Mark Isaacs
Mark Isaacs writes chamber music that lets jazz breathe inside contemporary classical form. So It Does moves from sprightly rhythm to slow expressiveness and back; his Cantilena and solo bass-koto Chinkon keep that same lyrical, open ear.
Commissioned scores for the Australia Ensemble and Musica Viva sit beside writing for clarinet and for Satsuki Odamura’s bass koto. So It Does (1985) is a three-movement piece reviewers have called a gorgeous score: rhythmic outer panels framing a slow centre, jazz sensibility folded into chamber writing without apology. Cantilena gives the bass clarinet a long melodic line against piano. Chinkon (2006) turns that contemplative streak toward the deep resonance of the bass koto. The music is direct, colour-rich, and built to be heard rather than decoded.
Mark Isaacs is featured on the following titles
Musica Viva: 60th Anniversary, Selected Commissions 1975–2004
This disc marks sixty years of Musica Viva Australia’s work commissioning Australian chamber music. Since 1945 the organisation had helped bring nearly a hundred new works into being, building a distinctive national repertoire. A full list of those commissions is included with the CD.
Compositions by Mark Isaacs also appear on
Pearl of May
Satsuki Odamura and her Koto Ensemble return with new Australian works for koto by Sandy Evans and Ian Cleworth, and a solo bass-koto piece by Mark Isaacs. The title marks her thirtieth anniversary in Australia.
Songs of Sea and Sky
Nigel Westlake and David Bollard present Australian music for clarinet and piano by Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, Mark Isaacs, Miriam Hyde, Margaret Sutherland and Don Banks.
Café Concertino
The Australia Ensemble, Australia's foremost chamber group and in residence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, presents commissioned and core Australian chamber works.