Toop, R. 1984. Top youth at play. 24 Hours, December, vol.9, no.11Murdoch, J. 1983. Michael Barkl. In A Handbook of Australian Music, Melbourne, Sun Books. Drumming (1983) was characterised as "an exciting piano piece", "bring[ing] together Indian tabla drumming with jazz pianism",Sitsky, Larry. 2005. Australian Piano Music of the Twentieth Century, Westport, Greenwood Publishing Group, . 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".Covell, R. 1985. Contemporary seeks companions. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 July. 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 styleMcCallum, P. 1989. Score workshop produced a gem. Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December.Vernon, C. 1996. The cosmos and the details: an interview with Dr Michael Barkl. Images, February, vol.8:5. until a complete change emerged with a series of lengthy electronic works composed using the open source patching language Pure Data. These used large banks of computer generated oscillators to build thick textures of sine waves, saturating the aural space.

Honours

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".

Selected works

Orchestral

Voce di testa, 1981 Voce di petto, 1982 Iambus, 1982 Cabaret, 1985 Rondo, 1986

Ensemble

Ballade for six instruments, 1984 The laird of Drumblair for seven instruments, 1987 Disco for four percussion and electronics, 1990

Chamber music

Night Words for viola and piano, 1977 Music for two trumpets and tape, 1978 Rota for piano trio, 1981 Expressive and ferocious for string quartet, 1985 Blues for bass clarinet and percussion, 1986 Vamp for guitar, 1988 Red for descant recorder, 1996 Smoky for harpsichord, 1997 Coming Out, Fanfare for viola and double bass, 1998 Here… for clarinet, piano and cello, 2008

Piano

Jazz music, 1979 Jazz music II for two pianos, 1979 Drumming, 1983 Five pieces, 1995

Choral

Water, where are you going? SATB, 1984

Vocal

Night words – the ravishing for mezzo-soprano and piano, 1977

Concert band

Backyard swing, 1986

Music theatre

The animals Noah forgot, 1988

Electronic

Rosalia, 1980 The paradox of Pythagoras: nos 1–27, 2007 Music of the spheres: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, 2007 Music of Grace: The heavy dark trees line the streets of summer, 2007 Music of Grace: The cat dances and the moon shines brightly, 2007 Music of Grace: The crystals in the cave absorb the light as if they have not seen it in a million years, 2008

References

External links https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/barkl-michael Retrieved 19 June 2019.