REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likuta

The University of Queensland’s School of Music as part of the UQ Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series presents

REQUIEM

Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta 2pm • Sunday 4 September 2022 • QPAC Concert Hall

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Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Professsor Liam Viney Head of School School of Music The University of Queensland

Welcome to The University of Queensland School of Music’s second Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series performance for 2022, featuring the music of Verdi and Likhuta.

We feel privileged to be able to share such monumental and moving music with our community. Today we are proud to premiere a newly arranged work by Ukrainian-Australian composer and UQ School of Music alum Catherine Likhuta.

Through Healers’ Eyes is inspired in part by the composer’s great-grandmother’s experiences as a war nurse in the Second World War. The work promotes healing, courage and compassion. Verdi’s Requiem needs little introduction as one of the most famous settings of the Catholic Mass for the dead—every performance of it is a special occasion. These works by Likhuta and Verdi create a space to reflect on those qualities that make us human in the best possible ways.

I want to thank our wonderful soloists, student and staff performers, and partners.

I thank the Brisbane Concert Choir and the Australian Army Band Brisbane and Band of the 1st Regiment Royal Australian Artillery for their fine musicianship and generous spirit of collaboration today.

Inspired by the success of our 2021

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performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, we also welcome back the UQ Chorus for its second major outing.

The UQ Chorus is a special group, led by Dr Shaun Brown, that includes (like the UQSO) members from across and beyond the UQ community.

Looking forward, 2023 will mark two anniversaries for the School—fifty years since the founding of The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and twenty years of partnering with the Queensland Performing Arts Centre on our Sunday afternoon performances. We are very proud of the continuing contribution to the Queensland community we are able to make and will celebrate both anniversaries in style next year.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Program Through Healers’ Eyes Catherine Likhuta

Messa da Requiem Giuseppe Verdi Requiem i. ii.

Introit (chorus) Kyrie (soloists, chorus)

Dies irae iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. x. xi. xii.

Dies irae (chorus) Tuba mirum (chorus) Mors stupebit (bass) Liber scriptus (mezzo-soprano, chorus – chorus only in original version) Quid sum miser (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor) Rex tremendae (soloists, chorus) Recordare (soprano, mezzo-soprano) Ingemisco (tenor) Confutatis maledictis (bass, chorus) Lacrymosa (soloists, chorus)

Offertory xiii. xiv.

Domine Jesu Christe (soloists) Hostias (soloists)

Sanctus (double chorus) Agnus Dei (soprano, mezzo-soprano, chorus) Lux aeterna (mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass) Libera me (soprano, chorus) xv. Libera me xvi. Dies irae xvii. Requiem aeternam xviii. Libera me

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Through Healers’ Eyes (2022) Catherine Likhuta Through Healers’ Eyes is an elegy for symphony orchestra. The original version was commissioned for wind band by Brisbane Girls Grammar School, where it was premiered at their 2020 International Women’s Day musical showcase.

The symphony orchestra version was commissioned by The University of Queensland’s School of Music, and it receives its world premiere today. The piece was inspired by the life story of a Brisbane nurse, Grace Wilson—in particular, her work as a high-ranked army nurse with the Australian Army Nursing Service during

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World War I and the early years of World War II. Interestingly, my great grandmother, Lydia Holovko, who helped raise me, was also a war nurse, though on the other side of the world—in Ukraine. As a result, this topic was very close to my heart. This piece is an emotional depiction of war as seen by war nurses, the way I imagine it. It is about healing, courage, compassion, patience, care, battle, reflection and perseverance.

Catherine Likhuta

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Messa da Requiem (1874) Giuseppe Verdi While Guiseppe Verdi’s setting of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead was finally composed to commemorate the Italian statesman and man of letters Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), it began life several years earlier with the death of another famous and much adored Italian, the composer Gioachino Rossini (1792– 1868). Although Rossini had hardly been productive since Guillaume Tell in 1829, living out his years in virtual retirement in Paris, his death in 1868 was still cause for much sombre reflection on the passing of an age. Rossini—predeceased by both Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) and Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835)—was the final living representative of a long and glorious epoch in which Italian opera had been at the very pinnacle of European music, its lingua franca. Verdi, in the next generation, could not claim, unlike Rossini, to lack a serious foreign rival, the work of Richard Wagner looming ever larger. It is true, Rossini had Beethoven; but Beethoven, one highly troubled work aside, did not succeed in opera and, while admired and esteemed (by some even loved) in Vienna, could only dream of the international stardom enjoyed

by Rossini. Verdi was moved to write, “A great name has disappeared from the world! His was the most widespread, the most popular reputation of our time, and it was the glory of Italy! When the other one who still lives is no more, what will we have left?”1 (The “other one” was Manzoni.)

In the immediate aftermath of Rossini’s passing, Verdi set in motion a plan, described to his publisher Tito Ricordi,

for a Requiem Mass that would be a collaboration by “the most distinguished Italian composers” and given on the anniversary the great man’s death. Verdi laid out in detail a set of conditions to ensure that the resulting work would be fit for the purpose of a suitable commemoration. A committee was established to oversee the project, including the choice of composers and the assignment of various parts of the Mass to them. Verdi had already started the process with a setting of the Libera me—the final responsory, though one not always included in the service. After several years, the venture foundered (on the very cusp, indeed, of its fulfilment) and the chosen composers had their manuscripts returned to them; Verdi’s Libera me was received from Ricordi on 21 April 1873.2 Barely a month then passed and “the other one,” too, was “no more,” the 88-yearold Manzoni passing on 22 May of that year. What remains somewhat unclear is whether Verdi had already decided, with the failure of the collaborative Rossini project still stinging, to complete his own setting of the entire Requiem Mass before receiving the news of Manzoni’s death; however, his mind was certainly made up upon hearing that this great hero of Italian culture was also gone.

