canberra international music festival 28 April – 8 May 2016
Experience the music adventure
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Concert Calendar
Page
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Opening Gala: Tango Tambuco
7.30 pm
Friday April 29
Fitters’ Workshop
9
2
Fandango
1 pm
Saturday April 30
Fitters’ Workshop
13
3
The Brodsky Quartet & Katie Noonan: With Love and Fury
6 pm
Saturday April 30
Fitters’ Workshop
15
4
Il racconto di mezzanotte A Midnight Tale
9.30 pm
Saturday April 30
Fitters’ Workshop
17
5
Ear of the Cat
10 am 10 am 2 pm
Saturday April 30 Sunday May 1 Sunday May 1
Ainslie Arts Centre
19
6
Barbara Blackman’s Festival Blessing
2 pm
Sunday May 1
NGA Gandel Hall
21
7
Petite Messe solennelle
6 pm
Sunday May 1
Fitters’ Workshop
25
8
Sounds on Site Bells and Smells
12.30 pm
Monday May 2
NGA Sculpture Garden
27
9
The Streets of Madrid
6.30 pm
Monday May 2
Fitters’ Workshop
29
10
Sounds on Site Nishi Sequenza
12.30 pm
Tuesday May 3
Hotel Hotel
33
11
Scarlatti meets Handel meets Bach
6.30 pm
Tuesday May 3
Fitters’ Workshop
37
12
Sounds on Site Braddon’s Bread and Games
12.30 pm
Wednesday May 4
Gorman House to Ainslie Arts Centre
41
13
French Invention Invention française
6.30 pm
Wednesday May 4
Fitters’ Workshop
43
14
Sounds on Site Garema Place
12.30 pm
Thursday May 5
Garema Place
47
15
El Camino
6.30 pm
Thursday May 5
Fitters’ Workshop
49
16
Sounds on Site Gardens of Delight
12.30 pm
Friday May 6
National Botanic Gardens
53
17
The Battle of the Sexes
7.30 pm
Friday May 6
Fitters’ Workshop
55
18
Vivaldi Unseasoned
11 am
Saturday May 7
Fitters’ Workshop
59
19
Argentina Mágica: Celebrating Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
2.30 pm
Saturday May 7
Fitters’ Workshop
61
20
Twilight
5.30 pm
Saturday May 7
Fitters’ Workshop
65
21
The Chocolate Factory A Family Concert
11 am
Sunday May 8
Fitters’ Workshop
67
22
Mexican Wave
2 pm
Sunday May 8
NGA Gandel Hall
69
23
Festival Finale: Viva Brasil!
6 pm
Sunday May 8
Fitters’ Workshop
71
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TALK OF THE TOWN SERIES In association with Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres
Ainslie Arts Centre 10.30am 65 mins.
Friday 29 April
Meet Forma Antiqva
Wednesday 4 May
Roland Peelman in conversation with Aarón, Daniel and Pablo Zapico
Meet José María Gallardo del Rey and Gerard Brophy
With the assistance of the Embassy of Spain and Acción Cultural Española
Dan Sloss in conversation with guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey and Composer-in-Residence Gerard Brophy
Monday 2 May
With the assistance of the Embassy of Spain and Acción Cultural Española
Marco Beasley: talk and masterclass Tenor Marco Beasley works with singers from the ANU, The Song Company and Festival Young Artists to reveal the art of recitar cantando, with the Zapico brothers (Forma Antiqva) providing continuo; introduced by Joseph Falcone, Director of the Gorman Arts Centre
Thursday 5 May
Meet Nadia Ratsimandresy and the ondes Martenot Natalie Williams from the School of Music, ANU, in conversation with Nadia Ratsimandresy, ondes Martenot virtuoso, and composer Konstanin Koukias
With the assistance of the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute
with the assistance of the Embassy of France
Tuesday 3 May
Friday 6 May
Meet the Boccherini Trio
Meet Eugene Ughetti and Ricardo Gallardo
Liz McKenzie in conversation with violinist Suyeon Kang, violist Florian Peelman and cellist Paolo Bonomini
Roland Peelman in conversation with Eugene Ughetti, Artistic Director of Speak Percussion, and Ricardo Gallardo, Artistic Director of the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble. with the assistance of the Embassy of Mexico
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Thursday 5 MAY In association with Bungendore Wood Works Gallery, Eden Road Wines and Poachers Pantry
Poacher's Way Festival Trip
Bungendore Wood Works Gallery Heitor Villa Lobos 1887-1959 Preludes 1, 3 and 5 Choro No. 1
Andrey Lebedev guitar
Eden Road Wines Carlos Salzedo 1885-1961
Ballade Op. 28 Jolly Piper, Concert Fantasy on the theme of the Sailor's Hornpipe Alice Giles harp
Poachers Pantry Carl Nielsen 1865-1931
Wind Quintet Op. 43 Allegro ben moderato Praeludium Tema con variazioni Kim Falconer flute Edward Wang oboe Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet Justin Sun bassoon James Bradley horn This Event is supported by ANNA & BOB PROSSER Andrey Lebedev is supported by Muriel Wilkinson & June Gordon
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Message from
Message from Festival Patrons, Major General the Hon. Michael Jeffery and Mrs Marlena Jeffery
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr MLA
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Canberra International Music Festival.
One of the great joys of autumn that Marlena and I look forward to each year is our nationally recognised Canberra International Music Festival.
Now in its 22nd year, the festival will once again fill the city’s most iconic public places with world-class music. A prominent feature in Canberra’s events calendar, the festival helps confirm Canberra’s position as one of the world’s coolest little capitals.
Set in some of Canberra’s iconic venues and show-casing our own local talent, the Festival has grown over 22 years to attract renowned musicians from all around Australia and overseas.
This year, the festival’s Artistic Director Roland Peelman has created a program that focusses on Latin music. Canberrans will hear some of the best guitarists, singers and percussionists from Spain and Italy, Mexico and Argentina – not to mention Belgium, France, Germany and the UK – who will join many of our own musicians.
For 10 wonderful days and nights, Canberrans are treated to inspirational programs mixing great classical music that is familiar to us with exciting lesser-known works. Young Australian musicians come to learn from and perform alongside international artists. And although each year it grows in reputation, the festival retains the intimate feeling of being community based.
The Sounds on Site series will be scattered around the city, allowing the festival to be complemented by some of the food and wine offerings in the Canberra region.
We’ve been pleased to have sponsored concerts over the years, and we are honoured to have been asked to become patrons of the Canberra International Music Festival.
I am delighted to extend a warm welcome to all the musicians who have travelled to be part of the Festival and I wish you every success for the next ten days.
Andrew Barr
Michael and Marlena Jeffery
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Music and Migration by Roland Peelman proud to have it bounce off some pillars of Western heritage such as Scarlatti. As we know, the sounds of non-Western instruments has had as profound an influence on contemporary music-making as the period instruments that led the historic research into the music of the past.
Last year the world witnessed the largest wave of immigration since the end of WWII. An estimated 1.2 million people crossed the Mediterranean, often in the most desperate and perilous ways, to seek a safe haven in Europe. It remains unclear how many will remain in Europe, but the circumstances of this mass exodus are well known, and reach beyond the conflict in Syria. All European countries affected by this crisis are wavering between humanitarian goodwill and protectionist fear. The anti-emigration agenda ranges from the shrillest level of bigotry to an endemic fear of change – all the way to a genuine dread for loss of national cultural identity. The other side of the argument is driven by human decency and humanitarian refugee policies sprinkled with economic opportunism.
Let us briefly look into our European musical past. Roman imperialism and early Christian evangelisation went hand in hand in disseminating a musical style that originated in the Middle East. Constantinople and Rome served as the conduits, but the rites and chants represented a mix of Jewish and Hellenistic traditions , whilst adventure and missionary zeal turned Lives of the Saints into the first European travel blogs. The great wave of migration that contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire laid the foundations for a broad variety of regional cultures that still characterise the European continent, from Portugal to Scandinavia. The subsequent rise of Islam brought the trade with Africa to a temporary standstill with the exception of Naples. But soon enough two new routes were carved to Jerusalem: one, the Crusaders’ most direct itinerary through Constantinople; the other, a longer route through extended Muslim territory via Spain and Alexandria. This is the time of the first European epics, a flowering of poetry and song, driven by travelling knights and minstrels in a cultural environment that circles around the Mediterranean and owes as much to Arab scholarly refinement as it does to Christian values. Marco Beasley gives us a fine taste of this rich and complex world in his solo performance ‘A Midnight Tale’. Tasso’s late 16th century epic Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Freed) is a humanistic, fictional recreation of this European episode – and a treasure trove of juicy stories for opera writers. Monteverdi’s masterful 'Combattimento' from 1624 is one of the first theatre works drawn from Tasso’s epic – and by far the most dramatically compact.
Yet many Western European countries have absorbed immigrants from North Africa, central Africa, Asia and Latin America for decades. Most major European cities are thriving communities, colourful and creative hubs, precisely because of the multicultural mix, including the fresh input of families from the Middle East. In my home country of Belgium, the venerated classical Flanders Ballet last year appointed as its new Artistic Director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, the son of a Moroccan immigrant and a collaborative artist of extraordinary reach. On a broader musical scale, the global phenomenon called ‘world music' would never have occurred without the strong underpinning of significant communities from India, Africa or the Middle East in Western societies. Here in Australia, we have no better example than the genre-hopping riffs of Joseph Tawadros on the oud – a nimble, appealing fusion of Western and middle Eastern traditions that defies easy labelling. Tawadros’ instrument, his craft and his initial training all stem from Egypt. The contemporary energy he has generated is typical for a first generation immigrant. This year’s festival is particularly 5
For centuries the Arab world was held at bay through regular naval battles whilst Muslims were gradually driven out of Spain. Europe,
By the beginning of the 17th century, all musical innovations such as opera, oratorio and later on the ‘concerto’ practice, stemmed from Italy.
though riddled with territorial conflicts, religious warfare, marriage politics, regular epidemics, had become a hub of activity, enterprise and mobility. Almost all European centres depended on musical talent from elsewhere, and most prided themselves on being able to secure the most sought-after composers. And so it was that for much of the 15th and 16th century Flanders acted as a musical nursery for the rest of Europe. The Italian Renaissance schools of Venice, Florence, Mantua, Ferrara would be unthinkable without the input of Josquin, Willaert, de Wert, de Rore and many others. Central European centres such as Munich and Prague flourished under Lassus and de Monte. The skills they brought along proved indispensible for later Baroque musicians such as Bach or Handel.
Italian composers exerted influence in places as far afield as Warsaw, Prague or Madrid. The Neapolitan Domenico Scarlatti became one of the leading figures in 18th century Madrid. A generation later, his fellow countryman Luigi Boccherini also found himself in Spain, at the same time that his contemporary Mozart was spending a couple of years of obligatory Italian training with Padre Martini and others. We should not forget that well into the 20th century young French musicians were sent to Rome to complete their formation under the much covetted Prix de Rome scheme. But a much greater wave of emigration was unleashed in the wake of Columbus’ expedition in 1492 and the discovery of America. The ensuing large scale colonisation combined with the slave trade from Africa arguably had the most profound effect on the face and sound of our modern world. Initially, the Spanish missionaries counted many musicians amongst their numbers, which explains why musicologists will be occupied for at least another hundred years trailing through the libraries of Latin American churches. What is clear from contemporary research is how early there are signs of indigenous linguistic and percussive elements infiltrating the imported Spanish forms, starting a protracted process of transformation into the many styles and genres
In turn, Italian composers provided new impetus for the London arts scene of Shakespeare’s day. The British court would remain a pole of attraction for many foreigners, a certain G. F. Handel being the most prominent and most ensconced. The favourite and most powerful composer under Louis XIV was the Italian G.B. Lulli, aka J.B. Lully. He put his stamp on opera in France, and well into the 19th century Paris opera continued to roll out the carpet for Italian composers. It was to the Paris salons that Rossini ‘retired’. 6
grooves and harmonies into the mainstream of the global entertainment industry. Argentina is a different case again: there, large scale immigration did not take place until the 19th century. Political and economic pressures in Europe turned Argentina into the most European-flavoured nation in Latin America. By the year 1900, one third of its population was Italian. The combination with Irish, German, Jewish and other groups of immigrants created a most peculiar and characteristically Argentinian phenomenon. Emerging from the brothels and clubs of Buenas Aires and Montevideo, it became ‘tango’, a force for cultural renewal as well as social cohesion.
that we now recognise as intrinsically LatinAmerican or ‘latino’: salsa, samba, bossa nova, cumbia, mariachi and all the rest of it. The crucial and most characteristic factor in some of these genres, nevertheless, is the black African ancestry, the result of four centuries of mass deportation. This fact also explains why so much of what we now consider Latin American music only started to emerge in the 19th century. Black people, an estimated 12 million of them predominantly from West-African nations, had been traded as commodities and relegated to a de facto sub-class, effectively barring them from active social participation on any level. What eventually emerged is fascinating on a musical level, but also as a social phenomenon, since a culture of oppression and disempowerment turned into a vibrant and sometimes militantly potent mix.
Driven by political oppression, economic hardship, climate change or sheer hunger, people will move and migrate if they must. Sponsored immigration programs in the mid-20th century further facilited the move of people from Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe to America and Australia. The world, for better or worse, is a broad mixing pot, confused at times and often at sea when trying to deal with the complexity of an increasingly educated, informed, connected demography. But declining populations, averse to immigration, inevitably find themselves on the losing side of history. And there is no doubt that our future will be more defined by succesful forms of cross pollination rather than by an outmoded sense of purity. Where would we be without our Italian coffee or Lebanese sweets or Greek barbecues? And above all, what would we listen to?
Three Latin-American countries, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, are featured in this year’s festival. Mexico has a very small proportion of people with African origins, but created an identity out of mestizo (halfcast) culture. Over the last fifty years, millions of Mexicans have found a new home in the US, legally and illegally. They have well and truly conquered the kitchens across the USA. Their voice is heard in elections, and their brand of music is bound to have a lasting effect in years to come. Brazil, on the other hand, has a very large black population. A generation of outstanding song writers and musicians known under the ‘tropicalismo’ banner have brought Brazilian
The position of artistic director
is supported by
Roland Peelman 2016
Anna & Bob Prosser
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The CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL and the CANBERRA GLASSWORKS present
Smokestack Piano by Ken Unsworth
One of Australia’s most iconic artists, Ken Unsworth is well represented in all major galleries in Australia. His ongoing obsession with pianos, stones and large scale theatrical installations has earned him a place on the international stage. Ken’s latest work is a baby grand piano with glass tentacles (sound bubbles made at the Canberra Glassworks) and is alive with light. On display in the Smokestack of the Canberra Glassworks, next to Fitters’ Workshop, the Festival is featuring a series of exclusive 10-minute recitals not to be missed.
Pianists: Jacob Abela, Aaron Chew, Roland Peelman and Sally Whitwell SESSIONS Friday 29 April Saturday 30 April
Sunday May 1 Friday May 6 Saturday May 7
Sunday May 8
6.30 pm
Roland Peelman
7 pm
Aaron Chew
3 pm
Roland Peelman
3.30 pm
Aaron Chew
5 pm
Aaron Chew
5.30 pm
Aaron Chew
3 pm
Roland Peelman
3.30 pm
Roland Peelman
5 pm
Aaron Chew
5.30 pm
Aaron Chew
6.30 pm
Roland Peelman
7 pm
Jacob Abela
10 am
Jacob Abela
10.30 am
Jacob Abela
4.30 pm
Sally Whitwell
5 pm
Sally Whitwell
10 am
Jacob Abela
10.30 am
Jacob Abela
4.30 pm
Sally Whitwell
5 pm
Sally Whitwell
TICKETS can be booked through the CIMF website at cimf.org.au
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Friday 29 APRIL THE EMBASSY OF MEXICO presents co-sponsored by the Embassy of Argentina
CONCERT 1
opening GALA - Tango Tambuco
J.S. Bach 1685-1750
Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV 998
J.S. Bach 1685-1750
Contrapunctus I and IX from The Art of Fugue BWV 1080
Héctor Infanzón b. 1957 Hematofonía
Javier Álvarez b. 1956 Metro Chabacano
Mario Lavista b. 1943 Danza Isoritmica
INTERVAL
Gerard Brophy
Dervish (Beaver Blaze 2015) WP Commissioned by Betty Beaver
Gerard Brophy b 1953
Vox Angelica for percussion and string quartet (1993)
Astor Piazzolla 1921-1992
Tango selection arranged by J. Crabb: Kicho Oblivion Three Tango Sensations: Anxiety Asleep Fear
This concert is supported by CATHERINE AND CHRIS MURPHY Boccherini Trio is supported by Carolyn Philpot Andrey Lebedev is supported by Muriel Wilkinson and June Gordon James Crabb is supported by Lyndall HatcH
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FITTERS' WORKSHOP 7.30pm 120 mins
James Crabb accordion Rohan Dasika double bass Andrey Lebedev guitar Anna McMichael violin Tambuco Percussion Ricardo Gallardo Alfredo Bringas Miguel González Raúl Tudón Boccherini Trio Suyeon Kang violin Florian Peelman viola Paolo Bonomini cello
WP – world premiere
Tango in a nutshell
gut-strung lute-harpsichords (30 rt). There is evidence that he ran an instrument rental business. His enormous collection of scores had been divided between Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Phillip Emmanuel, his elder sons.
Tango in the 21st century is a global phenomenon. Cities as far apart as Medellín (Colombia) and Istanbul (Turkey) claim a tango scene as lively as Buenos Aires. But the origins of tango lie in the workingclass neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, where an unusually large proportion of immigrants from Italy, Germany and other European countries developed the genre drawing on an early mix of Spanish dances infused with African characteristics. Towards the end of the 19th century the typical tango band settled around guitar, piano, violin, flute, eventually replaced by bass and bandoneón which more than any other instrument has defined its sound. Its macho aggressive style had as much to do with the gangster and brothel scene where the music thrived as with the disproportionate amount of men vs. women. When young Carlos Gardel recorded his first song in 1917 he heralded a new epoque for the tango. As singer and suave sex symbol, he brought the genre respectability as well international prominence. In the wake of the Gardel era, the four representative schools of the Argentine tango music are Di Sarli, d'Arienzo, Troilo and Pugliese, all four descendent from Italian immigrant families.
His eyesight had not been good for a while, and his death is generally attributed to the consequences of two failed eye operations. Yet his last completed works were no small matter: the monumental B Minor Mass and The Art of the Fugue, a grand series of 18 fugues on a simple theme, an abstract monument of pure music , whatever instrument it is played on. Tonight you are hearing two of the fugues played on marimba, an instrument that did not even exist in Bach’s day. By the mid-1740s, Bach had also completed a number of keyboard works, most notably the Goldberg Variations and the Second Book of the Well Tempered Clavier. A few miscellaneous and disputed works have to be seen in the context of providing for instruments beyond the common keyboards and string instruments of the time. The theory that Bach mastered and wrote solo works for the lute emerged some time in the 19th century as a dissenting opinion from the first big Bach edition. The idea gained more currency when it seemed to be endorsed by Albert Schweitzer, and so it was that Andres Segovia started playing these pieces on the guitar in the 1920s. Ever since, various arrangements and transpositions have found their way into the repertoire.
