Getting to know Rose Riebl
Australian neoclassical composer and pianist Rose Riebl releases her debut album Do Not Move Stones, on Friday. We asked her to tell us about herself:
I am… currently obsessed with Korean pear juice. And the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish.
Do Not Move Stones is… the name of my debut album. It’s also the single remaining fragment of a Sappho poem, as translated by Anne Carson. I remember seeing these words alone on a page, they looked so certain, four words in a sea of white space; I loved all the o’s, the circle at the centre of them. I felt right away it would be the name of the album. I can’t wait to meet Anne Carson one day and thank her, this translation has had a profound impact on me. Sappho’s voice, and Carson’s, have travelled across seas and entered these songs. Her collection is called ‘If Not, Winter’, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Home is… the roots we grow inside ourselves as we migrate through our lives, discovering who we are and where we belong. It’s longing and memory, it’s a remembering, it’s earth and stars and sky, it’s ocean, it’s someone’s arms, long enough to hold your leaving. Finding home is like finding the thread that connects you to this open, cosmic wild.
I spend too much time… watching French spy shows + Danish crime.
I’ve never… been to Mexico, but it’s on my list.
The last 12 months have been… an interesting time! Bookended by lockdowns (close to 6 months of last year) startling moments of beauty, the intimacy of slowing down, some devastation too. Things don’t ever become less vivid, life keeps throwing up extraordinary things, challenges and gifts, and we hold on in the mad flood of it all.
It might surprise people to learn that… as a child I performed in a long-sleeved, black velvet dress and matching cape.
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Do Not Move Stones is out on 18th June. You can pre-order it, including a limited run on clear vinyl, here. Rose is hosting a launch party at Chapter House, Flinders Lane, Melbourne 24th July. Tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/rose-riebl-do-not-move-stones-album-launch-tickets-159094924201
Interview by Bobby Townsend.