Alessandro Manzoni occupies a revered position in the modern history of Italy. His great historical novel I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) of 1827 is part of the literary canon of the nineteenth century. This work, which evolved over several painstaking

1 Quoted in David Rosen, Verdi Requiem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1.

2 The score of the Messa per Rossini was eventually reassembled and performed for the first time in 1988.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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years, established a foundation for the modern, unified Italian language and was also read as a powerful symbol of the Risorgimento—the movement toward Italian unification and nationhood. Its excoriating depiction of the ravages of plague in seventeenth-century Milan was read (and doubtless intended) as an allegory of Italian suffering under foreign domination.

In the last dozen years of his long but rather tragic life (being predeceased by two wives and several offspring), Manzoni sat as an elder statesman in the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy, appointed by Victor Emmanuel II. His funeral was observed in the church of San Marco in Milan, and his cortege was followed by a throng of mourners thousands strong. A year later, Manzoni’s death was commemorated with a performance, in the same church, of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem.

As a votive Mass on behalf of the dead, the text of the Requiem Mass (more properly Missa pro defunctis) in its various formulations reaches back to the early depths of Christian history. Naturally, its earliest musical manifestations were in plainchant (the most famous example being the Gregorian sequence for the Dies irae—quoted and paraphrased to the point of cliché in nineteenth-century secular music). Unlike the Mass Ordinary and certain other liturgical texts, the Requiem was slow to find its way into polyphonic composition. While the picture is far from clear, it seems that the first composed setting of the Requiem dates from after 1450, most likely by Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410–1497). Although becoming more prevalent in the sixteenth century, settings in high-Renaissance polyphony tended to favour more conservative techniques of composition, possibly owing to the solemn nature of the ritual and the need to disassociate it from anything frivolous.

The history of its transformation from these 6

origins into the kind of work represented

by Verdi’s setting is long and complex, far beyond the scope of this discussion.

However, we can probably be confident in identifying the growth of absolutism in Europe (along with its indulgent arts patronage) and the gradual incursion of secular stylistic influences into religious music during the seventeenth century as turning points. Commissioning, or more likely commanding, the composition of a Requiem Mass to mark the occasion of a Royal or Princely departing accounts for a great proportion of settings from this time until the slow death of the Ancien Régime itself. Far from being restrained out of a compulsion to retain solemnity at all costs, composers at the implicit behest of the glorious personage whose passing was to be observed (if not at the explicit behest of their lingering sycophants) found themselves at an interesting crossroads, between dutiful and sombre religious observance, on the one hand, and appropriate elevation and glorification of the departed by all musical means possible, on the other. Moreover, certain of the highly dramatic words of the rite, particularly in its evocation of the day of judgement, sounding of the final trumpet, and so forth, naturally encouraged an imaginative and dramatic (bordering on operatic) approach.

Mozart’s famous setting, composed and left incomplete in the final year of his life (1791) represents the high artistic watermark of the Requiem Mass in eighteenth-century music. It was certainly a work that would have loomed large in Verdi’s mind some eighty years later. Also strongly present in his imagination would have been the setting in C minor by Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842), composed in 1816 for the commemoration of Louis XVI on the twenty-fourth anniversary of his execution. Less well known today than Mozart’s, this setting was widely admired by many composers

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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of the nineteenth century, among them Beethoven at whose own funeral the work was performed (with a small irony, it would seem, given the origins of the work and Beethoven’s well-known antipathy toward absolutism). Cherubini’s Requiem, along with the gigantic Grande Messe des morts, op. 5 (1837) by Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), composed in honour of the fallen in the Revolution of 1830, provided Verdi with leading models of the Requiem Mass as a public ritual, removed from its strictly liturgical confines. And while Cherubini and Berlioz’s settings address directly opposing political subjects (restoration and revolution), this fact seems in many respects less important for Verdi’s purpose than the role both works played, through their reception, as ones fit for the mass public expression of mourning—be that for a rehabilitated monarch, nameless fallen heroes, or a great artist.

Verdi himself was not notably religious; indeed, he was quite open about his agnosticism and, like many progressives in the time of the Risorgimento, embittered by the Catholic Church’s recalcitrance.

His antipathy toward the clergy was well known, and the feelings were generally reciprocated. This all puts an interesting further dimension on his choice of a Requiem Mass setting as the best form of musical commemoration in the first place, be that for Rossini or Manzoni. It seems most likely that his own misgivings about the church and its attitudes yielded to a recognition that the genre, now established as a public—both practical and symbolic— form of commemoration, rather than a purely ecclesiastical one, was best fit.

Nonetheless, Verdi was insistent, both in his original Rossini plans and his composition for Manzoni, on one important concession from the clergy—that women’s voices be

included, contrary to contemporary church practice, in the performance.