Well after WW2, Astor Piazzolla, another descendant from Italians, brought the genre onto the concert stage and turned his compositional prowess to its form and its sound. The modern sophisticated version of the tango that he promoted is generally referred to as Tango nuevo and has been deeply influential. The latest forms of tango fused with jazz and electronic pop devices are known as Neotango.
Bach’s last and most sophisticated work for the lute-harpsichord is BWV 998 (Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E flat) from the mid-1740s. A hand, clearly other than Bach’s, added the title “Prelude pour la Lute ó Cembal” , a strange mixture of fractured French, German and Italian. The piece has an interesting wrinkle: running out of paper, Bach finished the last bars in keyboard tablature.
Bach’s ultima manera When JS Bach died, a list of his household goods and valuables included, amongst other things, a teapot, 52 sacred books, a lute (valuable, at 21 reichsthaler), violins, 3 harpsichords (one of them 80 rt) and two
Roland Peelman 2016
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Music in Mexico
or Chávez’ Indian Symphony or Moncayo’s Huapango have defined much of what has happened since. The main figures are Mario Lavista and younger composers whose work has travelled well beyond Mexico’s borders: Ana Lara, Gabriela Ortíz, Javier Alvarez, Daniel Catán and Arturo Márquez.
To try and reduce the complexity and diversity of Mexican music in a short article seems futile. For one, the country counts no less than 25 million indigenous people representing 89 distinct language groups. Secondly, the colonisation of Mexico in the 16th and 17th centuries makes for fascinating, often shocking reading, indispensable though in order to understand the way Spanish culture took root in the cities and villages across this very large country. Needless to say, the scale and sheer brutality of wholesale evangilisation combined with military subjugation created the foundation for a deeply divided social structure. Thirdly, political independence sparked by the priest Hidalgo’s ‘Grito’ or ‘Cry”, followed by Americanstyle liberalism and a wave of early 20th century revolutions left a chequered trail of secularism, violence, old-style socialism and wild-west capitalism. In a nutshell, the social landscape is as complicatedas the geography. To this day, a chasm remains between popular culture and high art reflecting an entrenched and extreme income disparity. In the middle of Mexico City, a metropolis created out of the rubble of the ancient Mayan temples, stands Mexico’s prize cultural possession, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, impressively designed and built to match Palais Garnier or Royal Albert Hall. Not far away stands the equally vast Cathedral of the Assumption, precariously leaning over, ready to collapse at the next major earthquake.
To this day, the most colourful way of enjoying music in Mexico does not require an A-reserve balcony seat. Whether it is mariachi in Jalisco, son jorocho in Vera Cruz, Norteña in Monterey, cumbia in Mexico City, or any old ‘son’ complete with communal dancing, it emanates from the streets. Blessed with a lovely climate and a happy disposition, Mexico’s magic has no price-tag. Roland Peelman 2016
Vox Angelica (1993) The idea of writing a work for such an unlikely line up of instruments came from my dear friend, the Dutch percussionist Wim Vos. The delightfully subversive prospect of reversing the roles of the instruments, i.e., getting the hitting instruments to caress and the caressing instruments to hit, greatly appealed to me. It was also an opportunity to include instruments from nonWestern cultures, hence the inclusion of the Thai gongs. In fact, this was one of the first tentative steps that I would take which would lead me in the direction of an aesthetic far removed from the canon of Western art music. However, a few decades later, the work is also a melancholic reminder of the halcyon days of Dutch musical life. Sadly, this once vital and stimulating culture has fallen victim to a numbing array of byzantine political machinations that presaged the current era of neo-philistinism in the country.
Yet, for all its calamities and endemic problems, the country has produced remarkable painters, filmmakers, first rate writers and musicians. In the wake of the revolution, a great sense of pride, defiance even, motivated musicians such as Carlos Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas to bring Mexico into the modern era and do so with music that reflects the many layers and mixed traditions of its people, Spanish, European and indigenous. They stood at the cradle of Mexico’s first orchestras, broadcasting institutions and left an impressive legacy. Works such as Revueltas’ Night of the Mayas,
Vox Angelica was commissioned by the Mondriaan String Quartet and the Slagwerkgroep Den Haag for their tour in the autumn of 1993. It is dedicated both to them and to tonight's performers, with great fondness and affection. Gerard Brophy 2016 11
A CT R EPR ESENTAT I VE
18 Salamander Court, Phillip ACT 2606 Ph. Rudi Zarka on 02 6282 3199 or Email: rudi@bettermusic.com.au 12 National Information Line 1300 199 589
Saturday 29 april ACCIÓN CULTURAL ESPAÑOLA and the EMBASSY OF SPAIN present
concert 2
FANDANGO
José Blasco de Nebra 1702-1768
Fandango de España
Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger c. 1580-1651 Passacaglia
Santiago de Murcia 1673-1739 Fandango
Improvisaciones sobre Caponas y Chaconas
Gaspar Sanz 1640-1710
Santiago de Murcia
Anónimo
Anónimo
Marionas
ed. Antonio Martín y Coll 1709 Xácara
Cumbees
ed. Antonio Martín y Coll Diferencias sobre las Folías
Santiago de Murcia
Santiago de Murcia
Conte Ludovico Roncalli
Anónimo
Grabe & Allegro fl. 17th c.
Preludio
Los Impossibles
ed. Francisco Tejada, 1721 Carretilla de Minués
Anónimo
ed. Francisco Tejada 1721 Favorita
Mateo Flecha 1481-1553
Santiago de Murcia Folías Gallegas
Domenico Scarlatti 1685-1757 Fandango
El fuego (from ‘Ensaladas’ Prague 1581) This concert is supported by gail ford The Song Company is supported by Dianne & Brian Anderson
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FITTERS' WORKSHOP 1.00pm 75 mins
Forma Antiqva Aarón Zapico harpsichord Daniel Zapico theorbo Pablo Zapico baroque guitar The Song Company Richard Black tenor Mark Donnelly baritone Anna Fraser soprano Hannah Fraser mezzo Susannah Lawergren soprano Andrew O’Connor bass
Spanish Fire the kingdom of Naples, before returning to his homeland of Saragossa, where he would publish his Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española ('Musical Instruction Regarding the Spanish Guitar'), a book that skilfully combines lessons learned in Italian lands with tendencies brewed in the Spanish tradition.
To this day we recognise Spanish music as one of the most highly flavoured musical experiences in the world. Its ingredients are fascinating and ancient: religious rituals both Christian and Arabic, sephardic songs, Romany influx along with native regional traditions. The result is that certain instruments and genres developed which no other country would ever share. Take the ‘ensalada’ for example. Literally ‘salad’, it was defined by Juan Diaz Rengifo as “a composition with four-line stanzas in which all sort of metres are mixed, not only Spanish but some derived from other languages, with no fixed order from one to the other, following the poet’s whim”. For Mateo Flecha, the oldest represented composer in this program, it became a more or less through-composed piece incorporating traditional fragments of popular verse and song and closing with a Latin rubric. We would probably call it a ‘medley’ now. In his musical salad, fuego or fire is the central ingredient. El Fuego stands for the sins of the world in need of water, i.e. the purifying power of Christ’s redemption.
The main composer in this concert however is Santiago de Murcia, a virtual unknown until a recent spate of research uncovered manuscripts of his in Chili and Mexico. Further musicological research (2008) has filled in the blanks of his life. We now know that de Murcia was appointed Master of Guitar as well as instrument-maker to the Spanish Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy shortly after 1702. In 1714 Murcia dedicated a guitar treatise to Jácome Francisco Andriani, a special envoy to the Catholic cantons of the Netherlands for the King of Spain. Andriani made it possible for Murcia to publish his guitar treatise by sponsoring the engraving of the work on bronze plates. Although two of the surviving manuscript collections of Murcia's music – Passacalles y obras and Codice Saldivar No. 4 – came to light in Mexico in modern times, they were most probably taken there at a later date by subsequent owners. It now seems unlikely that Santiago de Murcia actually travelled to Mexico himself. Later in his life, in 1729, he signed a declaration of poverty and died in Madrid in 1739.
Around the same time, Spanish musicians were making important advances in instrumental music. Alonso Mudarra (c 1510-1580) wrote a significant treatise on the vihuela, while Vicente Espinel (1550-1624) is credited with the development of the four-course guitar into a five-string instrument. This was the start of a long line of Spanish guitar music that finished with Rodrigo and de Falla in the 20th century but continued unabated in Latin America.
One of the important aspects of the music of Murcia is his interest in a wide range of pre-existing music for guitar, including that by Spanish, French and Italian composers, and in popular dance forms which probably originated in Africa (rather than Mexico). Thus the collections offer works of different styles offering a rich and varied panorama of the baroque repertoire for guitar.
Meanwhile, as France was celebrating the gamba and Italy was bringing the violin to perfection, Spain was under the spell of plucked strings: the guitar and the vihuela in particular. The first theorist to write extensively about the artistry of the guitar was Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710). Educated at the University of Salamanca, Sanz travelled extensively in
Roland Peelman
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Saturday 29 april In association with the Harbour Agency, PRINCIPALS present
concert 3
BRODSKY QUARTET & KATIE NOONAN
WITH LOVE AND FURY
Late Spring
Elena Kats-Chernin/Judith Wright
To a Child
David Hirschfelder/Judith Wright
Sonnet for Christmas
Paul Dean/Judith Wright
After the Visitors The Surfer
Andrew Ford/Judith Wright
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.00pm 110 mins
Katie Noonan/Judith Wright. Strings arr. by Steve Newcomb
Night after Bushfire
Iain Grandage/Judith Wright
Company of Lovers
Paul Grabowsky/Judith Wright
The Slope
Carl Vine/Judith Wright
Failure of Communication
John Rodgers/Judith Wright
Metho Drinker
Richard Tognetti/Judith Wright
Brodsky Quartet Ian Belton violin Paul Cassidy violin Daniel Rowland viola Jacqueline Thomas cello Katie Noonan soprano
INTERVAL Australian Tryptych: From Nourlangie
Peter Sculthorpe
Cradle Song
Andrew Ford
3 Men and a Blonde My Moodswings
Robert Davidson Elvis Costello. Strings arr. by Paul Cassidy
I almost had a weakness Hyperballad
Elvis Costello/Brodksy Quartet Björk. Strings arr. by Paul Cassidy
Possibly Maybe Fragile
Björk. Strings arr. by Ian Belton Sting. Strings arr. by Paul Cassidy
This concert is supported by GAIL & BILL LUBBOCK
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This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body
Born in Armidale, New South Wales, Judith Wright (1915-2000) grew up to become a much-awarded Australian poet, short-story writer and conversationalist, as well as a highly acclaimed literary critic. She received honorary degrees from several universities, and was also appointed as a members of Australia Council. Wright strongly believed that a poet should be concerned with national and social problems, and she was an uncompromising campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. Land played an important and influential role for Judith Wright all her life. She fought to conserve the Great Barrier Reef, when its ecology was threatened by oil drilling, and campaigned against sand mining on Fraser Island. Her writing was deeply inspired by the places in which she lived – New England, New South Wales, the subtropical rainforests of Tamborine Mountain, Queensland and the plains of the southern highlands, near Braidwood. For Wright, her mission was to connect the human experience with the natural world, through poetry and other works. It was a measure of her engagement that she would sign off letters to her friends: "With love and fury, Judith". In With Love and Fury, recording and concert tour, Katie Noonan and the Brodsky Quartet are collaborating for the first time ever. Together they have re-imagined the words of Judith Wright in a truly unique and remarkable Australian program, for which Katie has chosen a number of contemporary Australian composers, including Carl Vine, Elena Kats-Chernin, Richard Tognetti, Iain Grandage, Andrew Ford, David Hirschfelder, Paul Grabowsky, Paul Dean and John Rodgers, in nine especially commissioned pieces, together with one of her own. To these new works the Brodsky Quartet have also added some of their own repertoire, both alone and accompanied by Noonan, including songs by Elvis Costello, Björk and Katie herself. Katie Noonan’s technical mastery and pure voice make her one of Australia’s top vocalists. The singer, producer, songwriter and pianist is one of the most diverse artists in the country, taking audiences on many sublime excursions through Jazz, Pop, Indie and Classical music. “I am so thrilled with the outcome of this project. Ever since I first heard the Brodsky Quartet with Elvis Costello on the seminal album "The Juliet Letters" and then with one of my musical idols Björk, it has been a dream of mine to sing with this incredible string ensemble. For me, this program is particularly poignant. Not long before her death at age 85 in the year 2000, Judith Wright marched in Canberra for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Judith was such an advocate of the Indigenous story and also such a fierce fighter for the conservation of our precious Australian environment – and her words are perhaps more pertinent now than ever." – Katie Noonan Since its formation in 1972 the Brodsky Quartet has performed over 2,000 concerts on the major stages of the world and released more than 50 recordings. Jacqueline Thomas and Ian Belton are the two original Brodsky members and violist Paul Cassidy joined in 1982. Having had some of the finest violinists in the world in the 1st chair (including current SSO Concertmaster Andrew Haveron), they are now joined by the wonderful Dutch violinist Daniel Rowland. The Brodsky Quartet choose to perform with only an elite few vocalists, having previously collaborated with Björk, Sting, Anne Sofie von Otter, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney. "We are so happy to be working with Katie Noonan, and are proud to be involved in this wonderful new Australian song cycle in memory of the inspirational Judith Wright.” – Paul Cassidy 16
Saturday 29 april CROWNE PLAZA CANBERRA presents with the assistance of the Italian Cultural Institute and the Embassy of Italy
concert 4
Il racconto di mezzanotte – A Midnight Tale Severino Corneti 1530-1582 Pigliate l’alma mia
from: "Canzonette alla napolitana" Antwerp 1563
Marco Beasley b. 1957 Reading I
from: "Scritti senza titolo" manuscript 2011
Anonymous Le sette galere
a traditional song from Corsica
Marco Beasley Reading II
from: "Scritti senza titolo" manuscript 2011
Anonymous
Pizzica taranta a traditional dance from Puglia
Marco Beasley Reading III
from: "Scritti senza titolo" manuscript 2011
Anonymous
Nycholay sollempnia from Ms. Cividale cod. LVI early 14th Century
Marco Beasley Reading IV
from: "Scritti senza titolo" manuscript 2011
Anonymous
Guillaume Dufay 1397-1474
Vergine bella
from: Ms. GB-Ob Canonici misc. 213 n. d.
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 9.30pm 60 mins
Marco Beasley Cori miu ste...
Invective on the death of Christ
Nando Acquaviva/ Toni Casalonga Lamentu a Ghjesu
Text by Roccu Mabrini (Corsica)
Anonymous Magnificat
Gregorian paraphrase
Emperor P. Hadrianus 76-138
Animula
from: Memorie di Adriano M. Yourcenar 1951
Severino Corneti 1530-1582 Signora mia
from: "Canzonette alla napolitana" Antwerp 1563
Marco Beasley Reading V
from: "Scritti senza titolo" manuscript 2011
Anonymous Jesce Sole!
Invocation in a Neapolitan nursery rhyme
Deus te salvet Maria a traditional song from Sardinia
Marco Beasley tenor 17
A Midnight Tale in which there is no real division between the storyteller and the listener. Together, they share a moment of greater intensity.
After the toils of the day, all would gather around the hearth to tell and hear stories. And these stories – of love, of death, of injustices or of joys, of suns which illuminate distant worlds, "of damsels and knights, of arms and loves" (in the words of Ariosto) – evoked worlds which, though full of fantasy, were no less real. Stories and tales have always been an essential part of man's imagination and food for the mind.
I have always considered the audience as an entity made up of individuals, where the sensibilities of each person contributes to creating not one but a thousand stories, where the common denominator is the act of listening itself and one's personal elaboration. Our experiences enter into the story that is heard, they interpret it and make it their own.
The Midnight Tale (Il racconto di mezzanotte) proposes this element of intimacy, of relationship with the word: song becomes the sound of a narrative, something ancient and yet familiar.
And it is the same for the one who tells or sings the story: each time it becomes new and different from the time before, even though it is essentially the same.
A solo voice, a monologue both sung and spoken, at sunset or the last hour of the day, in that place in the heart where all is mystery; a tale of visions, of timeless emotions; stories told, stories sung to those who remember they were once children.
But what makes a story told by a solo voice different from one told by numerous voices or voices accompanied by instruments? The answer is found in the freedom with which a single voice can express itself, each time without any sort of predefined "code", in the sudden choice of following the path of a feeling or letting oneself be overrun by it, in capturing a glance, or searching for one.
From early music to ancient folk songs; from experiences of daily labors, which often leave no room for thought, to the need to be alone in able to search within oneself the humanity of living. A person, a voice: a brief tale, an invitation to dream.
And it is found in the desire to listen to silence as if it were an act of meditation, a private moment which, in its essence, colors our thoughts. The voice becomes the vehicle of all of this – a voice now delicate and dreaming, now energetic and commanding, now hushed and waiting. But always alive, natural, close by.
The tale of a voice The possibilities of a voice to evoke stories is practically infinite. The need to communicate through the voice emotions and the multifarious aspects of the soul is in the nature of every one of us: laughter, crying, pain and joy, feelings often associated with the word "Love" – all serve to outline these traits; they offer personal experiences of life.
The voice in A Midnight Tale returns to its ancestral love for telling stories, a love which comes from afar, from the ancient pleasure of listening to them. It all takes place in the magic passage from day to night, when even time, now and then, is suspended.
The Midnight Tale revolves around this concept of narration, sometimes read and sometimes sung, creating a more intimate sort of concert
Marco Beasley 2013
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Ainslie Arts Centre Saturday - 10am Sunday - 10am, 2pm 50 mins
Saturday 29 april, Sunday 1 MAY ICON WATER presents in association with Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres
CONCERT 5
Performed by
The Griffyn Ensemble Mummified Cat Susan Ellis voice Mummified Cat Chris Stone violin Mummified Cat Michael Sollis mandolin Mummified Cat
Holly Downes double bass
City Kitten
Kiri Sollis
piccolo
Mysterious Kitten Laura Tanata harp Written by
Michael Sollis Directed by
Cathy Petőcz Deep within an underground Egyptian tomb, four mummified cats are woken by a mysterious sound. Led by their ears, the half-alive, half-still-mummified cats set out on a journey through an unfamiliar new world of haunted mazes, video games, and the streets of contemporary Cairo to find a way to belong to the land of the living. Curiosity doesn't always kill the cat – it might just bring these cats back to life! This concert is supported by BETTY BEAVER
WP – world premiere
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Ear of the Cat was written by Michael Sollis, after a residency in Cairo during 2015. While in Cairo, Michael directed a series of drama and music workshops and interviews with young people, with the assistance of Cairo Arts organisation AFCA Arts and alongside director Mohammed Elghawy. The material generated in these workshops formed the initial ideas which then were later developed to create Ear of the Cat, with the dramaturgical assistance of Canberra-based playwright Cathy Petőcz.
