Hiérophonie

HELLSCAPE – a World Premiere and Percussion Australia commission of a new quartet by
internationally renowned Melbourne-based composer Melody Eötvös lies at the centre of
Synergy Percussion’s HIÉROPHONIE. With the title taken from Japanese-French composer
Yoshihisa Taïra’s 1974 percussion sextet, the program explores humanity’s need for myth-making
and our propensity to divide human activity into the ‘sacred and profane’. But as religious
historian Mircea Eliade observes, “myths describe the breakthroughs of the sacred into the
World” – otherwise known as “hierophanies”. The dramatic ritualistic mysticism of Taïra’s work –
the sacred – contrasts with Australian composer Paul Stanhope’s joyful Raqad and 20th
Century master Iannis Xenakis’ powerful Okho – the profane.