Verdi and his wife, Giuseppina, spent the summer of 1873 in Paris, which is where Verdi started work on the composition, slowly at first. In September, they had returned to Sant’Agata, the estate Verdi owned on the outskirts of Busetto, where he concerned himself primarily with agricultural pursuits, waiting for a turn in the weather to force him indoors and work on the Requiem. By the new year his work rate had intensified, and the score was finally complete by mid-April. By now it had become a labour of love, as is made clear, despite the jocular tone, in his letter to Camille Du Locle, a close friend: I’m working on my Mass and doing so with great pleasure. I feel as if I’ve become a solid citizen and am no longer the public’s clown who, with a big tamburone and bass drum, shouts ‘come, come, step right up,’ etc., etc. As you can imagine, when I hear operas spoken of now, my conscience is scandalized, and I immediately make the sign of the Cross!!...What do you say to that? Am I not an edifying example?3

By this time in his life, Verdi (now 60) was effectively retired. His last work for the stage had been Aida, a massive and massively remunerative commission for the opening of the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo, in 1871. He had no further commissions, nor did he seek (much less need) them. Therefore, notwithstanding Verdi’s sincere feelings of obligation to Manzoni (and before him Rossini), we should not discount his own sense of la forza del destino vis-à-vis his artistic place in the creative pantheon of Italy. In writing the first religious work he had attempted for some thirty years—and enjoying no greater pecuniary necessity to write it than had the

3 Quoted in Rosen, 8.

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Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

aging (and Lutheran!) Bach in leaving to posterity his Mass in B Minor—why would Verdi not naturally rise to the challenge implicitly set down by Mozart and leave his own mark in this exalted genre (and then return to his farm)? In the event, this was not his last large-scale work, but the clear fact that the two which followed it (at some considerable chronological distance)— the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893)—were also emphatic responses to a challenge of artistic legacy (Wagner’s) only suffices to bolster this contention.

The work that Verdi completed is long and complex. In style it varies, from expressions of rage and terror to ones of serenity and supplication. In making his setting, Verdi, like others before him, was confronted by the fact that this ritual lacks a common practice in musical settings as far as the selection of text is concerned. For example, the movement that Verdi contributed for the abandoned Messa per Rossini—the Libera me—is not always included in observances. In the end, Verdi adopted the same plan that the committee had decided for the Rossini collaboration. This commences, as is usual, with the Introit, Requiem æternum dona eis (Grant them eternal rest), from which most settings of the Mass for the Dead acquire their name.

This is followed by the Kyrie, common to all celebrations of the Mass. After this is the sequence Dies irae (Day of wrath), which sets a long and contrasting text, a hymn attributed to the thirteenth-century Franciscan friar, Tommaso da Celano. It commences with vivid descriptions of the Day of Judgement, before yielding to tones of individual supplication—Quid sum miser tunc dicturus (Who am I to say then, wretch that I am?)—expressions of awe and majesty—Rex tremendæ majestatis (King of great majesty)—and tearful mourning— Lacrymosa dies illa (Tearful shall be that

day), amongst others. Verdi’s complex and multi-sectional movement contains the most instantly recognisable part of his Requiem, the earth-shaking opening chorus, as well as, later, some of the most moving solo passages in his entire output.

Next, Verdi set the Offertorio entirely for soloists and engineered a closed, arch form by repeating, in abbreviated fashion, the opening text of the antiphon—Libera animas (Deliver the souls). The next two movements, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, are parts of the Mass Ordinary. Verdi’s Sanctus setting is a complex double fugue in a vigorous style. While the use of counterpoint here certainly refers to the long traditions of ecclesiastical music, Verdi’s use of it in the Sanctus movement is unusual and supplants the procedure in the models of Mozart and Cherubini, both of whose approaches are more magisterial than lively. To counterpose this, Verdi establishes a serene tone in the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God). In some settings, the Lux æterna (Eternal light) is incorporated as one movement with the Agnus Dei. Verdi, however, like Mozart, set it as a separate movement, in this case for three vocal soloists. It contains some of the most delicate and (appropriately) luminous music that Verdi ever wrote, the three soloists speaking as disembodied characters from some unearthly opera. The final movement is a reworking of the Libera me (Save me) that Verdi had completed for the Messa per Rossini some five years earlier. In revising it, he attempted to lend greater unity to the work by reprising material from his 1873–74 efforts in places where the text makes appropriate reference to earlier parts of the Mass, such as recalling music from the Dies irae and the opening antiphon. The movement, and the work, concludes with an emphatic fugue for chorus and soprano soloist.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

The Messa da Requiem was first given in the church of San Marco in Milan on the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death—22 May 1874. Verdi conducted the performance and the soloists were Teresa Stolz (soprano), Maria Waldmann (mezzo), Giuseppe Capponi (tenor) and Ormondo Maini (bass), three of whom had played leading roles in the European premiere of Aida. Some days later—in evidence of its straddling the divide inter publicum et ecclesiasticum—the Requiem was performed three times at La Scala (for which Verdi took, from the box office proceedings, over 4,000 lire). Its reception was, with one notable exception, enthusiastic. That one exception, however, became a celebrated chapter in the tragic epic of woefully misjudged music criticism, encapsulated in the infamous phrase of the conductor and pianist (and close ally of Brahms) Hans von Bülow, who called it “Oper in Kirchengewande” (opera in ecclesiastical robes). “As a rule,” von Bülow concluded in his review for the Allgemeine Zeitung, “the dominant style is that of his last manner [Aida], a style of which a clever Viennese teacher of singing said ‘that it was improved to its disadvantage.’” Brahms read Verdi’s score and disagreed, writing that von Bülow had “disgraced himself” and that “only a genius could write such a work.”4 The Requiem was given regularly in the decade following its composition, but performances then gradually fell off, until a revival in the 1930s.

