The Goddess Returns
Scored for voice, string quartet and percussion (ghattam)
The Goddess Returns was the centerpiece of a large multi-media work I composed, of the same name, for an Elektra String Quartet performance project in 1999
Performed by: Antigone Foster, vocals
Elektra String Quartet - Mirka Rozmus and Romano Crivici, violins; Rudi Crivici, viola; Markus Hartstein, cello
Interview with Andrew Ford
-ABC Radio national
Romano Crivici
composer & performer
Short Bio
“He has his own distinctive sound…Crivici’s music has its roots in pop, contemporary classical and native Australian sources…simple, haunting melodic patterns.”
Musical America
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“…a sampler…multi-layered textures of rhythm and sounds … moving between tranquillity and dynamic, powerful playing…they mesmerised the entire audience.”
New Music Festival: Wurzburg, Germany. Der Main Post
Romano Crivici is one of Australia’s leading contemporary composer/performers (violin and piano). Crivici, a former member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the New England String Quartet, has also worked widely as a pianist, repetiteur and conductor. However it has been his work as composer, director and violinist with his group Elektra String Quartet and, directing from piano, the ECU (Elektra Collektive Unconscious), for which he is most widely known.
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Crivici founded the Elektra String Quartet in 1993 soon after leaving the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and created a disciplined and flexible ensemble that worked within many cross cultural art-forms. The ensemble featured works by Crivici himself as well as commissioning and performing works by some of Australia’s best known composers.
Crivici has also been commissioned by many organisations and ensembles including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Arafura Ensemble, Sante String Quartet (Switzerland), 10 Days on the Island Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Fresh Ballet Company, Sydney Dance Company, One Extra Dance Company and Pacific Arts Festival.
At the height of Elektra’s performance trajectory he completed a Masters in Performance (Conducting) as well as a Diploma of Social Science (Anthropology) both at the University of Sydney.
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Reflecting the larger scale of the works he now creates, Crivici has expanded Elektra String Quartet to a much larger ensemble Elektra Collective Unconscious (ECU), which, now comprised of both classical and jazz performers, he directs from the keyboard.
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His most recent projects are the recording of his String Quartets 4 & 5, a work for didjeridu, string quartet and percussion called Flat Earth and a number of works for solo piano, including Getting There, If leaves Could Sing and Adagio & Allegro in C#.
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Romano has a Masters in Conduction (MA) from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (USYD) and a Diploma of Social Science (Anthropology) from the University of Sydney.