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Sunday 1 may In association with the National Gallery of Australia
CONCERT 6
Barbara Blackman’s Festival Blessing
Hossein Valamanesh – This will also pass (2012)
Andrew Ford discusses working as an artist in the Middle East today with Hossein Valamanesh, Raihan Ismail and Joseph Tawadros Music by Joseph Tawadros oud and James Tawadros percussion
75 mins
Hossein Valamanesh At the core of Hossein Valamanesh's art lies the relationship between humans and the natural world and a sense of place informed by cultural history and personal memory. Valamanesh was born in Iran in 1949 and trained as an artist in Tehran before immigrating to Australia in 1973. In 1974 he travelled with a group of artists and musicians through
Gandel Hall National Gallery of Australia 2pm
the Western Desert, visiting Aboriginal communities including Papunya and Warburton. Valamanesh felt a strong affinity with the cultural and spiritual connections to the land he saw in these communities and through this he began to connect to his new country, an experience which has had a profound impact on his subsequent development as an artist.
Valamanesh draws on Iranian culture, in particular on Iranian poetry and the Sufi poetic tradition. His own memories of Iran, growing up in the remote town of Khash near the Pakistan border and later living in Tehran, infuse many of his works. He now lives in Adelaide and is considered one of this country’s most prominent visual artists.
Islamic University of Malaysia. She was awarded a PhD at ANU in 2013, and currently holds a position there as an Associate Lecturer in the College of Arts and Social Sciences.
Dr Ismail's research interests include: Sectarianism in the Gulf region, Political Islam with a strong focus on Egypt and South East Asia, and studies of religious institutions in the Middle East.
Raihan Ismail Raihan Ismail came to doctoral studies at the ANU having gained a Bachelor in Political Science, with a minor in Islamic Studies, and a Masters in International Relations from the International
This event is supported by BEV & DON AITKIN Joseph Tawadros is supported by Joanne Daly & Michael Adena
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Andrew Ford Andrew Ford is a composer, writer and broadcaster, and has won awards in all three capacities, including the 2004 Paul Lowin Prize for his song cycle Learning to Howl, a 2010 Green Room Award for his opera Rembrandt's Wife and the 2012 Albert H Maggs
Prize for his large ensemble piece, Rauha. His music has been played throughout Australia and in more than 40 countries around the world. A former academic, Ford has written widely on all manner of music and published eight books, most recently Earth Dances:
music in search of the primitive (2015). He has written, presented and co-produced four radio series, including Illegal Harmonies and Dots on the Landscape, and since 1995 he has presented The Music Show each weekend on ABC Radio National.
He began learning the oud with Mohammed Youssef, before continuing his studies in Australia and Egypt. For a while he spent three months a year in Egypt and learned to play other instruments: the bamboo flute ney, the Arabic zither qanun and the cello. In Australia, he completed a bachelor of music at the UNSW and was awarded a Freedman
Fellowship for Classical Music. He has collaborated and recorded with a broad range of musicians: the Australian Chamber Orchestra, The Song Company and many more.
Joseph Tawadros Joseph Tawadros’s family emigrated from Egypt to Australia when he was three. His uncle was the trumpet player Yacoub Mansi Habib, and his grandfather was the oud and violin virtuoso Mansi Habib. Initially attracted to the trumpet, Joseph decided to learn oud when he was eight, after seeing a movie about Egypt's famous musicien, Sayed Darwish.
Joseph generally plays together with his younger brother James Tawadros, a world-class virtuoso on the req or Egyptian tamburin.
Barbara Blackman AO Author, music-lover, essayist, librettist, letter writer and patron of the Arts, Barbara was born in Brisbane in 1928. Her father died when she was three years old, and mother and daughter lived together in a series of homes and boarding houses in Brisbane. At Brisbane State High School, Barbara was introduced to the music of Shostakovich by fellow students Donald Munro, Roger Covell and Charles Osborne, and began a love affair with contemporary music that continues today. In 1950 she was diagnosed with optic atrophy; her vision declined rapidly until she became completely blind. By 1952 Barbara was married to aspiring artist Charles Blackman, a marriage that produced three children and lasted nearly thirty years. The two lived a meagre but happy existence in Melbourne until 1960, when Charles was awarded the prestigious Helen Rubinstein Travelling Scholarship, and the family moved to London. In later life, Barbara married Frenchman Marcel Veldhoven. The pair spent twelve years together before Veldhoven travelled to India to live and study Tibetan Buddhism. Though Barbara was raised in the Christian tradition, she broke away from the Church in her early twenties and today follows the teachings of Sufism. In 2004, Barbara pledged $1 million to music in Australia: to Pro Musica and the ANU School of Music among other groups. Her generosity to Pro Musica enabled the Canberra International Music Festival to develop in directions that would not otherwise have been possible. 22
Sunday 1 MAY In association with the ANU School of Music
CONCERT 7
Petite Messe solennelle
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.00pm
Gioachino Rossini 1792-1868 Petite Messe solennelle (1863) original version for twelve voices, piano and harmonium
80 mins
The Song Company & Friends
Kyrie
Crucifixus
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Et resurrexit
Et in terra …
Et vitam venturi saeculi
Gratias agimus tibi
Prélude religieux pendant l’Offertoire
Domine Deus Qui tollis peccata mundi Quoniam tu solus sanctus Cum Sancto Spiritum Credo in unum Deum
Sanctus Benedictus O salutaris hostia Agnus Dei
Richard Black tenor Tobias Cole alto James Doig tenor Mark Donnelly baritone Taryn Fiebig soprano Anna Fraser soprano Hannah Fraser mezzo David Greco baritone Susannah Lawergren soprano Robert Macfarlane tenor Andrew O’Connor bass Maartje Sevenster alto Neal Peres Da Costa
1869 Erard grand piano, Paris Courtesy of Neal Peres da Costa
Aaron Chew
1912 Packard Harmonium Courtesy of James Huntingford
Directed by Roland Peelman
This concert is supported by PERONELLE & JIM WINDEYER Taryn Fiebig is supported by Susan & David Chessell The Song Company is supported by Dianne & Brian Anderson Roland Peelman is supported by Donna & Glenn Bush
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Petite Messe solennelle for four parts with the accompaniment of 2 pianos and harmonium. Composed during my holiday in Passy. Twelve singers of three sexes Men, Women and Castrati will be sufficient to perform it, eight for the choruses, four for the solos, a total of twelve Cherubims. Gracious Lord, pardon me the following comparison. There are also twelve Apostles in the celebrated morsel by Leonardo, called The Last Supper. Who would believe it? Among your Disciples there are those who sing out of tune!! Lord, rest assured: I affirm that there will be no Judas at my Supper and that mine will sing in tune and with love your Praises and this little Composition which is, alas, the last mortal sin of my old age. G. Rossini. Passy 1863 On first hearing the Petite Messe Solennelle, the listener is tempted to adapt a remark attributed to Napoleon III and declare that the piece is neither little, solemn nor especially liturgical in spirit. Rossini’s Don Camilloesque inscription would suggest that even he inclined to such a view: Good God – behold completed this poor little Mass – is it indeed music for the blest [‘musique sacrée’] that I have just written, or just some blessed music [‘sacrée musique’]? Thou knowest well, I was born for comic opera. A little science, a little heart, that is all. So bless Thee and grant me Paradise! The first performance of the piece was given at the town house of the dedicatee, the Countess Louise Pillet Will, and those who attended agreed that, for all Rossini’s protestations, the Mass represented a magnificent feat of creative self-renewal for the seventy-one-year-old composer. Rossini specified twelve as the ideal number of singers (his instructions throughout are that the soloists should also sing the chorus parts when not otherwise involved), although subsequent performances have generally involved a larger chorus and separate soloists. Initially, the instrumental scoring of the Mass for two pianos and harmonium, seems strange, but given its context as a salon piece, such instrumentation is not unusual. Following a remark from the critic of Le Siècle (who stated that there was enough fire in the piece to melt a marble cathedral were it to be scored for full chorus and orchestra), Rossini proceeded to orchestrate the piece in the years 1866–7. This orchestration, however, makes very few concessions to orchestral colour and adds nothing to the stature of the work, which depends mainly on melody, line and rhythm. The orchestral version had its first public performance on 28 February 1869 (as near as possible to the 78th anniversary of the composer’s birth) at the Théâtre-Italien, Paris. Rhythm and modulation play an important part in the opening ternary-form Kyrie, and the rhythmic excitement continues throughout the Gloria and Credo (especially of note is the contrapuntal writing in the Cum sancto spiritu and Et vitam venturi sæculi). The magnificent tenor solo Domine Deus recalls the Cujus animam from Rossini’s earlier Stabat Mater, while Rossini’s operatic roots are represented in the Quoniam. The insertion of the O salutaris (not part of the liturgy, but often used as a hymn during the Mass or Benediction) provided Rossini with an opportunity to explore the unusual harmonies he was using in his piano pieces at the time. The final, luminescent Agnus Dei for contralto (Rossini’s favourite voice) and choir brings the work to a dramatic close. Barry Creasy, Chairman Collegium Musicum of London
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Monday 2 may In association with the High Court of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia, with the assistance of the Embassy of Mexico in Australia and the National Carillon managed by the National Capital Authority
concert 8
SOUNDS ON SITE BELLS AND SMELLS
NGA Sculpture Garden Judith Clingan (b. 1945)
The Summer of Assurance
Elena Kats-Chernin (b. 1957) Velvet Moon Rag
Elena Kats-Chernin
Vartarun I
Jessica Wells (b. 1974) Elena Kats-Chernin Possibility Piece
Lyn Fuller (b. 1946) Exit Stage Left
Lyn Fuller carillon Anna Wong Carillon Virginia Taylor flute Aaron Chew piano Christina Leonard soprano saxophone
High Court of Australia Anne Boyd b. 1946
Book of the Bells (1981)
Anon.
Chant: Ego sum panis vitae (I am the bread of life)
National Portrait Gallery Tristan Coelho b. 1983
Gerard Brophy b. 1953
Claude Debussy 1862-1918
Kaleghat Votives for saxophone and string quartet (2008) (WP of new version 2016)
Smell of the the Earth (2016) WP Syrinx (1913)
90 mins
Possibility Piece Butterfly Waltz
Larry Sitsky (b. 1934)
NGA to High Court 12.30pm
This concert is supported by JUDITH HEALY & MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE Boccherini Trio is supported by Carolyn Philpot Virginia Taylor is supported by Gudrun Genee
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Anna McMichael violin Tambuco Percussion Ricardo Gallardo Alfredo Bringas Miguel González Raúl Tudón Festival handbell ensemble Boccherini Trio Suyeon Kang violin Florian Peelman viola Paolo Bonomini cello
WP – world premiere
The National Carillon
essentially spiritual and she is much interested in the idea of music as meditation, as a means of changing states of consciousness. Her music is based on the intersection of Christian Love with Buddhist silence. Some of her more recent work explores Christian mysticism.
The National Carillon was a gift from the British government to the people of Australia to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Canberra. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the National Carillon on 26 April 1970. The 50-metre tall, award-winning tower was designed by Western Australian architects Cameron, Chisholm Nicol. With 55 bronze bells, the National Carillon is considered large by world standards, each bell weighing between seven kilograms and six tonnes. The bells span four and a half octaves chromatically. The organisation is run by the National Capital Authority, employs and trains carillon players, commissions new work and presents regular recitals. Lead Carillonist is Lyn Fuller.
In 1990 Anne became the first Australian and the first woman to be appointed Professor of Music at the University of Sydney. Kalighat Votives (2008) Kalighat is a fascinating and extremely overcrowded area located on the banks of the Hugli River in south Calcutta and it is home to two of the city’s most revered spiritual institutions. First is its namesake, the Kalimandir which is one of the most important Hindu pilgrimage sites in India. Apart from the puja and offering ceremonies at the temple, the nearby burning ghats at Keoratala offer an important service for those who have come to this holy place for the express purpose of leaving this world. The other institution is Nirmal Hriday, the hospice for the dying established by Mother Teresa, the doors of which are open to ailing pilgrms on their final journey irrespective of caste, creed or religion. It is a place that despite its profound purpose, radiates an almost palpable calm.
Syrinx (1913) Syrinx was written as incidental music to the uncompleted play Psyché by Gabriel Mourey, and was originally called "Flûte de Pan". Since one of Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis had already been given that title, however, it was given the name of the nymph Syrinx, who was pursued by the god Pan who had fallen in love with her. Since Syrinx did not return Pan’s love, however, she hid in the marshes and turned herself into a water reed. When Pan cut the reeds to make his pipes, he thereby killed his love.
The three prayers that comprise Kalighat Votives are my responses to the vivid, teeming tableau of life that characterise this mesmerizing place.
Anne Boyd Born in 1946, Anne Boyd wrote her first compositions as a little girl growing up on a remote outback sheep station in Central Queensland where her only music teaching was via ABC Radio (especially The Children's Hour's Mr Melody Man) and a recorder book. Much later she became a student of Peter Sculthorpe and inherited through him a lifelong fascination with the musical cultures of South East Asia, especially Japan and Indonesia.
Although the piece does not utilize any Indian scalic or thematic material per se, it does utilize call and response figures between the oboe and the quartet and within the quartet itself as well as drones, devices, both of which of course, are typical of much Hindustani music. Kalighat Votives was commissioned by Tania Frazer and was premiered by her and the Grainger String Quartet at the 2008 Bangalow Festival.
Anne regards the ancient court music of Japan as a primary influence, the closest musical representation of the arid outback landscape of her early childhood. Composition is viewed as
Gerard Brophy 2016 26
Monday 2 MAY PALACE ELECTRIC CINEMA presents
CONCERT 9
The Streets of Madrid
W.A. Mozart
1756-1791
Divertimento in E flat major KV563’ Allegro Adagio Menuetto – Trio
Andante Menuetto – Trio I – Trio II Allegro
interval
Luigi Boccherini
1743-1805
La musica notturna delle strade di Madrid G 324 (Night music from the streets of Madrid) Le campane de l’Ave Maria (The Ave Maria bells) Il tamburo dei Soldati (The soldiers’ drum) Minuetto dei Ciechi (The minuet of the blind beggars)
Il Rosario (The rosary)
Passa Calle (The passacaglia of the street singers known as Los Manolos)
Il tamburo (The drum) Ritirata (The retreat of the Madrid nightwatch)
Luigi Boccherini
Fandango from Guitar Quartet No. 4 in D G 448
This concert is supported by MARGARET FREY & DEBBIE CAMERON Andrey Lebedev is supported by Muriel Wilkinson & June Gordon Boccherini Trio is supported by Carolyn Philpot
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FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.30pm 90 mins
Boccherini Trio Suyeon Kang violin Florian Peelman viola Paolo Bonomini cello Andrey Lebedev guitar Rohan Dasika double bass Anna McMichael violin Alfredo Bringas castanets
redefined both form and content? Equally, Mozart’s quasi-unstoppable output from the five last years of his life pushed against the barriers of convention. In the miraculous summer of 1788, in between the completion of three major symphonies and his “Coronation” piano concerto, he tackled the notoriously ‘difficult’ combination of violin, viola and cello: the absence of a second violin means that viola and cello simply have to work harder, often in uncomfortable registers. It prompted an unparalleled work in six movements which some people have argued is superior to all the rest: a trio entitled Divertimento, conceived as a six-part arch in which three string players are stretched in more than one way. The opening Allegro starts simply enough, until the labyrinthine fugal exchanges of the development attain a depth and sonority far beyond what can be expected of three players. If there were any doubt about the seriousness of this so-called Divertimento, the tone of the A flat Adagio easily matches the slow movement of Symphony No. 39, written earlier that summer. Then, instead of a single minuet preceding the Finale, Mozart conceives two different Minuets, the second one with two trios in the style of an Austrian Ländler. Wedged in between is a magnificent Andante, a theme-and-variations, a procedure that brings out the best in a composer who knows his craft. By the time the final variation appears – a chorale theme in the viola against brilliant fast counterpoint of the other two voices – the original theme is hardly discernible. The Finale is a bravura rondo that combines rapid instrumental panache with complex counterpoint.
Divertimento in E flat major KV563 The music of the classical period is typically described in history books as the development of sonata form realised for a solo instrument (sonata), for chamber music (string quartet in particular) or for orchestra (symphony). Laid out over three or most often four movements, formal balance is achieved as well as pristine abstraction without reference to a text or an external program. This formal framework allows for a sophisticated interplay of two opposing statements that are first presented, then organically developed, argued and eventually resolved. The resulting works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, all working from Vienna headquarters, have often been described as some of the finest achievements of Western art, a classic moment that brought together Cartesian rationalism and Kantian dialectics inside the ear of the unsuspecting listener. All this idealistic perfection wasn’t necessarily borne out by the realities of performance at the time. Symphonies were rarely performed in the sequence that we now take for granted, and some works defied the norm, or deliberately set out to break those classic constraints. Haven’t we grown to admire Beethoven’s late sonatas and string quartets for the way they
Mozart himself played the viola part in the first performance in Dresden on April 13 1789. The piece was dedicated to Michael Puchberg, a fellow Freemason who helped him through that extraordinary summer of 1788 with extra cash. Roland Peelman 2016
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In comparison to his contemporary Haydn, equally prolific and long-lived, Boccherini cared less for formal structural considerations, but rather preferred to dwell on the texture and physical qualities of sound. As Schubert is distinct from Beethoven, so Boccherini differs from Haydn. His obsession with gradations of softness even pre-empts the extreme soft ventures of Nono and Sciarrino in the last quarter of the 20th century. Yet his manner and elegance place him in the late 18th century, an era of grace, refinement and artifice, often served as a perfectly perfumed cover for the decaying generations of Western royalty. Certainly, Boccherini’s music does not herald the revolution; neither, however, does it shore up the ancien régime. In its quiet humanity, its total lack of pomposity and its clear intention to draw us into the sound of the instrument, Boccherini’s music speaks to the burgher who has to earn his own living and live by his wits.
Boccherini: More than a Minuet Say Boccherini and people think Minuet. Little did Luigi know that this genteel movement from his String Quintet in E Op. 11 No. 5 would hijack his reputation for nearly two centuries.
Boccherini’s vast oeuvre has been catalogued by Yves Gérard. This concert features the Fandango from one of his guitar quartets, G 448, and the Night Music from the Streets of Madrid (G 324). Today the Night Music is one of his most popular works, and exists in several versions – tonight’s performance conflates the double cello and guitar version. But it was never published in his lifetime, for Boccherini told his publisher [sic Boccherini] :
Born in Lucca into a musical family, the young Boccherini displayed musical talent and a special ability on the cello. Luigi’s father, a cellist, sent him first to Rome and then to Vienna. But by 1761 the 19-year-old musician found himself in Madrid, and soon after, in the steady employment of King Charles III's younger brother, the Infante Don Luis Antonio. Here he thrived as a cellist and as a composer. Known for regularly playing violin parts on the cello, his inventiveness and feeling for colour easily transferred to composition. Boccherini’s staggering output of chamber music with cello as its anchor or protagonist still largely remains to be discovered. Symphonies, string trios, string quartets and a new repertoire of quintets with two cellos or added guitar flowed from his pen, and spiced with Spanish dance rhythms if required.