Since then, it has never been out of the repertoire. And, while von Bülow’s virulent appraisal (for which he eventually sought— and, kind of, received—absolution from the composer) was misplaced, failing to notice subtleties that distinguish the Requiem from opera, ambiguity of genre remains inherent in the work (as it does in Mozart’s); the fact is that Verdi’s Messa da Requiem will much more frequently be heard (as it is today) in a theatre or a concert hall than in a church.

Simon Perry

4 Quoted in Rosen, 12.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Dane Lam Conductor

Australian-Chinese conductor Dane Lam was appointed Associate Music Director and Resident Conductor at Opera Queensland in December 2020, a position created for him specifically and the first of its kind in the company’s history. In 2021, he was appointed an Associate Lecturer at The University of Queensland, where he is directing the UQ Symphony Orchestra in new and exciting directions within and outside the University community.

He is also Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of China’s Xi’an Symphony Orchestra (XSO). Dane has been leading the orchestral revival in Australia following the COVID-19 lockdown and has conducted the first performances in front of live audiences for Opera Queensland, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. As well as Opera Queensland’s production of Le nozze di Figaro, his 2021 highlights included the inaugural production of the National Opera in Canberra, La clemenza di Tito, concerts with the Sydney and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, and a Martha Argerich and friends festival with the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra.

Elsewhere, Dane has appeared with Opera Australia, Scottish Opera, Opera Holland Park, the Canberra, Western Australia, Dunedin, Beijing, Suzhou, Kunming and Shandong Symphony Orchestras, Munich Radio Orchestra, Het Residentie Orkest, City of London Sinfonia, Manchester Camerata, Southbank Sinfonia, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester Bonn and the Verbier Festival Orchestra.

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Since Dane assumed the post of Principal Conductor in Xi’an in 2014, XSO’s classical subscription offering has almost doubled while attendance has increased commensurately. He led the very first staged, professional opera in this 3,000-year-old city with Tosca in 2015, followed by Le nozze di Figaro, La traviata and Candide, raising the artistic standard and profile of the orchestra to attract such artists as Jose Carreras, Sumi Jo, Midori Goto, Barry Douglas, Angela Hewitt, Stephen Hough, Ning Feng, Kirill Gerstein and Yundi Li. Dane conducted the XSO at the 2016 CCTV1 Mid-Autumn Festival Gala which was televised live around China and internationally to an audience exceeding one billion viewers. Moreover, Xi’an has seen important premieres during Dane’s tenure, including Beethoven and Brahms symphony cycles, and a Mahler symphony cycle in partnership with The University of Queensland. Following his 2019 company debut conducting La bohème for Opera Australia, he was immediately invited back to conduct Don Giovanni the following year. Other recent highlights include Carl Davis’ A Christmas Carol with Het Residentie Orkest in The Hague, Orpheus et Eurydie with Opera Queensland and Cilea’s L’arlesiana at Opera Holland Park, with whom Dane has a close relationship that has also seen him conduct Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Giovanni, Aida, Norma, Mascagni’s Iris, Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and a new production of Così fan tutte.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Born in Brisbane, Australia to an Australian mother and a SingaporeanChinese father, Dane played piano, clarinet, and saxophone as a child, and studied conducting under Gwyn Roberts at The University of Queensland. Following an assistantship and three years of study with Gianluigi Gelmetti, then Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Dane attained his Masters from The Juilliard School on a full scholarship under James DePreist before undertaking a Junior Fellowship in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music under Sir Mark Elder, Clark Rundell and Mark Heron. A protégé of the late Kurt Masur, Dane held the post as his Assistant Conductor at the Orchestre National de France. As well as a former Principal Conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Associate Conductor with Opera Holland Park, Dane is an International Ambassador of the Royal Northern College of Music. Dane currently divides his time between London, Xi’an, and Brisbane.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Catherine Likhuta Composer

Catherine Likhuta is a Ukrainian-Australian composer, pianist and recording artist.

Her music exhibits high emotional charge, programmatic nature, rhythmic complexity and Ukrainian folk elements.

Catherine’s pieces have been played extensively around the world, including at highly prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage), Glyndebourne Opera House (Organ Room), five International Horn Symposiums and two World Saxophone Congresses, as well as many festivals and conferences. Her works have enjoyed performances by prominent symphony orchestras (such as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra of the National Radio of Ukraine), chamber ensembles (such as Atlantic Brass Quintet, Ensemble Q, ICE, Lyrebird Brass, NU CORNO and U.S. Army Field Band Horns) and soloists (including former presidents of the North American Saxophone Alliance, Griffin Campbell, and the International Horn Society, Andrew Pelletier). Catherine has held residencies at Tyalgum Music Festival, North Carolina New Music Initiative, University of Missouri Kansas City, University of Georgia and other institutions. She is a two-time winner of the International Horn Society Composition Contest (virtuoso division) and a recipient of several awards, including two grants from the Australia Council for the Arts.

Her music can be heard on Albany, Cala, Common Tone, Equilibrium and Summit Records. Horn virtuosa Denise Tryon’s album Hope Springs Eternal featuring Catherine’s piece Vivid Dreams was awarded the 2022 American Prize in Instrumental Performance.

