Two performances: 6:00pm & 8:00pm, Fri 5 Sep 2025
UQ Art Museum | Free, registration required
Be enveloped in Robert Curgenven's expansive and intricate layers of sound via the grand pipe organ at UQ Art Museum.
A collective evocation of the air, the very foundation of the pipe organ – Robert Curgenven's Earth Works offers a liberation and extension of the pipe organ’s possibilities. This is whole body listening – an absorbing experience of sound’s tactility and intimacy – from breath-like gestures through to a tectonic, architectural summoning. Curgenven will present the world premiere of a new work for the UQ Art Museum’s recently refurbished grand pipe organ alongside Australian premieres of intricately shimmering works, engulfing the audience in sonic textures.
Following a series of sold out shows for AGENESIS with Kat McDowall, at the 2025 Dark Mofo festival – Curgenven's Earth Works will transform the pipe organ at UQ Art Museum, with its 3,283 pipes, into an instrument that breathes at an architectural scale.
Earth Works is proudly presented as part of the Brisbane Festival 2025 Program.
Reviews:
“…a marvel. Massive sonic textures, tectonic plates of intricate beating... as close to a spiritual experience as any I’ve had with sound for a long time.”
P/A Magazine (Denmark)
“a colossal sound bath that engulfed every nook and cranny of the venue. To say it was an impressive performance is an understatement.”
Forkert Magazine (Denmark) on the Copenhagen Sound Art Organ festival performance
Supported By:
Unstable Steady States A/B/C was commissioned by Richard Thomas Foundation and supported by APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund (Australia) and Arts Council of Ireland's Music Commission Award.
Earth Works (Aria 3) has been commissioned by University of Queensland Art Museum in co-operation with Newcastle Conservatorium of Music and RMIT SIAL (Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory) Sound Studios.
Composer/Performer: Robert Curgenven - pipe organ & electronics
Robert Curgenven produces albums, performances and installations that emphasize physicality, our embodied response to sound and its correspondence to location, air, weather and architecture. His recorded output spans pipe organ works Tailte Cré-Umha (Bronze Lands) and SIRÈNE, through to Climata, recorded in fifteen Turrell Skyspaces across nine countries. Curgenven’s work with pipe organs has seen him recognised as a leading proponent of the contemporary reimagination of this instrument, including commissions for New Music Dublin (Ireland) and Richard Thomas Foundation (UK) with presentations for Sydney Festival (Sydney Town Hall), Stavanger Konserthus Norway), Cork Midsummer Festival and Organ Sound Art Festival (Copenhagen). Curgenven has produced a diversity of sound and spatial works for National Gallery of Australia, Musée du Quai Branly (Paris), National Museum of Poland (Krakow), MONOM/4DSound (Berlin), Palazzo Grassi (Venice), National Sculpture Factory (Ireland) and festival performances including Maerzmusik (Kraftwerk Berlin), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), Ultrahang (Budapest) and Insomnia Festival (Tromsø/Norway).