The Adelaide Wind Orchestra was established in 2012 by alumni of the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide, with the purpose of performing and promoting works by both established and emerging Australian composers. 

Tangent is the ensemble’s first album, and it springs into life with Splinter (2020) by Sydney composer Holly Harrison. As its name might suggest, it is an explosive work that experiments with wild variations of pitch and timbre, fragments “structured as a type of mosaic or stylistic patchwork,” as Harrison puts it. A finalist in the Work of the Year: Large Ensemble category of the 2021 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards, Splinter is serious, playful, and absurdly joyous simultaneously in equal measure; a complex, sophisticated delight. 

A similarly fun time but in different form is Requiem for a City (2015), a response to the erosion of Sydney’s nightlife by lockout laws and overregulation from two considerably more established musical figures: Matthew Hindson and electronic dance music (EDM) composer Paul Mac. Like a long techno track,