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Catherine’s wind-band works have been played by dozens of wind ensembles, including prominent groups such as Dallas Winds, Sydney Conservatorium Wind Symphony, University of Georgia Hodgson Wind Ensemble and University of Kentucky Wind Symphony. Her music has enjoyed performances at the Australian School Band and Orchestra Festival (Sydney), Australian National Band and Orchestra Conference (Perth), CBDNA Conference (Norman, OK), and Midwest Clinic (Chicago, IL).

Catherine holds a bachelor’s degree in jazz piano from Kyiv Glière Music College, a five-year post-graduate degree in composition from the National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv Conservatory) and a PhD in composition from The University of Queensland. She is an active performer, often playing her own music.

She was the soloist in the premiere and the CD recording of Out Loud, her piano concerto commissioned by the Cornell University Wind Ensemble, and the pianist on Adam Unsworth’s CD Snapshots.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Eleanor Greenwood Soprano

Eleanor Greenwood is a graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Music Opera Studio and the Australian National University School of Music, and first prizewinner of the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship competition. She made her professional debut in Ireland at the Opera Festival in Wexford. In the UK and Ireland, Eleanor sang for companies including Grange Park Opera and Dorset Opera Festival, and returned to Wexford Festival Opera in various roles.

A recent Richard Divall Emerging Artist, Eleanor currently holds the position of Associate Artist with Melbourne Opera.

She recently made her debut in the role of Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre. A diverse soprano, other recent roles include Ortlinde in Die Walküre, Dama in Verdi’s Macbeth, for which she was nominated for a Green Room Award, and Annio in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito for National Opera in Canberra, directed by Peter Coleman-Wright and conducted

by Dane Lam. Eleanor has sung the soprano solos in Handel’s Messiah at Brisbane City Hall and Mozart’s Requiem at St Andrew’s Cathedral. Concerts include Opera by the Lake (Childers), Music on Sundays (QSO), Opera in the Paddock (Armidale), Mozart by Moonlight (Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne), and Opera in the Park (Boroondara). Eleanor has toured Chinese Poly Theatres in opera and concert productions. In 2022, Eleanor joined the Young Artist Program at Opera Queensland, for which she performed in the QPAC Concert Hall season of

The Sopranos with Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and toured throughout Queensland with the production in May and June.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Tania Ferris Mezzo-soprano

In Australia, Tania has spent the past 18 years as a principal artist, working with Opera Queensland, Opera Australia, Victorian Opera, Melbourne Opera and West Australian Opera. Internationally she has performed in Tokyo, Osaka, London, New York, and Bulgaria. In 2019, she performed in concert with Bryn Terfel on the Bravo Cruise of Performing Arts.

A true dramatic mezzo soprano, Tania’s repertoire spans opera, operetta, concert works, and Lieder Her operatic roles include First Norn (Götterdämmerung, Wagner), Carmen (Carmen, Bizet), Third Lady (The Magic Flute, Mozart), Clairon (Capriccio, Strauss), Cornelia (Giulio Cesare, Handel), Marguerite (La Damnation de Faust, Belioz), Flora (La Traviata, Verdi), Enrichetta di Franca (I Puritani, Bellini), and Fricka (Die Walkure, Wagner).

Her major concert works include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Mahler’s Second Symphony, Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, Elgar’s Sea Pictures, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Mozart’s Missa Brevis, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Bach’s Magnificat.

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Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

Carlos E. Bárcenas Ramírez Tenor

Born in Cali, Colombia, Carlos studied marine biology before having singing lessons with Gustavo A. Marquez. He then moved to Melbourne, Australia where his opera career blossomed.

He holds a Bachelor of Music Performance and a Master of Music (Opera Performance) from University of Melbourne, where he was awarded the Keith G. Chapman Memorial Scholarship.

In Australia, he has worked with Victorian Opera, Victorian Opera Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Melbourne Lyric Opera, Opera Australia, Australian Ballet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Short Black Opera. He has also worked in Italy, Germany, and Colombia.

His roles have included Marco (The Gondoliers, Sullivan), Alexander (Il re pastore, Mozart) Michael (Pecan Summer, Cheetham), Tony (Master Class, Terrence McNally) Steuermann (Der fliegende Holländer, Wagner), Edgardo and Normanno (Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti), Sir Bruno (I puritani, Bellini), Flavio (Norma, Bellini), The Pied Piper (The Pied Piper, Mills), Saint Chavez (Four Saints in Three Acts, Thomson), Maese Pedro (Master Peter’s Puppet Show, Falla) Prince April (Sleeping Beauty, Respighi), Witch (Hansel and Gretel, Humperdinck), Prince Charming (Cendrillon, Massenet) Arnoldo (Guillaume Tell, Rossini), Elvino (La sonnambula, Donizetti), Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini), and Nadir (The Pearl Fishers, Bizet). Carlos received a Green Room award for his performance of Steuermann in Der fliegende Holländer.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Peter Coleman-Wright AO Bass-baritone

