Reviews on debut album, ‘sounds which grow richer as they decay’ (Sawyer Editions, 2022)
‘Some of Lim’s music draws from decay, the biological process, which can present in unstable techniques, slowing speeds, fuzzying pitch clarity, expanding material, decreasing density, softening volume, and decay, the acoustic process. […] And as something moldy is immediately identified by its texture and color, those aspects are accentuated through preparations, mutes, extended techniques, tactile timbres, and rougher textural surfaces. Decay betrays some truths of a material and a sound is laid bare as its pieces dim to silence one after another.’
– Keith Prosk, harmonic series (read more here)
‘The title work [sounds which grow richer as they decay] is most striking, using a beaten harp and two trombones to extend noise into held tones, producing a grotesque of Scelsi at his most hieratic.’
– Ben Harper, Boring Like A Drill (read more here)
‘sounds which grow richer as they decay (2017), for the unusual combination of two trombones (Ian Calhoun, Zachary Johnson) and harp (Kaitlin Miller) is a strange piece showing Lim’s original sonic imagination. The harp, as if exhausted, produces a deep metallic-edged twanging (an effect produced by the vibrating string being moved by a pedal) and the trombones emerge from nothing to produce quiet sustained sounds that often sound electronically produced rather than human.’
– Caroline Potter, TEMPO (read more here)
‘“Piece for three tuned cowbells“ from Sylvia Lim’s contribution is crystalline and clattery, an empty canvas on which the tinkling and mewling of cowbells are painted, an instrument in conversation with itself.’
– Jonathan Patrick, Dallas Observer (read more here)
‘The melodic colour and shape is enticing and the unusual combinations are handled with a certain confidence you’d be surprised the ensembles aren’t a common grouping.’
– Ben Lunn, Morning Star (read more here)
Reviews on live performances of my work
‘For Lim’s piece Mira Benjamin’s violin is prepared with cork blocks wedged between the strings. Benjamin airily bows parts of the neck of the instrument while using the fingers on her other hand to tap out pulses on the string, making the violin speak in delicately unstable ways.’
– Edward Henderson, The Wire (On Pulsations, performed by Mira Benjamin at Music We’d Like to Hear 2021)
‘[…] a set of five pithy, sharply etched miniatures. […] (left detail) was rendered with impressive precision and clarity, while the deftly placed pauses and silences, suggesting fleeting moments of hesitancy and doubt, gave the work a strongly personal touch.’
– Paul Conway, Musical Opinion (On (left detail), performed by Trio Sonorité at Illuminate Women’s Music’s Nottingham concert 2023)
Other
‘An undeniably beautiful, drifting cloud of sound’
– Luke Altmann, ABC Classic (On Points of Intersection)
‘An investigation both playful and profound…of the violin as a sound-making resource’
– Tom Service, BBC Radio 3, New Music Show (On Pulsations)
‘haunting, delicate…It’s all so simple, and yet so cleverly invented’
– Judith Weir (On paper wings)
Articles
Limelight Magazine: 2022 Pythia Prize Winner Announced – read here about my forthcoming collaboration with Melbourne-based ensemble Rubiks Collective (January, 2023)
Interlude – I spoke to Oliver Pashley about my music – read here (April, 2023)
PRXLUDES – I spoke to Patrick Ellis about my music – read here (June, 2023)