Associate Professor Mark Pollard is a composer, educator and curator whose research over 30 years spans a range of sound, cross-media and cross-genre areas. He has an eclectic compositional style utilising such diverse materials as, Improvisation, Jazz, Pop and the indigenous musics of South East Asia.
His work has been released on nine compact discs including A Handful of Rain a collection of his ambient works. His music is broadcast and performed widely in Australia. Internationally his work has been included at many major festivals including the Warsaw Festival and the Tokyo Nova Festival. In 2003 he completed a Bass Clarinet Concerto for the brilliant Dutch performer Harry Sparnaay and in 2007 his Electric Guitar Concerto was premiered with critical acclaim at the final gala concert of the 2007 Darwin International Guitar Festival. His Beating the Rusty Nail for Violin and Piano was premiered at the 2008 Perth International Arts Festival and his Gunnai Dreaming was premiered at the 2009 Parliament of World Religions. Site-specific elements feature in many of his works. This has included Sounding the earth for the Melbourne Museum, Sounding out Andy for the National Gallery of Victoria, the drumming dunnies for The Port Fairy Spring Festival, and with every step for the Royal Melbourne Hospital. In 1983, he received one of the inaugural Jacobena Angliss Music Awards. In 1992 he received the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award and in 1993 The Spivokofsky Composition Prize. In 2001 he received one of the inaugural VCA Teaching Excellence Awards, in 2006 a VCA Incredible Colleague Award for outstanding contribution to the VCA community and in 2009 a University of Melbourne Universitas21 teaching Fellowship. In 2008 Mark received the AMC /APRA Classical Music State Award for long-term contribution to the Advancement of Australian Music. In 2011 Mark was an invited speaker at the Conference for Inter-disciplinary Musicology in Glasgow and guest composer in residence at Green College Vancouver where he created new work and mentored a group of VCA composers in the Resonating Spaces project at the Museum of Anthropology. In 2012 he completed Schubert 3 for the Reconstructing Schubert project and a new large scale orchestral work Silent Spring: 5 sound images inspired by Rachel Carlsons powerful book of the same name. Mark is Head of Interactive Composition at the Faculty of the VCA and MCM at the University of Melbourne and a passionate supporter of the Australian Football League team the Western Bulldogs! The most spectacular piece on this CD is Mark Pollards be it ever so humble (1995). In this brilliant piece of work, intertwining threads of solo oboe are made to sound like a force of nature... Bruce Gillespie, The Melbournian, April/May 1998 For me the most impressive music of the night came first: Mark Pollards to cast a shadow (1987) a through composed work with the kind of purpose and violence that might offend the aurally tender but which yields compelling bursts of splendidly organised sound... Clive OConnell The AGE, April 6, 1987 ...Pollard has done it again with his new work for Baroque Sextet- a mesmerising blend of Baroque and traditional Asian... Zelda Cawthorne Herald Sun, July 31,1996 One of the most fascinating works on this CD is Mark Pollards 1992 String Quartet with its effective juxtaposition of insistent repeated motifs and almost expressive yearnings... Steven Hoby Soundscapes, 1994 Pollards Wildflower Dreaming made a gentle impressionistic vignette showing the composers deftness at combining the two instruments while maintaining their distinct personalities. Clive OConnell, The Age July 24, 2001 The cadenzas (from the Bass Clarinet Concerto) are beautifully constructed showpieces that fit the mood of the material that surrounds them.Joel Crotty, The Age October 21,2003 The disc has Edwardes finishing with the foundation of vibes-ambient tones from Mark Clement Pollard. Delicious!
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Scholarly Works
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Honours, Awards and Fellowships
Universitas 21 Fellowship University of Melbourne (2009)
Credentials
Positions
Professor In Music (Interactive Composition)
Melbourne Conservatorium Of Music
Education
Master of Arts
La Trobe University
Bachelor of Arts with Honours
La Trobe University