Peter Coleman-Wright has performed in many of the world’s great opera houses including The Metropolitan Opera, New York as Falke (Die Fledermaus, by Strauss), Belcore (L’elisir d’amore, by Donizetti), Fieramosca (Benvenuto Cellini, by Berlioz), and Marcello (La bohème, by Puccini) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Dandini (La Cenerentola, by Rossini), Papageno (Zie Zauberflöte, by Mozart), Billy Budd (Britten, title role), Marcello, Ballad Singer (Paul Bunyan, by Britten), Don Alvaro (IIl Viaggio a Reims,

by Rossini), Ping (Turandot, by Puccini), Gunther (Götterdämmerung, by Wagner), Donner (Das Rheingold, by Wagner) and Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, by Wagner). For English National Opera he has sung Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky, title role), Don Giovanni (Mozart, title role), Scarpia (Tosca,

by Puccini), Figaro (The Barber of Seville,

by Rossini), The Traveller (Death in Venice,

by Britten), Billy Budd, The Forrester (Cunning Little Vixen, by Janáček), Michele (Il Tabarro, by Puccini), The Prisoner (Dallapiccola, title role), Prince Friedrich Arthur (The Prince of Homburg, by Henze) and Caligula (Glanert, title role). He created the roles of John in Jonathan Harvey’s Inquest of Love, and Colin in David Blake’s The Plumbers Gift. For the Glyndebourne Festival he has sung Guglielmo (Così fan tutte, by Mozart), Demetrius (A Midsummers Night’s Dream, by Britten), Sid (Albert Herring, by Britten) and Pizzaro (Fidelio, by Beethoven).

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He sang Sharpless (Madama Butterfly, Puccini) for the Opéra de Paris, Guglielmo and Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro,

by Mozart) Opéra National de Bordeaux, Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva at the Bayerische Staatsoper, and Balstrode (Peter Grimes, by Britten) and Marcello for Grand Théâtre de Geneve. For the Netherlands Opera he has sung Busoni’s Dr. Faust (title role), Schaunard (La Bohème), and Chorebe (Les Troyens, by Berlioz) and for La Fenice, Count Almaviva.

He made his debut at Teatro alla Scala, Milan in Death in Venice and has appeared at the Aix-en-Provence and Bregenz Festivals. His North American appearances include Houston Grand Opera (Rodrigo in Verdi’s Don Carlos, Sharpless, and Henry in Jake Heggie’s The End of the Affair), Santa Fe Opera (Sharpless), New York City Opera (Don Giovanni) and Vancouver Opera (Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva).

In his native Australia he has sung Scarpia, Macbeth (Verdi, title role), Mandryka (Arabella, by Strauss), Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva, Germont (La traviata, by Verdi), Billy Budd, Balstrode, Pizzaro, Onegin, Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande, by Debussy), and Sweeney Todd (Sondheim, title role— winning the Helpmann Award for Best Actor in a Musical). He created the role of Harry Joy in Brett Dean’s Bliss, which was also performed at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

As a concert artist he has performed in the world’s major venues, most notably London’s South Bank and Barbican Centre, Avery Fisher Hall, Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Sydney Opera House, and Melbourne Concert Hall.

He has recorded extensively for Telarc, Chandos, Hyperion, and EMI. His engagements include Caligula at the Teatro Colon and in concert at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Death in Venice in Moscow under Rozhdestvensky and Brett Dean’s Last Days of Socrates with both the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel. Most recently, he sang Ades Powder her Face for the Warsaw Opera and at La Monnaie in Brussels, Iain Bell’s In Parenthesis for Welsh National Opera, Papageno for English National Opera, Kissinger in John Adams’ Nixon in China with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and Guglielmo (Così fan tutte,

by Mozart) for Opera Holland Park.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra Conductor • Dane Lam

The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra (UQSO) is one of the southern hemisphere’s leading youth ensembles. It is comprised mainly of students from the Bachelor of Music (Honours) program and includes performers from other schools within the University, making the orchestra a truly collaborative ensemble. It also serves as an invaluable Work Integrated Learning experience for students as they perform alongside UQ members of staff and professional musician guests.

The orchestra’s repertoire includes full symphonic works, concertos with students, staff or guest soloists, operas, compositions by students, and repertoire related to conducting workshops. Combined choral/ orchestral performances take place together with UQ vocal ensembles and invited secondary school performance partners.

KEY * Concertmaster + Associate Concertmaster ^ Section Principal ~ Guest @ UQ Alumnus \ Bumper

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UQSO has an important orchestral heritage in Queensland. In September 1939, prominent Brisbane musician Dr Robert Dalley-Scarlett combined his community orchestra with UQ student musicians to perform at a University Revue. One of the student members who performed that night, Joan Osborn, recalled that newsboys were shouting “Germany invades Poland” on the night. In the 1950s, medical student Ralph Schureck formed a University Orchestra. Later the orchestra was bequeathed to the care of Hugh Brandon and Gordon Spearritt. The foundations for the current Orchestra at the School of Music were laid in the early 1970s under Professor Noel Nickson.