“The piece is absolutely useless, even ridiculous, outside Spain, because the audience cannot hope to understand its significance, nor the performers to play it as it should be played.” Roland Peelman 2016
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Hüzün and other delights … A conversation with Gerard Brophy 2016 Composer-in-Residence
GB During my time at the Sydney Conservatorium, my teacher, the English musicologist Richard Toop, ignited my interest in the music of many of the leading figures of the European avant garde, Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis, to mention a few. It was a heady time indeed and the challenge for me was to make some sense of it all.
Roland Peelman Is there a Brophy musical lineage? What are your earliest musical memories? Gerard Brophy No lineage nor any music running through the family as far as I am aware. One of my earliest and most compelling musical memories is of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. I had contracted pneumonia, been quarantined to bed and my only distraction was a wireless tuned to the ABC. Given my tender age it was entirely predictable that I would be attracted to the story’s fairytale/ gothic qualities, but I recall being especially delighted by the way the narrative was intertwined with the music. This left an enduring impression that resonated deeply within me. It was one to which I would return time and again at various stages throughout my life.
In contrast to this was a performance of Peter Brooks’ production of the medieval Persian epic The Confererence of the Birds that left an indelible impression on me.It had a genial effect on my works for ballet and the theatre many years later. But for the moment I was besotted with the modernist aesthetic. RP Your early work was uncompromising in many ways. It was a heady period in Australian composition with many of our hottest talents studying in Europe, Holland and Italy in particular. Was it modernism, or did it have more to do with experiencing Italian culture?
RP What made you decide to become a composer? GB I commenced my studies in the classic guitar at the age of 22 but quickly came to the realisation that I was not cut out to be a solo performer. At the time I worked closely with the Brazilian guitarist Turibio Santos, an experience that proved decisive to say the least. He encouraged me to look beyond the myopic preoccupations of guitar technique and he drew my attention to a much broader universe of musical possibilities. Such was my enthusiasm that I decided to apply for entry into the Bachelor of Composition degree at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music.
GB On graduation from the NSW State Conservatorium my wife and I were determined to live in Roma for as long as possible. Then it was just a question of selecting a teacher who taught there and I did just that in applying to study with Franco Donatoni. RP What were or what are your literary points of reference – if there are any? GB I am a voracious reader of literature, history and other topics. In addition, I am a passionate student of languages.
RP You have taught composition for many years, and you still do. Did you have a role model, a particular teacher who left his mark?
RP I know. Your text messages come in all possible languages. And the first work you wrote for the Song Company used an 30
potential. There is only one Creator and all I do is to assemble things from what is already there. In this sense I am a Catholic in both the spiritual and musical sense!
obscure Italian text. Something changed though, after returning from Italy. GB During the early 80’s Italy was enjoying a period of unprecedented musical activity and the mélange of styles and genres on offer was astonishing. My experience there was everything a young composer could wish for. But we did chose to return to Australia. Throughout the following years, I continued to create a steady stream of works fashioned along modernist lines. Occasionally I was involved in collaborations with other artists from other disciplines and musicians from other cultures. At first these engagements were one-off events but soon the trickle turned into a flood.
RP One of the strongest memories I have of you as a composer is sitting in rehearsals of Sinfonia, Berio's grand statement from 1967/68. You were making notes all the way through the score. How important is the musical canon to you? GB If I was forced to describe my place in the milieu I would describe myself as a journeyman so the musical canon is my trusty guide. But I have been plugging away consistently since 1978. The creative process is an impenetrable morass and to propose an overarching grand unified theory for my pieces is simply beyond me. Henry de Montherlant once said something like ‘I am not just one of my works, I am all of them’: - a mixed blessing indeed!
The consequence has been a transmutation of my aesthetic towards simplicity. As much as my modernist period had been characterized by an aspiration to fill the available sonic space with sound, the reverse situation now applies. My intention now is to enhance the resonance of the music I write and expunge the sonic clutter of all unnecessary detail so as to communicate more directly.
RP Many people, myself included, admire your capacity for reinventing yourself. During the last few years a strong level of spirituality has emanated through your work: 'Gethsemane', the Mass, now 'Canticles'. It's a long way from 'Flesh'! GB Yes, after composing for well over thirty years, I have arrived in a brave new world of expressive possibilities and it is definitely not the one that I had envisaged 35 years ago. At this point on the scale, it is the hüzün (melancholy) and the music of the meyhanes of Istanbul, the hans of Aleppo and churches of Tbilisi that holds sway over my imagination. I have returned to the narrative that so impressed me at the Peter Brooks production all those years ago and I am revelling in it. But who knows what the future may hold?
RP In one of our conversations in the '90s, you stated three pillars of your work: natural harmony (the overtone series), rhythm and pulse, colourism/exotic colours. It seems that you have remained true to those principles, but the context has evolved. GB The overtone series is an undeniable scientific reality which one denies at one's peril and tonality and/or modality are similarly crucial to my metier. I am not really sure what a colourist is but I'm pretty certain that I don't want to be one. Also I must say that I gently arc up when 'exoticism' is used to describe what I do. I simply regard all the elements that are found in my music as being legitimate musical devices of great expressive
RP Any idea what’s next? GB In all honesty I do not have a clue where my current interests will lead me and nor am I overly concerned by this. I must say that this is all part of the fun!
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Tuesday 3 May In association with Hotel Hotel
CONCERT 10
SOUNDS ON SITE Nishi SEQUENZA
Nishi Gallery and other locations Luciano Berio
New Acton 12.30pm
1925-2004
90 mins
Sequenza II for harp (1963)
Alice Giles harp Paolo Bonomini cello Virginia Taylor flute Rupert Boyd guitar Anna Fraser soprano Florian Peelman viola James Crabb accordion
Luigi Dallapiccola 1904-1975
Ciaccona, intermezzo e adagio (1945)
Osvaldo Gojilov b. 1960 Fish Tale (1998) AP
Luciano Berio
Tambuco Percussion Ricardo Gallardo Alfredo Bringas Miguel González Raúl Tudón
Sequenza III per voce femminile (1965)
Pierre Charvet b. 1968 And death (2015)
Luciano Berio
Sequenza XIII for accordion ('Chanson') (1995)
Thierry De Mey
b. 1956
Musique de table (1987)
James Crabb is supported by Lyndall Hatch Virginia Taylor is supported by Gudrun Genee
AP – australian premiere
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Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
tresses, capable of drawing from it nothing more than seductive glissandi." A French harpist by the name of Francis Pierre gave its first performance in 1963. The vocal Sequenza from 1965 is one of the most iconic of the series, in no small measure due to its famous first interpreter, Cathy Berberian, Berio’s wife at the time. Berio wrote: “The voice carries always an excess of connotations, whatever it is doing. In Sequenza III I tried to assimilate many aspects of everyday vocal life, including trivial ones, without losing intermediate levels or indeed normal singing. This is the “modular” text written by Markus Kutter for Sequenza III:
Luciano Berio
Give me a few words for a woman to sing a truth allowing us to build a house without worrying before night comes
Photo: © Daniel Cande
Sequenza II for harp (1963) Sequenza III for female voice (1965)
Sequenza III can be considered as a dramatic essay whose story, so to speak, is the relationship between the soloist and her own voice”.
(Directed for Anna Fraser by Leonie Cambage with paper design by Benja Harney)
Sequenza XIII for accordion (‘Chanson’) (1995)
Almost twenty years later, after having visited anything from violin to trombone, Berio added an accordion Sequenza, subtitled ‘Chanson’. Rather than subverting the playing traditions of the accordion, the piece subverts the traditional sentimentality of accordion melodies and adds a wry modern melancholic edge to its lyrical meanderings. Teodoro Anzellotti premiered the piece in Rotterdam in late 1995 as well as the revised version in Witten the next year.
Between 1958 and 2002, Luciano Berio wrote fourteen solo pieces entitled Sequenza, a string of virtuoso pieces that explore the capabilities of a solo instrument and its player often in defiance of the classic traditions. The first one, for flute, dates from 1958, followed five years later by one for harp. Berio wrote of Sequenza II, "French impressionism has left us with a rather limited version of the harp, as if its most obvious characteristic were that of lending itself to the attention of loosely robed girls with long blond
Roland Peelman 2016
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Fish Tale (1998) One of the most prominent exponents of the contemporary Jewish dispora is Osvaldo Noé Golijov, born in La Plata, Argentina from a family of Jewish Romanian migrants. As a young man he spent three years in Israel before settling
in US where he found a ready audience for his personal mix of kletzmer, Argentinian roots and liturgical roots. Fish Tale is a chamber piece about a sea creature who takes a trippy Alice in Wonderland-like journey through the water.
Ciaccona, intermezzo e adagio for cello solo (Firenze, 1945) In 1945 Luigi Dallapiccola took a break from his major opus, the opera Il prigioniero (The Prisoner) in order to complete a few smaller works, among them this piece for solo cello. The end of the war had brought relative peace and stability into his life, but his artistic creed was as marked by the tumultuous events of the first half of the 20th century as it was imbued with the spirit and craft of Schönberg’s twelve-tone technique. Born in Istria (now part of Croatia), he and his family were profoundly affected by both great wars, and his major works deal with persecution, displacement and rough justice.
The three-part cello piece Ciaccona, intermezzo e adagio was developed in close collaboration with the Spanish cellist Gaspar
Cassadò who gave its premiere in Milan on February 26th, 1946. Constructed as a broad bridge form reflected in the fifth-fourth inversion of the tone-row itself, the work transcends both traditional cello technique and strict 12-tone composition technique. Wordless, yet supremely eloquent, the piece is as profound a statement on freedom as the opera that concludes with the prisoner’s whispered “libertà”. Roland Peelman 2016
And Death (2015) In a country that has just seen the passing of Pierre Boulez, Charvet is a household name through his radio and TV shows: Presto! atttracts 4 million viewers each week, and his radio show le mot du jour is the highest rating program on France-Musique. But as
a composer he graduated from Manhattan School of Music and entered IRCAM at the age of 23. And Death is a recent work for viola and electronics, miles removed from the world of Boulez, but infinitely closer to the urban jungle sounds of a younger generation.
Musique de Table (1987) Thierry de Mey wrote Musique de table (Table Music) for the dance-theatre group Ultima Vez by Wim Vandekeybus in 1987, the decade that saw a number of Belgian visual arts and theatre/dance directors rise to international
prominence (Jan Fabre, Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker and more). de Mey himself studied dance and has been a key collaborator for a number of leading film, dance and theatre makers in Belgium and France.
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Tuesday 3 May B2B MAGAZINE presents with the assistance of Acción Cultural Española and the Embassy of Spain
concert 11
Scarlatti meets Handel meets Bach
J.S. Bach 1685-1750
Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto BWV 971 — Andante Presto
J.M. Gallardo del Rey Two Concert Studies: No. 4 - To J.S Bach No. 11 - To CPE Bach
Georg Friedrich Handel 1685-1759
Chaconne in G minor HWV 259
Georg Friedrich Handel Hallelujah! HWV 277
Domenico Scarlatti 1685-1757 Three Sonatas: Sonata in F# Major K. 318 Sonata in C Major K.159 Sonata in F minor K.481
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.30pm
Domenico Scarlatti
Three Sonatas Sonata in A Major K 322 Sonata in C minor K11 Sonata in E major K 380
Georg Friedrich Handel Concerto in B flat HWV 294 Andante allegro Larghetto Allegro moderato
Domenico Scarlatti Sonata in D Minor K294 Sonata in D Major K353
Improvisation on Scarlatti Joseph Tawadros, James Crabb, José Maria Gallardo del Rey
This concert is supported by Peronelle & Jim windeyer James Crabb is supported by Lyndall Hatch Joseph Tawadros is supported by Joanne Daly & Michael Adena
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75 mins
James Crabb accordion José María Gallardo del Rey guitar
Jonathan Lee organ Neal Peres Da Costa harpsichord Joseph Tawadros oud Anna Fraser soprano harpsichord by
William Bright (1985) Courtesy of the ANU School of Music
organ by
Knud Smenge (1982)
courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Class of 1685
In 1685, three musical prodigies were born. They were christened Georg Friedrich (Halle, 23 February), Johann Sebastian (Eisenach, 31 March), and Giuseppe Domenico (Naples, 26 October) respectively. The latter two had ample musical blood running through the family veins – well documented in the case of Bach; as for the Italian boy, he was the sixth child of the famous composer and teacher Alessandro Scarlatti. The boy from Halle was less fortunate, and had to battle a father dead set against the idea of his son as a musician. Unsurprisingly, much has been said about the curious coincidence of the three composers’ year of birth. More remarkable is that all three lived to a ripe old age, all three were gifted with quasi super-human keyboard skills, if we are to believe eye-witness accounts, and all three displayed a distinct taste for the Italian style, even away from Italy. Yet the manner in which their lives unfolded could not have been more different. Young Bach never had the opportunity to travel to Italy. But Italian music had long since travelled to Germany, including to the Protestant north, where Italian fashions and a taste for simple straightfoward musical expression were probably to blame for the resistance against Bach’s appointment in Leipzig and his subsequent tug-of-war with the City Council. No matter how skilfully he would employ and arrange the simpler ear-pleasing structures of the Italian concerto, his innate love of contrapuntal complexity and intricate interplay of voices made him stand out. The principle is simple all the same: a ‘tune’ is struck (upbeat and with clear rhythm, please) which returns repeatedly (hence ‘ritornello’) in between solo sections that display individual ingenuity (think of jazz standards). Bach clearly knew the Italian repertoire, arranging several of Vivaldi’s concerti for organ or adapting Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater into a setting of Psalm 51, the Cantata BWV 1083. But what stands out in his oeuvre is the Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto (Concerto in the Italian taste), a vivid three-movement work published in 1735 as part of a larger project called Clavier-Übung. Scarlatti – Fingering Exercise
The word ‘übing’ (exercise) betrays Bach’s didactic streak. He was well aware of the magic power that agile, 38
well-practised fingers could exert over an audience. The concerto’s nifty fingerwork takes practice, sure enough, but the stated requirement for a double manual harpsichord hints at the contrasts and coloristic effects that make this piece shine. Bach generally wrote for an unspecified keyboard instrument, with three noted exceptions: the Goldberg Variations, the French Overture and this Italian Concerto. For someone working away in a small Lutheran town, he obviously relishes the cosmopolitan flair and fancy of the genre. His compatriot Handel never set his eyes on a local church existence: he wrote his first operas in Hamburg at the age of 18. Soon enough an invitation from the Medici family presented itself to travel to Italy. And so it was that between 1706 and 1710 he absorbed the Italian style at first hand, and made crucial contacts that were to have a lasting impact on his career. Two musicians left their mark: Corelli, whose concerto grosso style would profoundly influence him, and, importantly for tonight’s concert, Scarlatti. Both were in their early twenties, and played organ and harpsichord. We have one surviving (and not always reliable) account of the two composers engaging in a keyboard contest in Rome. According to the surviving source, Handel was declared to be superior on the organ, while Scarlatti matched or perhaps even surpassed Handel’s skill at the harpsichord. What we do know is that the organ stayed relatively prominent in Handel’s work, whereas the lion’s share of Scarlatti’s output consists of 555 harpsichord sonatas, only 30 of which were published, appearing in 1738 under the name Essercizi (exercises). A respected English harpsichordist of the day, Thomas Roseingrave, has left us a good account of the young Scarlatti from his travel log, as reported by the contemporary historian Dr Charles Burney:
Scarlatti Sonata K 380 in E major
'Being arrived in Venice in his way to Rome, he (Roseingrave) was requested to sit down to the harpsichord and favour the company with a Toccata ... and, says he, 'Finding myself rather better in courage and finger than usual, I exerted myself ... and fancied by the applause that I received, that my performance had made some impression on the company....' After a cantata had been sung by a scholar of Fr. Gasparini, a grave young man dressed in black and a black wig, who had stood in one corner of the room, very quiet and attentive while Roseingrave played, being asked to sit down to the harpsichord, when he began to play, Rosy said, he thought that ten hundred devils had been at the instrument. The performance so surpassed his own, and every degree of perfection he should ever arrive, that, if he had been in sight of any instrument with which to have done the deed, he would have cut off his own fingers. Upon enquiring the name of this extraordinary performer, he was told it was Domenico Scarlatti …’ This and other accounts explain the existence of Scarlatti fan-clubs in England. But it was in Spain that Scarlatti was to spend the greater part of his life, firmly ensconced in Madrid in service of the Queen of Spain, who, according to the singer Farinelli, was “in constant admiration of his original genius and incomparable talents” – so much so that she regularly bailed him out of trouble, for he was “so much addicted to play [i.e., to gambling], that he was frequently ruined.” Roland Peelman 2016
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Wednesday 4 MAY In association with Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres
concert 12
SOUNDS ON SITE
Braddon’s Bread and Games
Gorman Arts Centre Claudio Monteverdi
Giuseppe Tartini
1692-1770
Lamento della Ninfa (The Nymph's Lament)
Variations on Gavotte from Corelli's Op.5, No.10, from L'arte del arco
Gerard Brophy
Franco Donatoni
1927-2000
Andrián Pertout
b. 1963
1567-1643
b. 1953
Constantinopolis (2014) Üsküdar Eminönü Üc Horan
Lem
Exposiciones for glockenspiel
Ainslie Arts Centre Gerard Brophy
Trinity for violin, clarinet and piano
Manuel de Falla
1876-1946
Siete canciones popolares Españols (Seven popular Spanish songs) El paño moruno (The Moorish Cloth) Seguidilla murciana Asturiana Jota Nana Canción Polo
Darius Milhaud
1892-1974
La cheminée du roi René (King René Goes Walking) Op. 205 (1939) Cortège (Procession) Aubade (Dawn song) Jongleurs (Jugglers) La maousinglade Joutes sur l'Arc (Jousts on the river Arc) Chasse à Valabre (Hunt at Valabre) Madrigal nocturne
This concert is supported by CHRISTINE GOODE Boccherini Trio is supported by Carolyn Philpot The Song Company is supported by Dianne & Brian Anderson
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Gorman Arts Centre to Ainslie Arts Centre 12.30pm 90 mins
The Song Company Richard Black tenor Mark Donnelly baritone Anna Fraser soprano Hannah Fraser mezzo Susannah Lawergren soprano Andrew O’Connor bass Daniel Zapico theorbo Anna McMichael violin Rohan Dasika double bass Christina Leonard saxophone Alice Giles harp Rupert Boyd guitar Kaylie Melville glockenspiel Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet Kim Falconer flute Edward Wang oboe Justin Sun bassoon James Bradley horn Roland Peelman piano
La cheminée: a walk in Provence The title of Milhaud’s Suite Op. 205 has been the source of much confusion. Often translated as ‘fireplace’ or ‘chimney’, the word cheminée is actually related to cheminer, ‘to stroll' or 'to take a walk’, and refers in fact to René’s daily rituals in Provence.
that took place at his court. Although the composer studied several musical manuscripts of the period, the writing of the La cheminée du roi René shows very little evidence of this. The music was originally written for the 1939 film Cavalcade d'amour on a screenplay by Jean Anouilh and Jean Aurenche, set in the court of René I in the 15th century. Milhaud contributed to the film score, and then used the material for this suite, which was first performed in 1941 at Mills College, California.
