Colin Black: brief history
"… amongst the most significant Australian creative artists of his generation, a composer/sound artist who has created a significant body of important work in a relatively short time, work which spans installation, sound art, fìlm, radiophonic works, and beyond, with many of these works having gained international attention."
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- John Davis, CEO Australian Music Centre
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25 February 2011
Internationally acclaimed composer/sound artist Colin Black won the prestigious Prix Italia Award (2003) in the category Best “Music Radio - Composed Work” for composing and producing his major work The Ears Outside My Listening Room. BBC Radio 3 described this work as "a haunting evocation of Australia", while the Prix Italia Award’s International Jury Report concluded that it, "... lived up to the claim … that here was a patchwork sonic quilt that can be passed down the generations."
In 2009 Black was commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur's Klangkunst to create a feature length radio art work from field recordings made in East Germany entitled Kilian's Antipodean Dream, which as a result of achieving final selection round status in the 2010 Prix Phonurgia Nova was scheduled for broadcast as part of the Semaine De La Creation Sonore (Week of Sound Creation) festival in France. Prior to this in 2008 Black was invited by Czech Radio’s rAdioCUSTICA program to create Soundprints: The Prague Pressings for broadcast and CD release. Black's sound installation Alien In The Landscape: The Extended Enviro-Guitar (XEG) was selected for the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2008 which was held at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Australia). In 2007 Black composed and produced a major musical/soundart hybrid work entitled Longing, Love & Loss for performance and broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network. He also created the Butter Churn sound sculpture installation for the Wilsons River Experience Walk in Lismore's Heritage Park. While in 2006 Black was commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur's Klangkunst program to create a major radio art work entitled Alien In The Landscape.
In previous years Black was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to co-produce & compose two major audio/musical works with a Greek theme for their Olympic programming. Black’s sound installations include the Parramatta Heritage Centre’s Parramatta: People & Place exhibition and for the NORPA 2004 production of The Flood Black created a dynamic multi-site soundscape and the Starcourt Theatre Space sound installation “Floodscape”. A finalist in the Australian National Digital Arts Awards ‘98, his experimental composition 118, 120 122 was exhibited at Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art. Black's works have also been selected for performance at events including En Red O 2000 music festival Barcelona Spain, the Festival Synthese Bourges France, Rencontres Musiques Nouvelles, Lunel France, 60x60 Pacific Basin Regional Concert Los Angeles USA, Zèppelin 2004-Festival de Arte Sonoro Barcelona, Spain, Hipersonica 2004 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, The Literature Sound Barrier 2002 in Wien, Austria, Sydney University's Live Wires concerts '97, '98, and Melbourne's Extatic Concert for the Next Wave festival '98.
Black is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Sydney and a recipient of the University of Sydney Postgraduate Awards (UPA) Scholarship. He is also a graduate of the UNE Contemporary Music Degree and was awarded an Honorary Graduate Diploma of Musical Directing and Composing for TV from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). He has presented research papers at the 2005 Vital Signs conference (RMIT University’s, School of Creative Media, Melbourne), 4th International Mobile Music Workshop (Amsterdam 2007), Sounding Out 4 – An International Symposium on Sound in the Media, (University of Sunderland, UK 2008) and the 4th Media Art Scoping Study Symposium (Melbourne 2009). Black has also been invited to talk about radio art and his work on London's Resonance 104.4FM, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Technische Universität Berlin, University of Sydney and the Victoria University of Wellington.
Black’s work has been selected for broadcast and podcast on stations including Deutschlandradio Kultur, the BBC, YLE Radio, Sweden’s Sveriges Radio as well as many other European stations and in South Africa, New Zealand and numerous times across Australia.