VIOLIN 1 Adam Chalabi*^ Ann Carew+ Lili Stephens Isabelle Watson Jasmine Milton Hanah Lee In Yi Chae Issy Young~@ Lauren Yao Elena James

VIOLIN 2 Sophia Goodwin^ Rebecca Seymour~@ Fan Yang Abigail Lui Chun Stephen Chan Ran Luo Erin Gilchrist Ashlyn Keiler Sijin Bai

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

VIOLA Nicole Greentree^~ Helena Burns Liam Mallinson Daniel Casey Charlotte Burbrook de Vere~@ Sophia Mackson Emilia Siedlecki Maddisyn DixonWhitbourne~ CELLO Patrick Murphy^ Ting Yang Lai Stacey Weir Emily Winter Rory Smith~@ Nathan Qiu Hannah Harley Sarah Lone Jemma Balaÿ~@

PICCOLO Corina Palafox OBOE Clint Fox^ Vivienne Brooke~

BASS CLARINET Laura McLachlan Likhuta BASSOON Claire Ramuscak^~ Harry Wilkes Katharine Willison~ Amelia Cody-Byfield~ FRENCH HORN Vivienne Collier Vickers^~ Max Dielkens Thomas Ferreira-Montague Likhuta^ Luc Prisse

DOUBLE BASS Alexandra Elvin^ Dushan Walcowicz~ Alyssa Deacon~ Jemima Shepherd Ken Harris~ FLUTE Seoyoung Kim

CLARINET Kate Travers^ Alexander Lord

TIMPANI William Elvin^ PERCUSSION Ella Hicks Bianca Dwyer Likhuta PIANO Saxon Mills-Booth Likhuta OFF-STAGE TRUMPET* SGT Paul McBurney*** CPL Josh Young** MUSN Akua Van Den Hooven*** MUSN Riley Nimmo***

TRUMPET Angus Cleaver^ Mark Bremner~^\ Caleb Hodgkinson Imraan Jhetham Felix Gow TROMBONE Zhao Ming Liu^~@ Max Fitzgerald Spencer CoomberTomkinson TUBA Sean Burke^~@ * Courtesy of Australian Army Band Brisbane** and Band of the 1st Regiment Royal Australian Artillery***

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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UQ Chorus Director • Dr Shaun Brown Pianist • Šárka Budínská The University of Queensland Chorus was formed in 2021 to perform in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the UQ School of Music’s return to QPAC after the lockdowns of 2020. Following the success of that performance, Maestro Dane Lam has invited the Chorus to re-constitute for the second ViceChancellor’s Concert of 2022. The UQ Chorus is comprised of current UQ students, alumni and staff, members of Brisbane’s musical community and

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professional chorus members of Opera Queensland who are passionate about singing and mentoring young musicians.

Created and directed by Dr Shaun Brown, this group has established itself as a festival chorus of great versatility and outstanding musicianship, with a glorious and thrilling choral sound. UQ Chorus looks forward to future collaborations with The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra and other music groups and institutions in Queensland.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

SOPRANO Jacalyn Adcock Hannah Avery Alissa Bermingham Isabella Brown Isabella Bulstrode Emma Burridge Julie Chatel Bonnie Conwell Imogen Eastgate Karen Gaydon Jenny Gunnarsson Charlize Hinze Madeleine Hornsby Charlotte Jones Naomi Klazinga Lillian Kuhn Victoria Lee Meiling Li Jada Love Jessie Madsen Sarah Maher Emily Malczewski Alicia Marsden Arabella Martin Amber-Jane McMahon Breanne Nelson Yemaya Nelson Genevieve Nolan Tess O’Donohue Alison Paris Annie Rose Paroz Kaija Scott Zoe Seeley Luisa Tarnawski Eline Van Bruggen Rosina Waugh

ALTO Beth Allen Cassandra Barnett Kathryn Bradbury Serena Choo Regan Flor Anne Fulton Zhuohang Li Annabelle Julien Tainika Kane-Potaka Grace Miller Lara Miller Demetra Politakis Soren Reynolds Morgan Rosati Evie Rounsley Sydney Smith Zhaoxu Su Tong Sun Lauren Wilson Maria Woolford

TENOR Reuben Abbott Oguzhan Aksoy Sean Andrews Jacob Bulow Ethan Butler Ryan Carlson Samuel Dale Aarya Dath Jackson Eastwood Dominic Fitzgerald Neil Griffiths Nicholas Hargreaves Nick Kirkup Shaun McVicar Kurt Schouten Bernard Wheaton Jenson White Connor Willmore

BASS Robert Bailey Matthew Broadbent Joshua Clifford Bill Cronk Reuben Flower Jacob Fowler Yu (Roy) Guo Ben Klazinga Riley Morton Graham Nielson Timothy Nielson Alex Ogle Leandro Otero Kristian Scott Winter Scott Zachary Vella Nic Wallace Leon Warnock Thomas Yarrow Jia-Peng Yeung Hainian Yu

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Brisbane Concert Choir Director • Dr Debra Shearer-Dirié Pianist • John Woods Based in the heart of Brisbane, where it was formed in 1996, Brisbane Concert Choir has a tradition of choral excellence.

It retains the services of a professional Director of Music, Dr Debra Shearer-Dirié, and professional accompanist, John Woods.

The choir’s heritage ranges from performances in community halls, churches and wineries in regional and rural Australia to city venues such as Brisbane’s QPAC Concert Hall. It has performed on some of the world’s most coveted stages, including the Gaudi basilica of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the basilica of St Mark’s in Venice and the famed Notre Dame cathedrals of Paris, Nice and Montreal.

The choir also engages in contract performances, ranging from private weddings and Christmas carolling to singing for The First Word to formally open this year’s Brisbane Writers Festival. It performed live during the film presentation of National Geographic’s Symphony for our World before an audience of 2,000 at Brisbane’s Convention Centre, part of The Walt Disney Company’s most recent international tour.

Brisbane Concert Choir’s repertoire has classical music at its core but is diverse, ranging from full symphonic works to a cappella concerts. Likewise it has a diversity of performance styles, including Renaissance madrigals, choral concertos sung in Russian,

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African-American spirituals and works by modern composers such as Morten Lauridsen and Ola Gjeilo.