The castle and the court of René I, Count of Provence, were situated in Aix-en-Provence, birthplace of Darius Milhaud. Milhaud was always fascinated by the history of the king, his code of chivalry and the legendary tournaments
Exposiciones for Glockenspiel and Tape, no. 392d (2005, Rev. 2007) ‘Exposiciones’ for Sampled Microtonal Schoenhut Toy Piano is an ‘acousmatic’ work that attempts to explore the equally-tempered sound world within the context of a sampled microtonal Schoenhut model 6625, 25-key toy piano and a complex polyrhythmic scheme. All equal temperaments between 1 and 24 – essentially functioning as tuning modulations – as well as all polyrhythms (divisible only by 1 and including their inversions) between the ranges of 2 and 15 are presented. In 2005, the work was arranged for Glockenspiel and Tape at the request of Australian percussionist Peter Neville.
Composition awards include the Friends & Enemies of New Music Composition Prize (USA), Betty Amsden Award and Louisville Orchestra Prize (USA). His music has been performed in over forty countries by orchestras that include the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, The Louisville Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Petrobrás Sinfônica, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile and Concepción, Logos Foundation Robot Orchestra, University of Hong Kong Gamelan Orchestra, La Chapelle Musicale de Tournai, Oare String Orchestra.
In 2007, Andrián Pertout completed a PhD degree at the University of Melbourne.
Festival music recording by Kimmo Vennonen, kv productions - a creative studio for clients across the arts Specialising in quality CD mastering since 1996 plus innovative recording and award winning sound designs
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www.kvp.net.au
Wednesday 4 MAY In association with the Embassy of France
concert 13
French Invention Invention française
Photo: Alexander Fernandes
Olivier Messiaen 1908-1992
Oraison (1937)
Maurice Ravel 1875–1937
Cinq mélodies grecques (1914)
Tristan Murail b. 1947
Tigres de verre (1974) AP
Maurice Ravel
1875–1937
Deux mélodies hébraïques (1914)
Konstantin Koukias b. 1965 Epirus – An Ancient Voice for ondes & tape (2016) WP
Jean Françaix 1912-1997 String Trio Allegretto, vivo Scherzo, vivo Andante Rondo, vivo
Jean Cras 1879-1932
Quintet for flute, string trio and harp Assez animé Animé Lent Très animé
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.30pm 100 mins
Nadia Ratsimandresy ondes martenot
Taryn Fiebig soprano Roland Peelman piano Virginia Taylor flute Alice Giles harp Boccherini Trio Suyeon Kang violin Florian Peelman viola Paolo Bonomini cello
INTERVAL
This concert is supported by HARRIET ELVIN & TONY HEDLEY Taryn Fiebig is supported by Susan & David Chessell Boccherini Trio is supported by Carolyn Philpot Virginia Taylor is supported by Gudrun Genee
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wp – world premiere AP – australian premiere
Jean, Maurice, Jean et les autres The 1928 Quintet for flute, harp and string trio flows effortlessly, drawing on trademark French expertise in harp and flute writing. From the opening statement to the final flourish in the Allegro, textures bristle with joy. This mood of unbridled expansion is maintained for the duration of the four classically conceived movements. Cras’ language may not be as adventurous as Ravel’s, nor is his musical discourse as eventful as Debussy’s. But he understood the inherent playfulness of five instruments of this kind and created music that seduces the ear, entertains the mind, and paints a classic picture of French elegance as coined by Beaudelaire : ‘luxe, calme et volupté '.
Claude Debussy took great pride on being called compositeur français. Maurice Ravel on the other hand, born in the south west of France on the border of Basque country, thrived by adopting the mode and manner of different cultures. Some of his best known works took hispanicism to an entirely new level (Rhapsodie Espagnole, Bolero and much more) but the sounds of the Middle East and, later in life, the sounds of American blues and jazz also exerted a certain attraction. The five Greek songs, written between 1904 and 1906 on texts translated from the Greek by his friend Calvocoressi, aim to capture the simple, ‘savage’ nature of Greek folklore, rather than the artistic remains of classic culture. Not unlike the paintings of the Fauves who aimed to capture the wild authenticity of ethnic cultures,the five songs are extremely concise and direct, yet vividly coloured. Likewise, the two Hebrew songs, first performed in 1914, go to the heart of Jewish chant, with minimal accompaniment and long melismas. The lyrics of the first song are in Aramaic and come from the Jewish prayer book. The second one ,’The Eternal Enigma’, is based on a Yiddish verse.
Like Ravel, Cras died after illness in the 1930s. Neither of them had been in the business of teaching other composers, Cras because he was too busy at sea, and Ravel because his personality was not particularly attuned to other people’s needs or desires. Since 1918, the mantle of composition tuition in France had been well and truly donned by the fearsome Nadia Boulanger. Amongst the staggering rollcall of French and American composers who studied with her (from Copland to Ginastera to Glass!), she loved to single out Jean Françaix as one of her very best. Ravel himself had once confided to the young boy’s parents : "Among the child's gifts I observe above all the most fruitful an artist can possess, that of curiosity: you must not stifle these precious gifts now or ever”. They did not, and he flourished: Françaix became one of the most prolific French composers of the 20th century, surpassed only by Darius Milhaud (cf. Concert 23), writing over 200 pieces in a wide variety of styles. Françaix’s String Trio from 1933 demonstrates youthful zest, wit and a real intent to entertain. It could be said that each piece by Françaix is a form of divertissement, averse to grandiloquence or pomposity, sometimes acerbic, often delicately spiced but aways crystal clear.
By the year 1914, most of Maurice’s friends had enlisted in the war effort, which prompted Ravel’s threefold attempt – ultimately futile – to become a French soldier. The French Navy was the natural home of Jean Cras, a remarkable man by anyone's measure. His creative legacy extends beyond the world of music to the world of science and navigation. His five patented inventions include the gyrocompass, bearing his name and still in use to this day by the French navy, coast guard and boating afficionados. A twice-decorated hero of the Great War (Cras is credited with saving the Serbian army from extinction during the Adriatic campaign), this scientist, inventor, moral philosopher and RearAdmiral of the French Navy was also a highly esteemed composer, enjoying stature and celebrity on a par with Fauré, Debussy or Ravel. Whilst his naval career prevented him from developing an orchestral oeuvre of magnitude, his love for intricate detail ensured an exquisite catalogue of beautifully crafted chamber works.
Roland Peelman 2016
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Oraison (ou l'Eau) (1937) for ondes & piano In 1928 Maurice Martenot devised an early electronic instrument, somewhat similar in sound to the theremin, its eerie wavering notes produced by varying the frequency of oscillation in vacuum tubes. Messiaen was the first major figure to exploit the possibilities of the new instrument with an ondes Martenot sextet written for the 1937 Exposition Universelle in Paris: Fête des Belles Eaux (Feast of the beautiful waters). Oraison (Prayer), subtitled l’Eau (Water), is no more than a long musical phrase taken from this sextet, describing the serene state of water, "a symbol of grace and eternity" in Messiaen’s own words. Five years later, this ecstatic solo piece would become the fifth movement of the Quartet for the End of Time (1941): Louange à l'éternité de Jésus. The production of the instrument stopped in 1988, but it continues to be taught in France. In 1997 the Ondéa project began designing an instrument based on the ondes Martenot. Since the Martenot name is still protected, the new instrument is called Ondéa, but has the playing
and operational characteristics of the original ondes Martenot.
Epirus - An Ancient Voice (2016) The rugged mountainous northwest region of ancient Greece was known as Epirus, meaning ‘mainland’ or ‘terra firma’ as opposed to Corfu and the Ionian islands off the coast. By the end of World War I, the region was left divided between southern Albania and north-western Greece. It is here that Konstantin Koukias’ mother Vasiliki was born and raised. Before her passing away in 2007, her son Konstantin made
two recordings of Vasiliki’s singing that were to become the basis of this new work: a lament (mirolóyia) and a shepherd’s song (skaros). Recorded in Hobart, Tasmania in 2000, Vasiliki’s recorded voice evokes the family’s ancient Epirian roots, transformed electronically against the ethereal sound of the Onde, from the composer’s new home in Amsterdam.
Tigres de verre (1974) Tigers of Glass is a title taken trom Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by the Argentinian writer JorgeLuis Borges. This ondes-piano duet, written for the Onde Martenot exam at the Conservatoire in Paris in 1974, draws on resonances of the note A which move apart to recompose new
objects. High notes make low notes appear, legato moves toward staccato, long notes gradually become trills. The piano plays a mainly percussive role and its sympathetic resonances are widely used.
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Thursday 5 MAY Canberra CBD Limited presents in association with the Embassy of Mexico and the National Capital Authority
concert 14
SOUNDS ON SITE - Garema Place
Bree van Reyk b. 1978 and Lauren Brincat b. 1980
Garema Place 12.30pm 60 mins
‘No Performance Today’
Jessica Wells
b. 1974
Moon Fire (2016) WP relayed from The National Carillon
Lyn Fuller carillon Band of the Royal Military College, Duntroon
Elena Kats-Chernin b. 1957 Beaver Blaze (2007)
led by
Captain Matthew O'Keeffe
Drumming sequence
Festival Drummers Tambuco Percussion Ricardo Gallardo Alfredo Bringas Miguel González Raúl Tudón
wp – world premiere
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Betty Beaver and the Festival Blaze Betty Beaver is a stalwart of arts and music in Canberra. A trained cellist and an experienced art entrepreneur (her ownership of the private Beaver Galleries dates back to 1975), Betty's personal commitment to art and music have earned her a central place in Canberra’s annual Music Festival. Her involvement with the Festival goes back to the very origins of Pro Musica in 1994. By 2007, the idea had emerged to commission a short piece that would lift the spirit of the Festival’s opening concert, and the idea took hold. Between Photo: Peter Hislop 2007 and 2014 Elena Kats-Chernin wrote no less than seven different realisations of the Beaver Blaze for instruments as diverse as brass quintet or baroque orchestra. For the 2015 Festival, Kate Moore, as composer-in-residence, wrote ‘The Dam’ combining baroque and modern instruments. This year’s Beaver Blaze is ‘Dervish’ by Gerard Brophy, featured in Concert 1, Tango Tambuco. Betty Beaver with 2015 Composer-in-Residence Kate Moore
No Performance Today No Performance Today is a performance work for marching band created by Bree van Reyk and Lauren Brincat. The work was initially commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and Performance Space. No Performance Today gently unravels the sonic and movement cohesion of the marching band – a regimented, rigid entity – to draw attention to the idiosyncrasies that lie within this collective of individuals. In place of their usually strict attention to order, precision, synchronicity and formality the performers are instead invited to improvise, move freely amongst the audience and create their own musical journeys. Jessica Wells Jessica Wells was born in Florida, USA in 1974 and migrated to Australia at the age of 11. She completed her Bachelor of Music degree in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1996 and graduated with first class honours. This was followed by a Master’s Degree in Composition under Dr. Bozidar Kos completed in 1998. After teaching composition at the Conservatorium for four years, she spent time living in Antwerp, Belgium and then returned to Sydney in 2003. She then completed a Masters in Screen Composition at the AFTRS (Australian Film, Television and Radio School) in 2005, and was awarded the Film Critic's Circle Award for "Best Display of Technical Excellence" for her work on eight short films. Jessica's compositions cross many genres in the classical, commercial and film music worlds. She has worked for some of Australia's best composers as an orchestrator, arranger and copyist.
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Thursday 5 MAY With the assistance of Acción Cultural Española, the Embassy of Spain and the Embassy of the United States of America
concert 15
El Camino
Photo: Gerard Brophy
Alfonso X el Sabio 1221-1284
Three Cantigas No. 10 Rosa das rosas No. 390 Sempre faz o mellor No. 1 Des oge máis
J.M. Gallardo del Rey
Traditional flamenco music
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Isaac Albéniz 1860-1909 Cadiz Sevilla
Manuel De Falla 1876-1946 Danza Omenaje
Canción de jinete (Song of the horseman)
El grito (The scream)
La luna asoma (The moon appears)
80 mins
José María Gallardo del Rey guitar
F. Moreno Torroba 1891-1982 Madroños
b. 1928
Lorca Suite (1973) Op. 72
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.30pm
Gerard Brophy
b. 1953
Canticles (2016) WP
Commissioned by Margaret & Peter Janssens
¿ Hasta cuándo ? Para Todas Balat Lament
Malagueña
The Song Company Richard Black tenor Mark Donnelly baritone Anna Fraser soprano Hannah Fraser mezzo Susannah Lawergren soprano Andrew O’Connor bass Vocal Young Artists Tambuco Percussion Ricardo Gallardo cajon Miguel González Raúl Tudón directed by Roland Peelman
This concert is supported by MARGARET & PETER JANSSENS The Song Company is supported by Dianne & Brian Anderson
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wp – world premiere
El Camino di Santiago
Three Cantigas
Embarking on a long trip in the Middle Ages was not uncommon, though often arduous and almost always driven by religious fervour or the need to pay penance. The Holy See and the graves of Peter and Paul represented a worthy destination for Christians in Europe. Since 'all roads lead to Rome', the Via Francigena stood for more than one single road. As the name suggests, the journey involved France but often started as far back as Canterbury in England and would traverse Switzerland or Lombardy on the way to Italy. From the early centuries of Christianity onwards, the road to Jerusalem and the sites of Jesus' life represented a much more momentous pilgrimage. Once the city became part of the Islamic world, such pilgrimages turned perilous if not impossible. Over a series of Crusades, Western Europe assembled the largest military force since the fall of the Roman Empire. Jerusalem nowadays is a place for pilgrims of many different nominations.
No serious scholar ever suggested that the Cantigas de Santa Maria is the work of one single author, let alone an author with many other things on his royal plate. But the sheer size and consistent quality of the collection is baffling: 420 songs, each one carefully conceived to fit an elaborate overall scheme, and as considered from a narrative, poetic and musical perspective as can be. Interestingly, the language used is not Alfonso’s Castilian but Galician, a language closer to Portuguese and considered ideal for lyric poetry up to the 15th century. And here lies the miracle of the cantigas: in spite of the religious nature of the texts, the songs look and sound like secular melodies suited to the court or the bedroom even, rather than the church. “ … and once the king and queen have taken their place on the balcony (…) let the cantors begin the office of the mass (…) And after the Gloria and Kyrie have been sung, and the Collect and the Epistle and the Alleluia, let young women come out, who know how to sing well, and let them sing a ‘cantiga’ and do their entertainment….” .
In comparison, the Way (Camino) of St. James (Santiago) was far easier to negotiate. Associated with a saint who not only was close to Jesus, but who was the first apostle to be martyred on the order of Herod the Great as recorded in the Bible, the pilgrimage offered relative safety as well as indispensible indulgences, and is credited with the evangelisation of Spain. The evidence of James ever having been in Spain at all, or having initiated the wholesale evangelisation is tenuous at best. But the story goes that the remains of James were carried by boat to Northern Spain and buried there. Early in the 9th century the tomb was discovered and a church and monastery were built on the site. The location not far from Cape Finisterre ('end of the earth') gave it mythical significance and the city of Santiage de Compostela made Galicia a popular destination. Over time its attraction waned but the destination, and above all, the journey was re-invented in the 1980s as a hotspot for spiritual renewal with some very attractive tourist options along the way.
This often-quoted passage alludes to the fact that women did sing in church on occasions, and that there was not only singing involved, but also dancing. Typically these rhythms have to be deduced out of the structure that the words and the musical neumes provide us. 750 years on, this is not an easy task. The extent of Arabic influence in particular has been a source of much debate. There is evidence that as many as half the musicians employed at the court were Arabic, but there is also a fairly common consensus now that the immediate compositional models for form and style of the cantigas are Provençal and Galician. Suffice it to say that the mix of local southern European Christian traditions together with the Sephardic experience and the all too visible Arabic presence in Andalusia created something unique and very potent. Roland Peelman 2016 50
Canticles (2016 ) Canticles is cast in three movements: the first, ¿Hasta cuándo?, focuses on hope and abandonment and freely adapts an excerpt from Psalm 13 set in Spanish. The second, Para Todas, is by far the longest of the three, and employs excerpts drawn from Ecclesiastes 3, again set in Spanish and again freely adapted. The text of Balat Lament is in Turkish, a piece of graffiti that I discovered not far from my Istanbul abode. Out of a sea of frenzied scribbles in both Kurdish and Turkish, ranging from the political to the lovelorn, a vermilion incitement overwhelmed all the other messages: NE ZAMAN NAMAZ KILACAKSIN – When will you pray? This desperate spraycanned exhortation was a poignant reminder of the precarious position that Turkey now finds itself in.
A few years ago my wife Jill and I embarked upon a section of the Portuguese Camino walking from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. It was a memorable and, at times exhilarating, experience. Our relief was palpable as we trudged the final few kilometres. So I was bemused as well as delighted when Roland invited me to compose a piece for tonight’s El Camino concert. However my better instincts immediately suggested that a number of degrees of separation might be called for. This piece is a refraction of my Camino experiences through other recent spiritual experiences that have arisen from extended periods in Istanbul and Calcutta. Rather than compose a mere depiction of our journey, I busied myself with broader emotional matters that may be experienced by Camino walkers: hope, abandonment, loss, the gaining of wisdom and a reflection on the mysterious nature of prayer itself.
