About the Artist
Olivia Jones (they/them) is a Wollongong-based musician and performer completing the final year of their undergraduate creative arts degree at the University of Wollongong. With a keen interest in musicology and music history, Olivia’s musical works are always driven by curiosity and grounded in theoretical ideas that pique their interest at the time of composition.
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By Chance
Performed by myself, Isabella Sadler, Atarah Johnson, and Helia Silva, ‘By Chance’ is a composition for four voices that draws influence from various determinate composition styles, particularly composition techniques developed by serial and minimalist composers of the mid-to-late twentieth century. It is an exploration of overcoming indecision and creative blocks in musical composition by using techniques that were taught to me throughout my undergraduate study of music at the University of Wollongong.
Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method and the principle of repetition in minimalism were the two opposing concepts that piqued my interest at the start of the composition process, and thus, ‘By Chance’ was born. Treating this creative process like a puzzle, I aimed to use each of these techniques to balance out the limitations of the other. The title ‘By Chance’ arose from the idea of relinquishing creative control to strict formulas determined by myself and letting the music flow from there. The lyrics are a randomised list of some of the most common words in the English language.
