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The music of Meta Overman is innovative, individual, sometimes humorous, expressing amazing creativity and powered by strong visual imagery. Her musical language transforms images into musical concepts and sounds and this intention is evident in all her compositions. Born in Rotterdam in 1907, Overman survived two world wars in Europe and immigrated to Australia in1951 forced to do so because of the extreme housing and food shortages in Europe particularly Holland. In Australia she firstly lived in Perth and then Melbourne but always felt she was a European exile.
As a young child she studied both piano and composition and in 1938 commenced lessons with Willem Pijper, the most prominent composer and teacher of composition in Holland. Her earliest compositions were children’s operas and song cycles which she wrote to be performed by the singers in the many groups she accompanied. Her piano compositions between 1939 and 1950 demonstrate the style she adopted while a student of Pijper.
In all, Overman’s compositions number five for orchestra, six sets of songs, five choral works, eleven operas including one three act opera, (Psyche), four ballets and twenty-four chamber works, some of which are for two pianos and seventeen major, substantial, and important works for piano solo.
In this presentation I will introduce many works by Meta Overman including her opera Psyche which was performed in Sydney in 2019.
Dr Jeanell Carrigan AM Biography
Dr Jeanell Carrigan AM is an Associate Professor in Collaborative Piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. She has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborative artist in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and throughout Australia, and has recorded for the Bavarian Radio Corporation, the ABC, and for regional stations in Australia on many occasions. She holds a Doctor of Creative Arts exploring Australian post-1970 solo piano repertoire, and in July 2023 released her thirty-fourth compact disc of Australian piano and chamber music. Carrigan has experience at all levels of teaching and specialises in coaching chamber music and instrumental, vocal, and piano collaboration. She is passionate about promoting Australian Music and has published widely on Australian solo piano repertoire and, more recently, the piano music composed by early 20th Century Australian women composers. Carrigan has recently recorded almost the entire collection of compositions by Dutch-born Australian composer Meta Overman, including two of her operas, Grotesque and Psyche, all the piano music, twelve chamber music works and songs for voice and piano. In 2019 Carrigan was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (AM) for “For significant service to music education, particularly piano, and to the performing arts.”
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