Gerard Brophy 2016
Photo: Jillian Brophy
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Canberra Weekly is a proud sponsor of the
2016 Canberra International Music Festival
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Friday 6 May FRIENDS OF THE ANU SCHOOL OF MUSIC present in association with the Australian National Botanic Gardens
concert 16
SOUNDS ON SITE – Gardens of Delight
Rainforest ANU Experimental Studio Électropiques naturelles
Jack Body 1944-2015
Australian National Botanic Gardens
12.30pm
Jibrail
90 mins
Daisy Garden Jean Françaix 1912-1997 Petit quatuor
Martin Kay b. 1972 Olfieg
Vocal Young Artists
Gerard Brophy b. 1953 Apollogy
Eucalyptus Lawn Gérard Grisey 1946-1998 Stèle (1995) duo for 2 x bass drums
ANU Experimental Studio
Horaţiu Rădulescu 1942-2008 The Origin (1997) for two bass drums
Location to be discovered Jindřich Feld 1925-2007
Quatre pièces pour flûte Meditation Caprice Intermède (Hommage à Bartók) Burlesque This concert is supported by MARJORIE LINDENMAYER
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Continuum Sax Christina Leonard James Nightingale Martin Kay Nicholas Russoniello Speak Percussion Eugene Ughetti Kaylie Melville Kim Falconer Flute
Apollogy (2003) The seeds for this piece were sown with the creation of NRG for solo bass clarinet, which was commissioned by, and dedicated to, my dear friend and colleague Henri Bok in 1997. In essence, NRG is a piece possessed by a relentless headlong momentum as it runs helter-skelter to its conclusion. I thought that this strategy and the associated musical materials could translate well into an ensemble piece, and particularly one involving saxophones, so when I was approached by the Apollo Saxophone Quartet to write a piece, the die was cast. Apollogy was commissioned by the Apollo Saxophone Quartet and the Royal Northern College and was premiered in January 2003. Gerard Brophy 2016 Jibrail (2008) On the last day of the 2015 Festival, May 10, Jack Body passed away. The evening before The Song Company and the New Zealand String Quartet had performed his final work ‘CRIES: A Border Town’. The work expressed both his fears and his quiet determination to cross the border in his own way. It could be argued that crossing borders, and helping other people cross borders, was the central tenet of his creative lifespan. Raw musical material from ethnic minorities around the world often provided him with inspiration for new work. Even a simple medieval carol such as the Carol to St Stephen (1975) would prompt him to create a new soundworld. Jibrail, written for 8 voices and a gong in 2008, calls on the angel Gabriel, but in the name’s Islamic pronunciation as ‘Jibrail’. The angel's name is called and sung as a form of evocation, arguably the closest Jack ever got to religion since his days as a 20-year-old organist at St. Aidans in Remuera, before a wider world of music lured him away and changed him forever. Stèle (1995) By the time of his early death at the age of 52, only one CD of Gerard Grisey’s music had been recorded. His single-minded pursuit of musical authenticity in a post-serialist world led to few works, but each of his works has become a beacon of special interest. Grisey was a very erudite and witty man, and the reports of his composition classes in Paris were often hilarious. His last class in November 1998 was no less so, yet he spoke of Messiaen’s death. A few days later Grisey himself was no longer. Three years earlier he had written Stèle for the in memoriam concert of the young composer Dominique Lorcin who had died after a long illness at the age of 33. Grisey surprised everyone with this work for two bass drums to be played from a distance, one of medium size and one large. The latter is draped with a string of wooden beads to ‘dirty’ the sound. As for the Indian tabla or mridongam, different places on the stretched skin of the bass drum are used to vary the colours. Finally, six sticks of different hardness, thickness, and material (wood, felt, bundled dowels of the ‘hot rod’-type) are used as well as two types of brushes. The Origin (1997) In the late sixties, the Rumanian composer Rădulescu moved to Paris in the late sixties where he found a sympathetic environment for advanced spectral exploration. The scientific analysis and creative use of upper partials moved modernist music into new territory at that time. Yet, this is where the comparison with Murail and Grisey stops. Rădulescu's structural approach, particularly after the consistent reference to the Tao Te Ching of Lao-tzu in his later work, and particularly the re-integration of Romanian folk elements, reveals a poetic romantic mind married to a radical brain. 54
Friday 6 May With the assistance of the Embassy of Italy, the Italian Cultural Institute and Acción Cultural Española
concert 17
The Battle of the Sexes
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 7.30pm
Claudio Monteverdi 1567-1643
Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) (The Combat of Tancred and Clorinda)
Testo – Marco Beasley tenor
80 mins
Clorinda – Taryn Fiebig soprano Tancredi– David Greco baritone
Taryn Fiebig soprano Marco Beasley tenor David Greco baritone Clive Birch - actor
Forma Antiqva & Festival strings
Giovanni Baptista Pergolesi 1710-1736 La serva padrona (1733)
Forma Antiqva Aarón Zapico harpsichord Daniel Zapico theorbo Pablo Zapico guitar
(The Maid Turned Mistress)
Serpina – Taryn Fiebig soprano Uberto – David Greco baritone
Festival strings
Vespone - Clive Birch
Directed from the keyboard by
Forma Antiqva & Festival strings
Aarón Zapico
Claudio Monteverdi
Lighting: Neil Simpson
Lettera amorosa (1619)
Mural artwork: James Harney
(Love Letter)
Set construction: Stuart Grigg Costume design: Ashleigh Vissell
Marco Beasley tenor
Headdress design: Benja Harney
Daniel Zapico theorbo
Wedding cake design: Veronica Moore Production directed by
Leonie Cambage This concert is supported by MARJORIE LINDENMAYER Taryn Fiebig is supported by Susan & David Chessell
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Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) (The Combat of Tancred and Clorinda) into an epic hero. He falls in love with the pagan warrior-maiden Clorinda after her dramatic intervention that saves the lives of his fellow Christians. During a night battle however she sets the Christian siege tower on fire. In the ensuing combat, she is mistakenly killed by Tancred and converts to Christianity as she lies dying.
The fictional story of is drawn from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Freed - 1581) about a number of Christian knights on their way to the Middle East, their initial disunity and setbacks and their ultimate success in capturing the city of Jerusalem in 1099. The historical Tancred (1075-1112) is a Norman leader from the first Crusade turned by Tasso La serva padrona (1733) (The Maid Turned Mistress) Part I
Part II
Uberto has been waiting three hours for his servant Serpina to bring his morning chocolate. He sends his mute valet Vespone to summon her. Serpina enters in a temper (without the chocolate), insisting she be respected and revered. Uberto can stand her impudence no longer. To free himself from Serpina’s tyranny, he declares he must find a wife at once. Serpina is delighted, and promptly offers to marry him herself. Part One ends with Uberto firmly resisting Serpina’s efforts to convince him of her charms.
To make Uberto jealous, Serpina persuades Vespone to pretend to be her suitor, in the guise of a soldier. A seemingly repentant Serpina then tells Uberto his troubles will soon be over, as she has found herself a husband – the brutish Captain Tempest. She goes to fetch Vespone, leaving an utterly perplexed Uberto to ponder his true feelings for her. Returning with the ‘Captain’, Serpina demands a dowry of 4000 crowns. Uberto is outraged. But, when faced with either paying the dowry or being cut to pieces by the ferocious Captain, he wisely agrees to marry Serpina himself. When the trick is revealed, an astonished Uberto declares he is glad to have been deceived, and a triumphant Serpina rejoices she is mistress at last.
Entr'acte: Francesco Geminiani 1687-1782 Violin Solo C major Anna McMichael violin
Lettera amorosa (1619) (Love Letter) One of two monologues in Monteverdi's Seventh Book of Madrigals, the piece carries the inscription:“for solo voice, in theatrical style, to be sung without a regular beat”. The composer's choice of a high voice more often
than not results in performances by female singers. However, the title given by the poet, Claudio Achillini, leaves no room for doubt: "A gentleman, impatient at his delayed nuptials, writes this letter to his most beautiful bride."
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On Theatre in Music When a string is divided in two, a new note is produced above the fundamental tone, exactly an octave higher. They often blend so well, you may not even notice. Pythagoras drew our attention to this simple natural phenomenon 2,500 years ago. More recent discoveries have unlocked the secrets behind the binary processes inside our brain, the way they define human intelligence or the workings of our computers. Genetically disposed to see the world in two parts (north and south, rich and poor, water and land), we similarly love to pinpoint a defining moment in our history that clarifies our own position: Columbus setting foot on American soil in 1492 or the march on the Bastille and the subsequent sharpening of the guillotine in 1789. The birth of opera in Northern Italy around 1600 is a phenomenon that has similarly divided many a musical history book into two: before and after.
‘represent’, i.e. to reflect the letter and spirit of the text, and fuse music with drama and movement. Opera, particularly once the burghers of Venice made it their own preferred form of entertainment, forced music to adopt a more overtly theatrical style. Either by wallowing in virtuosic showmanship (the cult of the long limbed castrati), or by reinventing the twists and turns of hard won ‘rhetorica’, a dynamic and direct relationship between performer and audience was forged. You might well say that theatre and music had always been willing bed partners and that the rolling hexameters of the oldest epics in Western civilisation were once sung by a mythical bard called Homer. Indeed, music does not exist without performance. It needs charismatic, divinely gifted musicians to take up Orpheus’ lyre again and again. Three thousand years after Homer, driven by the digital revolution and a 24/7 media cult, society has become another incarnation of Shakespeare’s dictum “All the world’s a stage”. We now find ourselves in a continuous theatre of Everyman’s trivially contrived reality. Late-night yawns are as much part of
Indeed, something new was brewing. Monteverdi called it the seconda prattica or ‘second practise’, as distinct from the old church-like polyphonic ways. In the preface to his Eighth Book of Madrigals (which cointains tonight’s Combattimento) he calls it the stile rappresentativo, the need for music to
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the performance as early morning bathroom routines. A dog doing a dance routine on hindlegs can create a FaceBook following overnight. So, in this day and age, how do you explain the difference between a violinist with colourful stage histrionics and a circus clown with uncanny ability on the trombone? Paganini’s devilish podium demeanour and Liszt’s fay but grand gesticulations in the 19th century concert halls paved the way for musical spectacle that wouldn’t just please the ear, but also excite all the other senses. The magnetism exuding from the great romantic virtuosi must have been every bit as overwhelming as the teenage hysteria that welcomed the Beatles in Australia.
enough, a celebrated episode from Tasso’s crusader epic : Tancred, a Christian knight, falls in love with Clorinda, an Arab princess. Being in opposing camps and concealed in full armour, they engage in combat during which Clorinda is fatally wounded by Tancred. The composer sets up a double device: a narrator who in as lively fashion as possible paints the action in words and music, versus the action of the protagonists themselves. Either level can be perceived as foreground or background, the narration as voice-over in modern cinema terms, or as ‘singing head’ à la Alan Bennett. The tragic fight between Tancred and Clorinda can be seen and heard as realistic action or as a dramatic shadow of the narration we are told. It is as if Monteverdi sensed the eternal ambiguity between music which needs a live performer to exist at all, and theatre which by definition requires the presence of an audience as a sounding board. We can close our eyes and hear the play unfold, or we can observe and empathise with the narrator’s skill and compassion. He becomes our interlocutor, the person who looks us in the eye and invites us inside the tableau to become active participants in a piteous tale.
Great artists make you watch and listen. When we are in the presence of that undefinable quality that hints at alchemy, even forbidden substances, we might close our eyes and blissfully drift away. But closing our ears would be more difficult. Imagine yourself in the early days of opera, long before electric power made everything visible, listening to the trotting of the horses and the clattering of the weapons in Monteverdi’s Combattimento, clever sophisticated string innovations they were. But it would mean nothing if it were not for the dramatic framework. The story is simple
Roland Peelman
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Saturday 7 May With the assistance of the Embassy of the United States of America
concert 18
Vivaldi Unseasoned
Antonio Vivaldi
1678-1741
Concerto Op. 3 No. 10 in B minor for four violins, cello and strings, RV 580 - from L'Estro Armonico Allegro Largo Allegro Trio sonata for violin, lute and continuo in C RV 82 Allegro non molto Larghetto Allegro Credo in E minor RV 591 - YA and strings Credo in unum Deo Et incarnatus est Crucifixus Et resurrexit
Concerto for 2 cellos in G minor RV 531 Allegro Largo Allegro
Cantata RV. 684 for alto, strings and continuo "Cessate, omai cessate"
Concerto Op. 3 No. 11 in D minor for two violins, cello and strings, RV 565 - from L'Estro Armonico Allegro - Adagio spiccato e tutti - Allegro Largo e spiccato Allegro
This concert is supported by KOULA NOTARAS, JENNY & EMMANUEL NOTARAS Boccherini Trio is supported by Carolyn Philpot
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FITTERS' WORKSHOP 11.00am 75 mins
Anna Fraser soprano Anna McMichael violin Boccherini Trio Suyeon Kang violin Florian Peelman viola Paolo Bonomini cello Forma Antiqva Aar贸n Zapico harpsichord Daniel Zapico theorbo Pablo Zapico guitar Young Festival Artists Directed by Aar贸n Zapico
The Red Priest The creator of hundreds of spirited, extroverted instrumental works, Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi is widely recognized as the master of the Baroque instrumental concerto, which he perfected and popularized more than any of his contemporaries. Vivaldi's kinetic rhythms, fluid melodies, bright instrumental effects, and extensions of instrumental technique make his some of the most enjoyable of Baroque music. He was highly influential among his contemporaries and successors: even as esteemed a figure as Johann Sebastian Bach adapted some of Vivaldi's music. Vivaldi's variable textures and dramatic effects initiated the shift toward what became the Classical style; a deeper understanding of his music begins with the realization that, compared with Bach and even Handel, he was Baroque music's arch progressive. Though not as familiar as his concerti, Vivaldi's stage and choral music is still of value; his sometimes bouncy, sometimes lyrical Gloria in D major (1708) has remained a perennial favorite. His operas were widely performed in his own time.
but other motivations have been proposed; perhaps Vivaldi simply wanted to explore new opportunties as a composer.
It didn't take him long. Landing a job as a violin teacher at a girls' orphanage in Venice (where he would work in one capacity or another during several stretches of his life), he published a set of trio sonatas and another of violin sonatas. Word of his abilities spread around Europe, and in 1711 an Amsterdam publisher brought out, under the title L'estro armonico (Harmonic Inspiration), a set of Vivaldi's concertos for one or more violins with orchestra. These were best sellers (it was this group of concertos that spurred Bach's transcriptions), and Vivaldi followed them up with several more equally successful concerto sets. Perhaps the most prolific of all the great European composers, he once boasted that he could compose a concerto faster than a copyist could ready the individual parts for the players in the orchestra. He began to compose operas, worked from 1718 to 1720 in the court of the German principality of Hessen-Darmstadt, and traveled in Austria and perhaps Bohemia. Details regarding Vivaldi's early life are few. Throughout his career, he had his choice of His father was a violinist in the Cathedral of commissions from nobility and the highest members of society, the Venice's orchestra and ability to use the best probably Antonio's performers, and enough first teacher. There business savvy to try to is much speculation control the publication of about other teachers, his works, although due such as Corelli, but no to his popularity, many evidence to support this. were published without Vivaldi studied for the his consent. Later in life priesthood as a young Vivaldi was plagued by man and was ordained rumors of a sexual liaison in 1703. He was known with one of his vocal for much of his career students, and he was as "il prete rosso" (the censured by ecclesiastical red-haired priest), but authorities. His Italian soon after his ordination career on the rocks, he he declined to take on Il Prete rosso Compositore di Musica che fece L’opera a headed for Vienna. He his ecclesiastical duties. Capranica del 1723 [The red priest, composer of music Later in life he cited ill who made the opera at Capranica of 1723]. Pier Leone died there and was buried health as the reason, Ghezzi,1723;intheCodexOttoboni,VaticanLibrary,Rome. as a pauper in 1741. 60
Saturday 7 May In celebration of the Bicentenary of Independence the EMBASSY OF ARGENTINA presents
concert 19
Argentina MÁgica
Celebrating Alberto GinAstera 1916-1983
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 2.30pm
Alberto Ginastera 1916-1983 Pampeana No. 1 Op. 16 for violin and piano (1947) Criolla from Op. 6 (1940) Five Songs (1938-43) Canción al árbol del olvido Op. 3 No. 1 (To the Tree of Oblivion) Canción a la luna lunanca Op. 3 No. 2 (To the Lopsided Moon) Triste Op. 10 No. 2 Zamba Op. 10 No. 3 Chacarera Op. 10 No. 1 Malambo Op. 7 (1940) Sonata for guitar Op. 47 (1976) Esordio Scherzo Canto Finale INTERVAL
Serenata for baritone, cello and chamber ensemble Op. 42 (1973) on poems by Pablo Neruda Poético Fantástico Drammatico This concert is supported by MANDY & LOU WESTENDE Louise Page is supported by David Geer Javier Vilariño is supported by David Geer Andrey Lebedev is supported by Muriel Wilkinson & June Gordon
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100 mins
Louise Page soprano Javier Vilariño Baritone Suyeon Kang violin Paolo Bonomini cello Rohan Dasika double bass Andrey Lebedev guitar Alice Giles harp Marcela Fiorillo piano Kim Falconer flute Edward Wang oboe Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet Justin Sun bassoon James Bradley horn Speak Percussion Eugene Ughetti Kaylie Melville Directed by
Roland Peelman
Alberto Ginastera at 100 (1916–1983) Malena Kuss (2016) “To compose, in my opinion, is to create an architecture, to formulate an order and set in values certain structures, considering the totality of its components. In music, this architecture unfolds in time …. When time has passed, when the work has unfolded, a sense of inner perfection survives in the spirit. Only then can one say that the composer has succeeded in creating that architecture.” (Alberto Ginastera, 8 April 1982, translated by Malena Kuss.)
For all the immediacy of expression, instrumental virtuosity, and outward exuberance associated with his music, Ginastera viewed composition as a slow and painful process of transforming, “en noir sur blanc,” his initial mercurial visions into intricately ordered canvases of sound. His meticulous manner and “unflappable, pristine and logical mind, an elegantly furnished Bauhaus mind”—as Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983). Donal Henahan called him in an interview for The Drawing: Francisco Rivera. New York Times Magazine—were often made to stand in puzzling contradiction with the unrelieved, dramatic intensity of his music. However, the “tremendous contrast between the outer personality and the inner man” that Aaron Copland once suggested, appears less marked if viewed as characteristic of a noted generation of Latin American artists who were steeped in the cultural legacy of Europe while, at the same time, seeking to unlock the expressive potential of their own cultural past. At the hospital in Geneva where he spent the last weeks of his life and where I visited him for the last time in May of 1983, Ginastera passed his idle hours jotting down ideas and projects for the future. In the booklet that his wife Aurora Ginastera called the Cahier d’hôpital, we read, “In his music the composer reveals his spiritual life.” A centenary invites retrospectives, taking stock, and reflections on a legacy. The Canberra International Music Festival has chosen to honor Ginastera’s oeuvre in 2016 with three expressive modalities in the composer’s creative journey which also pay homage to the rich musical legacy of his native Argentina. A group of early works of arresting beauty and rhythmic drive that propelled Ginastera to international fame, summon stylized features of Argentina’s rural folk traditions that played a major role in forging Ginastera’s complex musical language. These are the Pampeana No. 1; “Criolla”; five early songs that include Op. 3 (1938) and “Triste” (II), “Zamba” (III), and “Chacarera” (I) from Op. 10 (1943); and Malambo. The Pampeana No. 1, a rhapsody for violin and piano, Op. 16 (1947), whose theme presages the theme for cello and harp that opens Variaciones concertantes, Op. 23 (1953), features, as does Variaciones, the guitar tuning as accompaniment. This melodic/harmonic gesture, a marker of cultural identity, pervades Ginastera’s early works, and also surfaces in the language of other Argentinian composers. Ginastera wrote his first Pampeana while in New York (1945–1947) as a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship that enabled him to spend over a year in the United States, establishing relationships that would support his music for a lifetime. 62
“Criolla” (1937), from Tres piezas para piano, Op. 6 (1937–1940), is dedicated to Mercedes de Toro, who was to become his first wife in 1941. In this early piano piece, Ginastera quotes an unidentified setting of traditional poetry: Dicen que los ríos crecen
They say rivers swell
cuando acaba de llover;
after it rains
así crecen mis amores
just as my love grows
cuando no te puedo ver.
when you’re not with me.
