The Colour Wheel – A composition for Electric Guitar Orchestra by Jim Moginie

Event Details

The Colour Wheel – A composition for Electric Guitar Orchestra by Jim Moginie Saturday September 2, Stanwell Park CWA Hall.

Jim Moginie is best known for his work with legendary Australian band Midnight Oil, and has also toured the world as guitarist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, scored numerous film soundtracks, written instrumental music and produced many records.

He wrote The Colour Wheel, a composition for eight electric guitars as artist in residence at the Campbelltown Art Centre in 2014. Busy in the last few years with Midnight Oil, this will be the first time since 2016 that Jim and the Electric Guitar Orchestra have been able to perform The Colour Wheel for a live audience. It has already been performed at the Sydney Opera House, Longitude Festival and the Festival Of Writing and Ideas in Ireland, MONA FOMA and many Australian galleries and art education colleges.

“I’ve always thought that the sonic palette of the electric guitar is much wider than what it’s given credit for,” says Moginie. “This piece explores that, with guitars fulfilling the same role as orchestral instruments with various effects and baritone and bass guitars added. Lighting the whole room with James Turrell-inspired, saturated washes of colour, creates a strong feeling, a synaesthetic type experience, where the music suggests the colour and the colour suggests the sound in a really potent way”.

Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synaesthetes. Awareness of synaesthetic perceptions varies from person to person.

Along with a desire to deconstruct formality and structure, The Colour Wheel explores the attempts over history to prove the connection between music and colour – examining the art, music, and theories of Kandinsky, Klee, Schoenberg, and Bowral born artist, Roy De Maistre.

“We’ll be on our way to Melbourne to perform it at the Capitol Theatre but playing it on Saturday September 2 at the historic small hall of Stanwell Park CWA is a great place to present it too”.
The Colour Wheel will be performed by Moginie, Kent Steedman (Celibate Rifles), Tim Kevin (Youth Group, Holly Throsby), Matt Steffen (Decoder Ring), Alex Young (Good Buddha) and Michael Trifunovic (Aqualash).

The Colour Wheel – A composition for six electric guitars by Jim Moginie Out on Reverberama Records