West Australian composer Cat Hope has been chosen for this year’s Peggy Glanville-Hicks residency.

The residency is a partnership between the Australia Council for the Arts and the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ Trust.

The announcement will be officially made tonight at the Peggy Glanville-Hicks address in Sydney, which will be given by former Four Winds Festival Artistic Director, performer and current Australia Council Music Fellow Genevieve Lacey.

Australia Council Director Music Paul Mason said Cat Hope was among a strong field of applicants and she was an outstanding candidate.

The Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ Trust and the Australia Council are very pleased to be able to offer Cat Hope this opportunity for 12 months, Mr Mason said.

Ms Hope said it was a great privilege to be named this year’s Peggy Glanville-Hicks resident.

Firstly, I would like to show my appreciation to Peggy, for this great idea to leave her house to composers, but also to the Trust and the Australia Council for choosing me and managing the residency, Ms Hope said.

This appointment means a lot to me, it provides me with a unique opportunity that I could only have dreamt of.

I am sure Peggy couldn’t even imagine the kind of music that myself and my collaborators will come up with during my time there.

I am very excited about having this time in Sydney in Peggy’s house to work on projects such as commissions for pianist Zubin Kanga, percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson, Icelandic ensemble Slatur, the London Improvisers Orchestra and the development of a new noise opera’ with Jack Sargent.

I am also planning a number of recordings of existing compositions over the year.

Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers Trust Chair Shane Simpson said the residency was given each year to Australian composers with a strong track record of achievement in the field.

In her will, Peggy bequeathed her house to be a composers’ haven somewhere they could work without having to worry about the rent, Mr Simpson said.

When you look at the list of composers who have had fellowships you see how wise she was.

Past residents include Gordon Kerry, Liza Lim, Julian Yu, Mary Finesterer, Andrew Ford, Julian Day, Matthew Hindson and Elena Kats-Chermin.

In partnership with the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers Trust, the Australia Council has offered the residency through a competitive grant round since 2012.

Applications are encouraged from composers and songwriters of all musical genres and the successful resident will also be provided with $20,000 to create new work and undertake professional development.

Applications for the 2015 residency will open in June next year and close in July 2014.

ABOUT CAT HOPE

Cat Hope is a composer, sound artist, writer, performer, songwriter, artistic director and noise artist.

She is a classically trained flautist, self taught vocalist and experimental bassist who plays as a soloist and as part of other groups, such as the multi bass improv project Abe Sada.

She is the director of Decibel new music ensemble, which tours and performs her work and commissions others.

In 2011 she won the Inaugural Award for Excellence in Experimental Music at the APRA AMC Art Awards and was a finalist in the WA Citizen of the Year Awards in the Arts and Culture category.

In 2012 she won the People’s Choice in the Networked Performance Category for her piece Black Emperor in the International Space Time Concerto Competition.

Her work tends to explore low frequency sound, drone, noise, glissandi and graphic scores.

ABOUT PEGGY GLANVILLE-HICKS

Peggy Glanville-Hicks was born in Melbourne in 1912 and died in Sydney in 1990.

She won an international reputation as a composer and music critic and is one of the few women of her time to achieve such distinction.

The majority of her works were written in America between the 1940s and 1960s and many have been recorded, including two of her four operas.

One of those operas, The Transposed Heads, premiered in Louisville in 1954 and New York in 1958.

Her 1963 opera Sappho, recently recorded with an all-star cast (Toccata Classics), is yet to be produced on stage.

The recording of her Sonata for Harp, recorded by Marshall McGuire, won the 1996 APRA award for the most performed contemporary classical composition.

Peggy Glanville-Hicks returned to Australia in the 1970s and became an important figure on the national music scene.

In her will she bequeathed her house as a residence for composers.