“Canción al árbol del olvido” Op. 3 (1938), on poetry by the Uruguayan Fernán Silva Valdés (18871975), and the Cinco canciones populares argentinas, Op. 10 (1943), are staples of the Latin American song repertoire. In these widely performed jewels, Ginastera summons Argentina’s archetypal folk genres to interpellate the expressive range of the nostalgic “Triste” (II), amorous courtship in “Zamba” (III), and the spirited “Chacarera” (I). The “Triste,” as a cryptic reference to submission to fate and unrequited love, quoted by the viola in the fourth movement of the Second String Quartet, Op. 26 (1958), provides the clue to the secret program that associates Ginastera’s first partially 12-tone composition with Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite (1926), also his first large-scale incursion into the method. Malambo, Op. 7 (1940), dedicated to the Uruguayan pianist Hugo Balzo, is a virtuoso piece in the tradition of Bartók’s Allegro barbaro (1911) and Villa-Lobos’ Pulcinella (1918). As the archetypical male dance of bravura from Argentina’s rural folk tradition, it conjures up the rhythmic energy that Ginastera summoned repeatedly in final movements of his works, most notoriously in the brilliantly orchestrated “Danza final (Malambo)” that closes his ballet Estancia, Op. 8 (1941) with spoken texts from Martín Fierro by José Hernández (1843–1886). A foundational epic poem, Martín Fierro is to Argentina what Dante’s Divine Comedy is for Italy and Cervantes’ Don Quixote represents for Spain. Symbolically, Ginastera’s Malambo por piano starts with the melodic series of the six-string guitar tuning: E – A – D – G – B – E. The Sonata for guitar, Op. 47 (1976), was commissioned by and is dedicated to the Brazilian virtuoso guitarist Carlos Barbosa-Lima. In the Ginastera Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, which I organized in 1988, and among several guitar treatises Ginastera consulted before writing this sonata, we find the following note in the composer’s hand: “Como con una guitarra se pueden hacer muchas cosas (aún un buen asado), el resto de las aclaraciones serán a nivel personal.” ("Given that many things can be done with a guitar, including a good barbecue, the rest of the clarifications will be communicated personally.") In four movements, Ginastera pays homage to the national instrument. The introductory and improvisatory “Esordio” abounds in references to the guitar tuning. The “Scherzo” that follows summons the fleeting hallucinatory mood Ginastera had conjured up in previous works, notably the second movement of the first piano sonata (“Scherzo”), the third movement of the Second String Quartet (“Presto magico”), and the “Ballet erotico” in Bomarzo (II, 11, “El Sueño"). As in a pantomime, a perpetual motion serves to insinuate gestures associated with the guitar and its history, only to stop for a phantasmagoric appearance of Sixtus Beckmesser and the tuning of his lute in Wagner’s Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The third movement, a “Canto,” fulfills the lyrical requirement before launching another fast and furious “Finale.” The Serenata for baritone, cello, and small chamber orchestra, Op. 42 (1973), on Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1924) by Pablo Neruda, is dedicated to Ginastera’s second wife, Aurora Nâtola. 63
“In the verses of the great Pablo Neruda I met the palabras iluminadas, as the poet called them in his “Exégesis y Soledad” introducing the Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. I have tried in my Serenata—and here I paraphrase the poet—to bring ever closer together my thought and its expression” (“Notes” to the Serenata in the unpublished score, New York, Boosey and Hawkes, Inc.).
In his setting, Ginastera weaves a fabric of iridescent sounds to “meet” the words of the Chilean laureate. He freely rearranges poetic fragments to create verbal images that imprint a changing dramatic character on each of the three movements (Poético, Fantástico, Drammatico). Superimposing a new order on Neruda’s poetry, the images progress from the simple quietude of the “Poético,” and through the susurrant, restless wind metaphors of the “Fantástico,” to the inexorability of dusk, separation, and solitude in the “Drammatico.” The cello opens the third movement with a dramatic cadenza concertante that, extended to other instruments in the ensemble, leads to the sorrowful closing poem and to a recapitulative coda for both soloists. The work was commissioned by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and premiered at New York’s Alice Tully Hall on January 18, 1974, with cellist Aurora Nâtola-Ginastera and bass Justino Díaz, conducted by the composer. The continuities created by the labyrinthine paths running through many of Ginastera’s works dismantle any attempt at confining his creative journey into the procrustean bed of “three stylistic periods,” a discursive gesture Ginastera himself offered in 1967 as taxonomical crutch and retracted in 1980 and 1981, mostly because two of those periods nefariously branded him as a “nationalist,” a label he vehemently rejected. Crucial for an understanding of Ginastera’s music is his belief in: “... Art in general and music in particular as a compositional act of pure creation lodged in a transcendental thought, a specially defined aesthetic element that would then enable a composition, stemming from different times and styles, to eclipse the passing of time.” © Malena Kuss 2016
Malena Kuss Internationally renowned Ginastera scholar and expert in Latin American music, Malena Kuss is Professor Emeritus of Musicology, University of North Texas, Denton (1976–2000); Vice President of the International Musicological Society (2009–2017); founder and coordinator of the Regional Association for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Musicological Society (2012–2016); and Ph.D., Historical Musicology, University of California at Los Angeles (1976). As a specialist in 20th-century music in general and Latin America in particular, she has published more than 60 articles on music historiography, compositional approaches to the incorporation of folk elements in operas, pitch organization in works by Ginastera, and musical traditions in cultural contexts. Her collaborative history of performing traditions in Latin America and the Caribbean (Performing Beliefs: Indigenous Peoples of South America, Central America, and Mexico; and Performing the Caribbean Experience, both published by University of Texas Press in 2004 and 2007) gathered contributions by over 100 scholars in 36 countries and introduced the work of many musicologists in English translation, thereby disseminating their perspectives in the Anglophone sphere of influence. As Consulting Curator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona (2008–2010), Kuss built a collection of over 1,500 instruments and designed 43 exhibits. She is the recipient of prestigious prizes and research awards, most notably the Platinum Konex Award for lifetime achievements in musicology from the Konex Foundation in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2009).
The Canberra International Music Festival is honoured to present here excerpts from Professor Kuss's unpublished paper "Alberto Ginastera at 100 (1916–1983)", and is proud to be able to make copies of the complete paper available as a separate publication. 64
Saturday 7 May In association with the ANU School of Art and the ANU School of Music with the assistance of the Embassy of Spain and Acción Cultural Española
concert 20
Twilight
Antonio Valente fl 1565–80
Lo Ballo dell’Intorcia
Gaspar Sanz 1640-1710
Pavanas por la D con Partidas al Aire Español & Jacaras
Anónimo
ed. Antonio Martín y Coll, 1709 Bayle del Gran Duque
Luigi Boccherini 1743-1805
Trio for violin, viola and violoncello Op. 47 No. 5 in D major (G. 111) Andantino moderato assai Tempo di menuetto
Manuel de Falla 1876-1946
Danza de La vida breve, The Miller´s Dance (El sombrero de tres picos)
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 5.30pm
Enrique Granados 1867-1916
Intermezzo from "Goyescas" Danza Española No. 2 (Oriental)
Isaac Albéniz 1860-1909 Castilla
70 mins
José María Gallardo del Rey guitar
Salvatore Sciarrino b. 1947
From Pagine: Gesualdo – "Tu m'uccidi, O Crudel" Bach – Fughetta sur "Dies sind der heil'gen zehn Gebote" Cole Porter – "I've got you under my skin" George Gershwin – "Who cares.. " Domenico Scarlatti – Sonate en Ré mineur L.215/K.120 (Allegrissimo)
Andrey Lebedev guitar Forma Antiqva Aarón Zapico harpsichord Daniel Zapico theorbo Pablo Zapico guitar Continuum Sax Christina Leonard James Nightingale Martin Kay Nicholas Russoniello Boccherini Trio Suyeon Kang violin Florian Peelman viola Paolo Bonomini cello Lighting installation by
Mary-Anne Kyriakou by arrangement with th e ANU School of Art and the ANU School of Music
This concert is supported by MARGARET & JOHN SABOISKY Andrey Lebedev is supported by Muriel Wilkinson & June Gordon
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1916 The death of Granados Enrique Granados was one of the great pianists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His creative legacy as a composer has ensured him a permanent place in the then nascent Spanish nationalistic school. Virtually all his music relies heavily on the Catalan and Spanish folk idiom. Living in Barcelona, he passed the mantle of Catalan standard-bearer on to the young Pablo Casals, with whom he regularly performed in a trio. His most celebrated work is the brilliant piano suite Goyescas, inspired by scenes from Goya’s paintings. He worked on it from 1902 to 1911 and then reworked the material into an opera of the same title. Its premiere was scheduled for 1914 but the outbreak of the war put a stop to that. When the New York Met programmed it for January 1916, Granados, who had dreaded water for his entire life, decided to cross the Atlantic together with his wife Amparo. The trip was an extraordinary success, and the composer was persuaded to play for President Wilson in the White House and to produce some piano rolls in New York. The delayed departure forced the pair to sail into Liverpool and from there to board the ferry SS Sussex for Dieppe in France. On March 24 the liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat and broke in two. In an attempt to save his wife, whom he saw flailing about in the water some distance away, Granados jumped out of his lifeboat and drowned. They left behind six children, one of whom was to become a champion swimmer.
Sciarrino, a composer in the twilight of civilisation Born in Palermo, Sicily, Salvatore Sciarrino has lived in Città di Castello since 1983. He considers himself an autodidact having carved out a very singular creative path often at the limit of our hearing capacity. His works are as virtuosically demanding as they are aurally sophisticated and intellectually probing. Solo works such as Sei capricci for Violin (1976) and the music-theatre piece Luci mie traditrici (1998) have attracted great attention and are already considered modern classics. In the same way that his aesthetic thinking refers back to stimuli from classical philosophy, Sciarrino the composer creatively analyses the musical past. His arrangements for saxophone quartet of various famous ‘pages’ (Pagine) by composers as diverse as Gesualdo or Gershwin show an uncanny ability to create a new sound world out of a distant past. Roland Peelman 2016
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Sunday 8 May CANBERRA WEEKLY presents in collaboration with the Bus Depot Markets and Enigma Fine Chocolates
concert 21
The Chocolate Factory:
A family concert
J.S. Bach 1685-1750
From "The Chocolate Cantata", Op. posthumous Aria: "Oh, how sweet this chocolate tastes!"
César Franck 1822-1890 Panis Angelicus
Jules Massenet 1842-1912 Meditation from "Thaïs"
Jacques Ibert 1890-1962 Entr’acte
Leslie Bricusse b. 1931 and Anthony Newley b. 1931
Songs from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with Tobias Cole as Willy Wonka The Candy man Cheer up Charlie I've got a golden ticket I want it now Oompa-loompa doompadee-doo Pure imagination
90 mins
Tobias Cole counter-tenor Lana Kains soprano James Doig tenor Anna McMichael violin Alice Giles harp Festival Young Artists
Pyotr IlyichTchaikowsky
Children's Chorus: ANU Vocal Fry Turner Trebles CCS New Voices directed by Tobias Cole
1840-1893
Andante cantabile from Quartet No. 1 in D
Nigel Westlake b. 1958
Beneath the Midnight Sun arr. for harp solo by Alice Giles.
Sally Whitwell
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 11.00am
b. 1974
Treasure Chest WP
This concert is supported by Marjorie LINDENMAYER
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Chocolate
chocolate with her to France. The popularity of chocolate quickly spread to other European courts, and aristocrats consumed it as a magic elixir with salubrious benefits. To slake their growing thirst for chocolate, European powers established colonial plantations in equatorial regions around the world to grow cacao and sugar. When diseases brought by the European explorers depleted the native Mesoamerican labor pool, African slaves were imported to work on the plantations and maintain the production of chocolate.
Chocolate may be the “food of the gods,” but for most of its 4,000-year history, it was actually consumed as a bitter beverage rather than as a sweet edible treat. Anthropologists have found evidence that chocolate was produced by preOlmec cultures living in present-day Mexico as early as 1900 B.C. The ancient Mesoamericans who first cultivated cacao plants found in the tropical rainforests of Central America fermented, roasted and ground the cacao beans into a paste that they mixed with water, vanilla, honey, chili peppers and other spices to brew a frothy chocolate drink.
Chocolate remained an aristocratic nectar until Dutch chemist Coenraad Johannes van Houten in 1828 invented the cocoa press, which revolutionized chocolate-making. The cocoa press could squeeze the fatty cocoa butter from roasted cacao beans, leaving behind a dry cake that could be pulverized into a fine powder that could be mixed with liquids and other ingredients, poured into molds and solidified into edible, easily digestible chocolate. The innovation by van Houten ushered in the modern era of chocolate by enabling it to be used as a confectionary ingredient, and the resulting drop in production costs made chocolate affordable to the masses.
Olmec, Mayan and Aztec civilizations found chocolate to be an invigorating drink, mood enhancer and aphrodisiac, which led them to believe that it possessed mystical and spiritual qualities. The Mayans worshipped a god of cacao and reserved chocolate for rulers, warriors, priests and nobles at sacred ceremonies. When the Aztecs began to dominate Mesoamerica in the 14th century, they craved cacao beans, which could not be grown in the dry highlands of central Mexico that were the heart of their civilization. The Aztecs traded with the Mayans for cacao beans, which were so coveted that they were used as currency. (In the 1500s, Aztecs could purchase a turkey hen for 100 beans.) By some accounts, the 16th century Aztec emperor Montezuma drank three gallons of chocolate a day to increase his libido.
In 1847, British chocolate company J.S. Fry & Sons created the first solid edible chocolate bar from cocoa butter, cocoa powder and sugar. Rodolphe Lindt’s 1879 invention of the conching machine, which produced chocolate with a velvety texture and superior taste, and other advances allowed for the mass production of smooth, creamy milk chocolate on factory assembly lines. You don’t need to have a sweet tooth to recognize the familiar names of the family-owned companies such as Cadbury, Mars and Hershey that ushered in a chocolate boom in the late 1800s and early 1900s that has yet to abate. Today, the average American consumes 12 lbs. of chocolate each year, and more than $75 billion worldwide is spent on chocolate annually.
In the 1500s, Spanish conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés who sought gold and silver in Mexico returned instead with chocolate. Although the Spanish sweetened the bitter drink with cane sugar and cinnamon, one thing remained unchanged: chocolate was still a delectable symbol of luxury, wealth and power. Chocolate was sipped by royal lips, and only Spanish elites could afford the expensive import. Spain managed to keep chocolate a savory secret for nearly a century, but when the daughter of Spanish King Philip III wed French King Louis XIII in 1615, she brought her love of
Christopher Klein 68
Sunday 8 May Presented by B2B, in association with the National Gallery of Australia, with the assistance of the Embassy of Mexico in Australia
concert 22
Pioneers of percussion - A mexican Wave
Amadeo Roldán 1900-1939 Rítmicas (1930)
Javier Álvarez b. 1956
Temazcal (1984) for maracas and tape
Paul Barker b. 1956
Stone Song, Stone Dance (2000)
Orgánika (2008)
Andrián Pertout b. 1963
Edgar Varése 1883-1965
Exposiciones for Glockenspiel and Tape, no. 392d (2005, Rev. 2007)
75 mins
Raúl Tudón b. 1961
Rhythmic Structure of the Wind (2009) – for open percussion ensemble and electronic sounds
María Granillo b. 1962
Gandel Hall NGA 2.00pm
Ionisation (1930)
Tambuco Percussion Alfredo Bringas Ricardo Gallardo Miguel González Raúl Tudón Speak Percussion Eugene Ughetti Kaylie Melville
Carlos Chávez 1899-1978
Toccata (1942) Allegro Sempre giusto Largo Allegro, un poco marziale
with special guests
This concert is supported by CLAUDIA HYLES, JENNIE & BARRY CAMERON
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Pioneers of Percussion When Stravinsky unleashed his Rite of Spring onto the world, it caused a scandal. The reason this performance still resonates one hundred years on is that with one masterstroke a new force was unleashed: rhythm. The primal primitive strains of Stravinsky’s sputtering thrusting chords sprouting up like wild creatures heralded a new spurt of rhythmically energised creativity that is connected to the earth through our feet. The only thing that remained to be done was releasing the
Around this time the first percussion ensembles started to be formed which in turn prompted new repertoire. The Toccata by the Mexican Chávez was commissioned by John Cage’s own percussion group and took the physicality of human touch (toccare as in ‘to touch’ or ‘to play’) as its point of departure. This now classic percussion work places Roldan’s playful idiom into a sophisticated tripartite structure encompassing the full range of what percussion can do.
actual instruments and their players, hitherto regarded as the poor noisy cousins of the orchestra from the periphery. Two works brought percussion centre stage and thus completed this rather belated emancipation process in 1930. For the first time, the extensive range of wood, metal and skin, pitched and unpitched was combined to create music that is driven solely by rhythm and colour: the simple but charming Ritmicas by the Cuban Amadeo Roldán, and the very sophisticated Ionisation by the French-American Varèse. Ionisation was inspired by the molecular reality of living substance and, according to the composer, also owes a great deal to the Italian futurists Russolo and Marinetti, reflecting the new reality of modern city life in his work.
The twentieth century did become the century of percussion as almost all types of popular or commercial music involved drums or a percussion section. Meanwhile, percussion in the classical world became increasingly varied and virtuosic. Before long, the percussionist morphed into a fully fledged magician of sound, using anything including the kitchen sink to create rhythm or sound. Three works in this concert also employ electronics which extend the catalogue of sounds well into the digital the world of the 21st century. Roland Peelman 2016
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Sunday 8 May
FITTERS' WORKSHOP 6.00pm
ICON WATER presents with the assistance of the Embassy of Mexico in Australia
80 mins
concert 23
FESTIVAL FINALE: VIVA BRASIL!
