Selected Reviews

This page contains a short selection of some of the reviews my music has received from Australia and internationally. For more, see the Faber Music News and Reviews site.


A Symphony of Modern Objects

    Matthew Hindson’s A Symphony Of Modern Objects was… captivating music, sometimes brittle, dramatic, syncopated, ironic. – Fred Blanks, North Shore Times, 6 August 2003, page 19.


Industrial Night Music

    …At evening end and having its premiere season was Industrial Night Music, privately commissioned from Matthew Hindson, arguably today’s most distinctive Australian compositional voice, and in danger of being labelled as a bovver-boy. He is much more, as this piece attests… Conserving some elbow grease for Hindson’s self-styled “meccanico machismo”, the players were able to expose the muscular, often memorable rhythmic patterns that clarify his texture and distinguish his pieces. – Elizabeth Silsbury, The Advertiser, 23 August 2003, page 87.


In Memoriam: Concerto for Amplified Cello and Orchestra

    The world premiere of Matthew Hindson’s Concerto for Amplified Cello and Orchestra: In Memoriam… cast in two movements, Lament and Celebration, was an imaginative and vividly energetic work and one of the best large-scale scores of Hindson’s that I have heard to date… Hindson’s music at the moment seems to be testing extremes of expression and, dare one say it, of taste – a hard thing to do since it is so easy to overdo.
    Sleeveless and tattooed, cellist Nathan Waks was in his element in this piece, relishing the play-anything-frantically textures and grasping the energy and conception with a virtuoso’s sense of theatre. One couldn’t imagine a better advocate. I was encouraged by Hindson’s compositional development in this piece.” – Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning Herald – Timeout, 9 April, 2001.

    By far the longest work on the agenda was the world premiere of In Memoriam – a consistently interesting, intermittently impressive, and occasionally astonishing piece that bespoke a depth and maturity in the work of this young composer that I had not experienced before… In Memoriam was overflowing with ideas and well equipped with surprises. Much of it was very loud – too loud for many an ageing ear such as those which proliferate in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s flagship adult series – but there was no doubt it spoke meaningfully to the much more versatile ears of the twilight Meet the Music audience, with its eclectic mix of young blades and adventurous oldies… Not only did the Hindson draw far and away the most enthusiastic applause of any work on the night’s agenda, but its response eclipsed by a long road that afforded to any other world premiere I have ever attended… it was an achievement of significant enough size to turn many composers of the younger generation green with envy. – David Gyger, Opera-Opera, May 2001, Page 281.9

Moments of Plastic Jubilation / Plastic Jubilation

    Thank God for the critic whose complaint about an orchestral piece by young Australian composer Matthew Hindson goaded him into writing Moments of Plastic Jubilation, a pastiche of musical snippets creating brilliant flashes of music, with an inspired contemporaneity that Kieran Harvey brought off with a fiery blast of playing. This is the exciting stuff great musical moments are made of.” – Patricia Kelly, The Courier-Mail, 26 July 2001.

Rave-Elation

    Matthew Hindson’s Rave-Elation, a homage to the ‘rave’ dance scene, was full of funky beats and catchy riffs pounded out with fairly relentless energy. One couldn’t call it subtle, but it was a hugely enjoyable celebration of the essentially hedonistic physicality of contemporary youth culture. It was greeted with a degree of enthusiasm from the audience which is relatively rare, alas, for contemporary music. – Stephen Whittington, The Advertiser, 22 July, 1997.


Speed

    …Referring specifically to Matthew Hindson’s SPEED, funky was probably not the right word but the band were certainly pumping. SPEED is a raging 18 minutes of explosive techno for orchestra. Powered by a synthetic drum kit, the orchestra pulses along at 130-plus beats per minute, with subtle shifts mimicking a DJ’s spin doctoring. The work begins in a quintessential techno style… Part of the fun in this piece is realising how silly you feel sitting in a concert hall at 9.30 PM when the music conjures a warehouse at 3am. Laugh? I nearly wet myself.” – Martin Ball, The Australian, 29 July 1997.
    SOME very wild sounds greet you at the start of this disc of frenetic music by Matthew Hindson, recognised as a leading figure among Australia’s younger generation of composers… It is exciting and explores a new facet of symphonic sound. A great voice who does not have to use gimmicks or quirks. Just skill and imagination.” – Review of SPEED [Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, David Porcelijn, conductor (ABC Under Capricorn) ] – Patricia Kelly, The Courier-Mail, 3 June 2000.

technologic 145

    …With the third item, Matthew Hindson’s technologic 145… the music sounded like an episode of Donald Duck’s misadventure… the richly melodic work conveyed more bluegrass frenzy than demonic orgies. Traces of repetitive bars were given such colourful variations and embellishment that you can hardly recognise them as disco sonics… Tt certainly is one of the most kinetic music ever written for a bunch of seated folks. If we weren’t too breathless by the end of it, we would have certainly gotten up and danced a jig. – Pang Khee Teik The Edge, August 2001.

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