Paul Cutlan String Project - Living

2020 CD release. The program traces a narrative which traverses human life and its myriad experiences in compositions by Cutlan himself, Gary Daley, Jann Rutherford, John Coltrane and Jenna Cave.

The planning of this album developed between the time of Australia’s catastrophic bushfires in January 2020, and the onset of the global pandemic in March. The two-day recording took place in the final week before Australia’s lockdown, bringing a halt to public music-making and most of life’s normality. With person-to-person contact severely limited, the fragility of life and the value of our connections is brough into sharper focus. The repertoire on this album serves as an antidote to the shock and trauma of this time as well as an affirmation of continuing existence of life.

Cutlan composed or arranged the repertoire in the five years between the launch of Across the Top (Tall Poppies). The pieces developed gradually, harnessing a more improvised approach than the first album. “With rehearsal time often limited,” Cutlan reflects, “I felt I needed to be smarter at devising pieces which were more user-friendly and could readily harness the group’s creative intelligence. As a result, the newer repertoire is more improvised than the first album. I arranged pieces by some of my close friends and one by John Coltrane. The one large multi-movement work The Eleventh Hour also uses improvised performance practices. Significantly I took the step of commissioning my friend and wonderful composer Jenna Cave to compose a piece for the group.”

Paul Cutlan’s uniquely expressive voice as a woodwind specialist and composer has seen him lead a diverse career. Besides being active with his ongoing Coltrane Project, he has been a first call artist for many of Australia’s premiere orchestras, Ballet Orchestras and Chamber groups. He has long been a part of both the Australian Art Orchestra (15 years) and the ARIA award winning group Mara! (20 years and continuing). Paul has also extensively worked as a composer across theatre, and contemporary classical spheres, with performances at major festivals across Australia, Europe and North America.

“Paul Cutlan’s very contemporary compositions and creative concepts brought broad minded hope for the future of Australian music – scored or otherwise.” Paul Nolan, artsHub

“The composing and improvising are of equal merit – some achievement for such an ambitious genre-defying project.” John Shand, SMH