The choir seeks to commission music, its most notable contributions being for an Anzac Day concert in the centenary year of the Armistice, in 2018, when it commissioned and premiered two suites

by Australian composers: Remembrance

by Michael Leighton Jones and War Within

by Gerardo Dirié.

Brisbane Concert Choir is an auditioned SATB chorus of some 65 volunteer singers. It is a registered not-for-profit incorporation, registered national charity and has recently established a Public Fund for which it is currently seeking DGR status to offer tax deductions for donations.

The choir’s Director Dr Debra Shearer-Dirié thrives on the creative discovery that flows from collaborative musical ventures such as today’s performance. She enjoys the adventure and global embrace of a career dedicated to music, including working with other branches of the musical arts, including dancers and visual artists, especially from diverse cultural groups.

Originally from Perth, Debra’s career has taken her from Hungary and through Western Europe to North America, where she obtained her doctorate at Indiana University. She has led Brisbane Concert Choir on all of its successful concert tours of Europe and Canada during the last 14 years.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

SOPRANO Celine Bowman Annette Corkhill Bronwyn Cox Barbara Crellin Hélène Daniel Jane Deighton Helen Fredericks Keryn Hassall Jan Hungerford Annaliese Londy Deanna Meth Judy Neal Stephanie Neller Emily Sawrey Louise Strasser Ellen Stockdale Liesl Taylor Rebecca Thomas Linda von Nida Elizabeth Yee

ALTO Milly Blakeley Christine Campbell Sannie Dragani Sue Gray Grete Hindsberger Melissa Hutchinson Nicolie Jenkins Barbara Lamb Barbara Maenhaut Lynne Maurer Jane Oliver Judy Shepherd Kathryn Teakle

TENOR Simon Burgess Ian Clarkson Lourens Feuth Brett Gordon Paul Kennedy Martin Rowden

BASS Robert Bray Joel Corney Mike Dalley Derrick Hill Murray Massey Ian Maurer Timothy Reeves Ross Salomon Andrew Stobie Michael Strasser Rick Valenta

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Study Music at UQ

Our School’s motto is “Music AND...”. UQ is the place where students who excel at music can focus on their craft while broadening their horizons. Our flagship Bachelor of Music (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts music programs are designed to build practical depth and intellectual breadth, and each of these degrees can be taken in a variety of dual degree combinations, including Science and Education.

Employability and Work-IntegratedLearning experiences are central to the ethos of the School of Music. Students learn alongside and perform with our industry partners, through internship and mentoring partnerships with major Queensland performing arts organisations.

The Bachelor of Music (Honours) is a four-year degree that supports students in developing their creative potential as professional musicians, giving them a solid foundation in music history, practical skills and theory. In the first three years, students complete courses in performance studies, musicianship, musicology, and music research methods, alongside a range of elective music courses in ensemble performance, music education, popular music, music technology and the psychology of music.

Bachelor of Music (Honours) students receive weekly principal study lessons with designated teachers, many of whom are international performers. After three semesters of performance studies, composition and conducting become options for those students who are interested in honing their craft in creating original works or leading ensembles.

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A research project in fourth year enhances students’ employability by developing their ability to articulate musical ideas in sophisticated and complex ways.

The Bachelor of Arts (BA) includes majors in Music and Popular Music and Technology, and a minor in Music Psychology.

The Music major expands students’ understanding in musicianship, music history, music pedagogy, and practical music-making. Students learn how sonic materials are organised, develop literacy in music notations, composing and improvising, explore different genres, and improve their critical appreciation and historical knowledge of music.

The Popular Music and Technology major explores popular music and media technologies in flexible and creative ways that strengthen students’ career prospects in the arts, government, business, education, and science and technology sectors. Students learn vital future workforce skills in collaboration, critical thinking, design thinking, computational thinking, transdisciplinary and social intelligence.

The Music Psychology minor examines how people think, feel, and behave in relation to music. Students learn how music and related psychological processes operate in larger sociocultural contexts, connecting with the world around them, and how to apply their knowledge and skills in music practice, educational, therapeutic, and organisational contexts.

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

The Master of Music incorporates contemporary theory and practice across an 18-month postgraduate program that provides students with a variety of pathways to professional leadership opportunities.

With a flexible study program that can be customised to individual career goals, students can diversify and extend their professional practice. Students are able to select courses according to their interests as they deepen and broaden their learning in areas such as performance, conducting and music theory, education, technology, and composition.

The School of Music also provides opportunities for individual postgraduate students to undertake Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy research projects, producing new knowledge and gaining expertise in various fields, including music performance, composition, musicology, popular music and technology, music psychology, and music education.

Make a gift to support students through this QR Code

Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra Conductor Dane Lam

Presented by:

For more information on the UQ School of Music: Virtual Concerts bit.ly/UQVirtualConcertSeries Facebook facebook.com/UQSchoolofMusic SoundCloud soundcloud.com/uq-music YouTube bit.ly/UQMusicYouTube Email music@uq.edu.au Phone (07) 3365 4949 Web music.uq.edu.au

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Vice-Chancellor’s Concert Series • REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta

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Thank you for attending REQUIEM: Dane Lam conducts Verdi and Likhuta. The University of Queensland’s School of Music looks forward to seeing you at our next Vice Chancellor’s Concert at QPAC in 2023.