Miguel González b. 1973 Bulerías
Carlos Chávez 1899-1978
Toccata (1942) Allegro sempre giusto Largo Allegro un poco marziale
Hermeto Pascoal b. 1936 Cuarteto para Caçerolas
Darius Milhaud 1892-1974
from ‘Saudades do Brasil’ Op. 67 (1920), arr. Roland Peelman Sorocaba Botafogo Leme Copacabana Ipanema Corcovado
Louise Page soprano Paolo Bonomino cello Edward Wang cor anglais James Bradley horn Carly Brown horn Alex Raupach trumpet Michael Bailey trombone Andrey Lebedev guitar Victor Rufus electric guitar Rohan Dasika bass guitar Alice Giles harp Jacob Abela piano Roland Peelman piano Continuum Sax Christina Leonard James Nightingale Martin Kay Nicholas Russoniello Tambuco Percussion Alfredo Bringas Ricardo Gallardo Miguel González Raúl Tudón
Heitor Villa-Lobos 1887- 1959 Melodia Sentimental Three Preludes for guitar: Nos. 1, 3 and 5 Bacchianas Brasileiras No. 5 (Aria)
Speak Percussion Eugene Ughetti Kaylie Melville
Gerard Brophy b. 1953 Ru B Fogo (1998) WP
wp – world premiere This concert is supported by MAJOR GENERAL THE HON. MICHAEL JEFFERY & MRS MARLENA JEFFERY Andrey Lebedev is supported by Muriel Wilkinson & June Gordon
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Saudades from Brazil The origins of the word ‘saudade’ go back almost one thousand years to Portugal and Galicia, where the frequent departure of loved ones to West Africa or parts of Latin America fostered a feeling of longing or loss. To this day the untranslatable word saudade conveys a sense of nostalgia and melancholy and an even deeper knowledge that what has gone will never return.
have heard at the time in Rio might have been much closer to the infinitely sad Portuguese repertoire we know as fado, hence the underlying habanera rhythm in every number. His French ear however would have pricked up at the more upbeat versions intent on dispelling the blues rather than evoking them. Some decades later the Brasilian songwriter Tom Jobim would write the bossa nova song 'Chega de Saudade' ("No more saudade", usually translated as "No More Blues") exuding Brazil’s confidence in its own identy and music. Milhaud’s suite is quirky and light, neither pure Brazilian nor clear-cut French, a snapshot musical guide through the streets of Rio de Janeiro.
In 1919, on returning to France from a two year diplomatic stint in Brazil, Darius Milhaud composed a piano suite under the title Saudades covering almost every neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. What he must
Heitor Villa-Lobos Brasileiras series of which the Aria, No. 5, originally scored with 8 cellos,was to become his signature tune. Whether we hear it as neobaroque confection or late-romantic populism, it is impossible not to be moved by its soaring wordless melody. His Melodia Sentimental, unafraid to use words or sentimentality, is equally cherished in Brazil by classic and popular singers alike.
The Villa-Lobos Foundation in the central Botafogo district of Rio de Janeiro houses the archives of one of the most prolific artists the Latin American continent has ever seen. By the time of his death in 1959, Heitor Villa-Lobos had amassed more than 2000 pieces, the result of a ferocious appetite for work, a high level of natural curiosity and adventure as well as a burning ambition to change musical life in Brazil from a colonial backwater to a nation that celebrates its mixed African and indigenous roots. He absorbed not only the street culture of Rio in the early 20th century but above all the bounty of a vast country overflowing with colour and spice. Aided by new socialist governments after the 1930 revolution, Villa-Lobos took charge of plans to promote music and education to the masses on a grand scale. He criss-crossed the country and produced didactic work, propaganda, film music and concert work for all purposes celebrating the unique voice of Brazil.
Early encounters with European modernism also left indelible marks, prompted by the Ballets Russes' Brazil tour of 1917 and his meetings with the French composer Milhaud that proved fruitful for both. Two virtuoso performers also made a profound impact: Artur Rubinstein, who ought to be credited for VillaLobos’ best piano music, and Andres Segovia, who extracted a remarkable list of pieces for guitar, possibly the simplest and most direct expression of the composer’s Brazilian soul. As Villa-Lobos was wont to say: "I don't use folklore, I am folklore”.
Equally, certain aspects of European culture form part of his aesthetic make-up. His undying taste for Bach produced the Bachianas
Roland Peelman 2016
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Ru B Fogo (1998) This work is something of a blast from the past. It is an artefact from a time when I was thoroughly besotted by the possibilities of jazz-classical fusion in general, and by Brazilian music in particular. The inclusion of the saxophone quartet underpins this fascination, as does the expanded percussion section with
its array of instrumental exotica. Ru B Fogo was commissioned by Ensemble Modern with the assistance of the Australia Council, and is dedicated to whomever it touches. Gerard Brophy 2016
Toccata (1942) Two composers who lived through the early 20th century Mexican revolution are considered pivotal in bringing Mexican music into the 20th century: the immensily gifted but troubled Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) and the equally talented but disciplined Carlos Chávez (1899-1978). Both stood at the cradle of the main orchestras and institutions as the country tried to reinvent itself between the two world wars. Both were influenced by native Mexican culture and both maintained strong links with the USA. Chávez also contributed to cultural life in Mexico as a prolific writer and commentator.
of work that captures the raw and magical strength of Mexico's pre-Columbian civilisation whilst maintaining a strong sense of classical form. His music is fundamentally percussive, hallmarked by polyrhythms, cross-rythms, syncopation and irregular metres. In the late 1930's, John Cage asked Chávez to write a piece for his Percussion Ensemble in Chicago. The result was the 1942 Toccata, one of the first major pieces written for percussion ensemble by itself. The story goes that Cage's group was unable to manage the rolls and gave up. Chávez premiered it in 1947 with the percussionists of his own orchestra. Roland Peelman 2016
Chávez' extensive oeuvre contains six symphonies, ballets, an opera, and a range
One of many blessings We live in a mobile world, clocking up frequent flyer points, leaving a carbon trail along the way, and probably keeping an eye out for the post-Olympic bargains to Rio. Travel has become a way of life. So much in this year’s Festival is about travel, the routes that go over land and sea, conquests, crusades, waves and waves of migration, pilgrimage even. Most musicians travel from far flung places to Canberra for the ten days of this festival. My own traveling schedule has lately been dotted with weekly travels to Canberra, leaving Murray’s bus services as the main recipient of my ‘wanderlust’. But the festival itself has been the beneficiary of countless good people opening their doors and their hearts to artists from far afield. I should salute them all and thank them for embracing the spirit of this event with generosity and kindness. I myself have been blessed with years of enduring hospitality and friendship in the leafy suburb of Forrest, thanks to the generosity of two particular people. Words of thanks fail to express what this means for me personally. Waking up and never having to worry about breakfast. Arriving in a warm home on a cold night. Being able to relax – occasionally. That is a blessing indeed. Thank you, Anna and Bob. – Roland Mr and Mrs Prosser have supported the role of Artistic Director for a number years
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The transfigured voices the Bard, Billie Holiday, and the Pied Butcherbird all have their part to play in The Song Company’s season of legacy and transformation – into something rich and strange... A Strange Eventful History 18 – 27 June
Strange Fruit 7 – 13 October
I believe I can fly... 6 – 13 August
An Orthodox Christmas 3 – 13 November
The Concord of Strangers 26 August – 10 September
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Now touring to Canberra
Artistic Director Roland Peelman An acclaimed musician of great versatility, Roland Peelman
Kalkadunga Yurdu with didgeridoo artist and composer
was born in Flanders Belgium and has been active in
William Barton.
Australia over 25 years as a conductor pianist artistic
His overview and understanding of the music canon is
director and mentor to composers singers and musicians
unique. With a repertoire that includes the major classical
alike. Peelman has received numerous accolades for his
works from Bach to Gershwin as well as a vast oeuvre of
commitment to the creative arts in Australia and specifically
early music from Lassus Monteverdi and Schütz to Purcell
for his 20-year directorship of The Song Company during
Peelman is Australia’s most innovative and versatile musical
which the ensemble has grown into one of Australia’s most
director. His passion for new music has been crucial to an
outstanding and innovative ensembles.
ever-growing repertoire of concert music as well as music
Peelman is widely recognised as one of Australia’s
theatre. Over the years Peelman has directed numerous
finest musicians receiving the NSW Award for “the most
recordings and premiere seasons of new operas such as
outstanding contribution to Australian Music by an
Black River Fahrenheit 451 The Burrow The Sinking of the
individual” and named “musician of the year” by the Sydney
Rainbow Warrior and Gauguin to name just a few.
Morning Herald’s music critic in 2006. In 2009 Sydney
He has worked with most orchestras in Australia and
Morning Herald reviewer Peter McCallum named Peelman
continues to develop new projects that aim to change
“The Innovator” praising him as the mastermind behind
and re-invigorate the nature of concerts both in form and
two of Sydney’s “best moments” in music referring to the
content.
Tenebrae III dance collaboration to music by Gesualdo and the Festival Licht featuring music by the composer Karlheinz
In 2015 Roland was appointed to succeed Christopher
Stockhausen. Peelman has also been widely recognised for
Latham as Artistic Director of the Canberra International
his creativity in commissioning new artistic projects including
Music Festival.
Presentation and Production Mary-Anne Kyriakou Artist-in-Residence
awareness and appreciation for more creative, interesting
Mary-Anne is the director of Smart Light globally, and
and energy efficient built environments and art works.
recipient of the 2011 Alumni Award from the University of
Mary-Anne is also a music composer. Created for her light
Sydney Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Design. Mary-
installations, her compositions explore themes of light. Mary-
Anne was voted in the top 100 Sustainable Leaders (2012) of
Anne is a classically trained guitarist and violinist, and has
the world. Mary-Anne is the current director of Studio Kybra
been the recipient of the prestigious Peggy Glanville Hicks
and the former lighting director for the global consulting
Music Composer Fellowship.
engineering company Meinhardt. She is also the founder and
Leonie Cambage director
festival director for the sustainable light art festivals Smart Light Sydney, held in Sydney on May 26 - June 14 2009
After many years performing as a opera singer, Leonie
(supported by Events NSW) and Singapore on October
Cambage is becoming recognised as a director of opera
15 – November 7 2010 and March - April 2012 (supported by
and music theatre with a flair for innovation, and a thirst
the Urban Redevelopment Authority Singapore). Vivid Light
for experimental collaborations with artists, writers and
Curator 2011 Sydney (Events NSW).
composers.
Mary-Anne is based in Germany and holds a lighting
Leonie has a special interest in devising and directing new
professorship and carries out lighting design and curation.
Australian works. In 1992, she co-founded Three’s Company
Mary-Anne is interested in the relationship between design
Opera, which commissioned and performed operas for
+ technology + music + science on raising the public’s
children, and later established the children’s band Incy
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Wincy, which toured and recorded for many years for ABC
(Babirra Music Theatre); Trial by Jury (Babirra Music
for Kids.
Theatre); Luisa Miller (Melbourne City Opera); Iolanthe (Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Victoria); Love's Luggage Lost
In 2002, she became Resident Director with the Tall
(Melbourne Opera Studio); La Liberazione di Ruggiero
Poppeas, writing and directing the comic operetta Troppo
dall'isola d'Alcina (Ondine Productions); Into the Woods
Amore (Darlinghurst Theatre, 2003; Melbourne Fringe
(Chatswood Musical Society);
Festival, 2004), and co-devising the concert series Beyond the Moon and Too Hot to Handel. Other new Australian
In 2015, she directed the premiere production of Daniel
works include Shifting Positions, (ScoPe, 2000) and Ben
Manera’s L’Operetta II for The Song Company.
Loomes‘ opera The Boat (Sherbrook Productions, 2003).
James Harney mural artwork
Recently, she collaborated with singer Anna Fraser and artist Benja Harney on a performance of Berio’s Sequenza III
Ashleigh Vissell costume design
with paper sculpture, for The Song Company, and directed
Benja Harney
pianist Sally Whitwell’s original cabaret Ten Tiny Dancers, for Melbourne's Famous Spiegeltent.
headdress design
Stuart Grigg set construction
Leonie’s directing credits include: Postman Pat (Childsplay
Veronica Moore wedding cake design
Productions); Sweet Charity (Opera West); HMS Pinafore
The Musicians Ensembles The Brodsky Quartet
Radio. Over the years the Brodsky Quartet has undertaken numerous performances of the complete cycles of quartets
Ian Belton violin
by Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Britten, Schoenberg,
Daniel Rowland violin
Zemlinsky, Webern and Bartok. It is, however, the complete
Paul Cassidy viola
Shostakovich cycle that has now become synonymous
Jacqueline Thomas cello
with their name: their 2012 London performance of the
Since its formation in 1972, the Brodsky Quartet has
cycle resulting in them taking the prestigious title of ‘Artist in
performed over 3000 concerts on the major stages of the
Residence’ at London’s Kings Place.
world and has released more than 60 recordings. A natural
The Brodsky Quartet also has a busy recording career,
curiosity and an insatiable desire to explore has propelled
and 2012 marked the beginning of a new and exclusive
the group in a number of artistic directions and continues
relationship with Chandos Records. Recent awards for
to ensure them not only a prominent presence on the
recordings include the Diapason D’Or and the CHOC
international chamber music scene, but also a rich and
du Monde de la Musique for their recordings of string
varied musical existence. Their energy and craftsmanship
quartets by Britten, Beethoven and Janacek, and, for their
has attracted numerous awards and accolades worldwide,
outstanding contribution to innovation in programming, the
while ongoing educational work provides a vehicle for
Brodsky Quartet has received a Royal Philharmonic Society
passing on experience and staying in touch with the next
Award.
generation.
They have taught at many international chamber music
Throughout their 40-year career, the Brodsky Quartet has
courses and held residencies in several music institutes,
enjoyed a busy international performing schedule, and
including the first such post at the University of Cambridge.
has toured extensively throughout Australasia, North and
They are currently International Fellows of Chamber Music at
South America, Asia, South Africa, and Europe, as well as
the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and have been awarded
performing at many of the UK’s major festivals and venues.
Honorary Doctorates at the University of Kent and University
The quartet is also regularly recorded for broadcast on BBC
of Teesside
80
Boccherini Trio
Sax has often featured on ABC Classic FM, for whom they have presented Sunday Live and performed for the Australia
Suyeon Kang violin
Day outdoor broadcasts from Hyde Park (2008 and 2009).
Florian Peelman viola
Their repertoire has been developed through engagement
Paolo Bonomini cello
with leading Australian and international composers.
The Boccherini Trio was formed as a result of various
Rosalind Page, Margery Smith, Erik Griswold, Damien
evening sight-reading sessions that are a feature of the
Ricketson, Brian Howard, Robert Davidson, Stuart
Berlin music scene. Though a fledgling group, the trio has
Greenbaum, Paul Stanhope, Barry Cockcroft, and Matthew
already received magnificent reviews of their performances
Hindson, amongst others, have contributed works that
throughout Europe – ‘A spectacular moment of chamber-
exploit the sonic dexterity and rhythmic fluency of the
music making…from their first note, they offered such a
quartet. Continuum Sax has presented Australian premieres
fine, unified sound that captivated each member of the
of compositions by Elena Firsova, Franco Donatoni,
audience’ (LiveKritik, Berlin, 2014) – and in 2015 were named
Salvatore Sciarrino, Gavin Bryars, Perry Goldstein, Rolf
an official European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA)
Gehlhaar and Jacob TV.
ensemble. Shortly after this they were invited to perform in
In addition to their performance schedule, the quartet is
Wigmore Hall in 2016.
active in education, having performed and workshopped
The trio members are regularly sought-out as individual
student compositions for MLC School's Australian Music
chamber musicians; they have performed alongside or have
Days, and presented composition and performance
upcoming engagements with such artists as Stephen Isserlis,
masterclasses for Newcastle University. In 2008 Continuum
Christian Teztlaff (Chamber Music Connects the World
Sax recorded a large number of educational works for
2014), the ATOS Trio, Maxime Vengerov, Giovanni Sollima,
reedmusic.com.
Mario Brunello, Bruno Giuranna and Salvatore Accardo. The trio is dedicated to rediscovering and performing
Forma Antiqva
the veritable mine of over five hundred works written for
Aarón Zapico harpsichord
string trio of which so many works are sadly neglected and unknown to the public. Their endeavour is to continually
Daniel Zapico theorbo
develop an honest, original and unified perception across all
Pablo Zapico guitar
musical genres.
Consisting of a core of musicians made up of brothers Pablo,
The Boccherini Trio is kindly supported by the Fondation
Daniel and Aarón Zapico, and led by the last of these, Forma
Boubo-Music, Switzerland.
Antiqva is a Baroque music ensemble with a variable lineup that brings together the most outstanding performers
Continuum Sax
of its generation. The group is considered by critics to be
Christina Leonard saxophone
one of the most important and promising classical music
James Nightingale saxophone
ensembles in Spain.
Martin Kay saxophone
Their meteoric rise has included concerts at the most
Nicholas Russoniello saxophone
prestigious festivals and concert series in Spain: performing at the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Auditorio Nacional de
Continuum Sax, Australia's foremost Saxophone quartet,
Música in Madrid, the Auditorio de El Escorial, the Palau de
performs a unique repertoire that explores the intriguing,
la Música de Valencia, and opening the opera seasons in
exciting and expressive world of the saxophone. Their
Oviedo and Bilbao, .
concerts have been enjoyed by a wide range of audiences, including performances at the 2010 ISCM World New Music
A hectic international schedule has taken the ensemble
Days, the 2008 Restrung Festival, the 2005 Melbourne
to major European festivals such as the Ludwigsburger
International Festival of Single Reeds, and the 2002
Schlossfestspiele in Germany, the Van Vlaanderen in Bruges
Australian Clarinet and Saxophone Conference. Continuum
(Belgium) and the Summer Festivities of Early Music in Prague. Forma Antiqva has performed in numerous halls
81
and auditoriums in Bolivia, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, Italy,
Annika Romeyn to create theatrical programs of chamber
Greece, China, Japan, Serbia and France.
music. In 2013 Griffyn launched their inaugural festival with Swedish ensemble the peärls before swïne experience,
Their 2011 recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was met
staging 8 new music events in 10 days across Canberra.
with acclaim by Spanish and European critics and, like their previous release, Concerto Zapico, was a best-seller across
Griffyn have been broadcast on ABC Classic FM, toured
most of Europe. Exclusive artists for the German cult record
for Musica Viva In Schools, and were shortlisted for a 2008
label, Winter & Winter, all Forma Antiqva’s recordings have
Australian Classical Music Award. Since 2006, Griffyn have
been met with unanimous acclaim by public and critics alike.
performed over 80 Australian premieres and over 15 world premieres, and their Canberra concert series regularly sells
Forma Antiqva is the resident ensemble at the Auditorio -
out.
Palacio de Congresos “Príncipe Felipe” in Oviedo. Exciting plans for the future include concerts in the house
The Song Company
where Händel was born in Halle (Germany), another
Susannah Lawergren soprano
performance at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and
Anna Fraser soprano
the Festival +Musik in Switzerland, as well as upcoming productions of the Johannes Passion by J. S. Bach and the
Hannah Fraser mezzo-soprano
ballet Don Juan by Gluck.
Richard Black tenor Mark Donnelly baritone
The Griffyn Ensemble
Andrew O’Connor bass/baritone
Susan Ellis voice
The Song Company is an a cappella ensemble of six
Chris Stone violin
professional singers. From its beginnings in 1984, the
Michael Sollis mandolin
ensemble has grown to exemplify its aim of providing
Holly Downes double bass
for Australia a group capable of international standard
Kiri Sollis piccolo
performances in the field of vocal chamber music. Over 30
Laura Tanata harp
years, the ensemble’s schedule has grown to include a mix of national and international touring, a subscription series
Cathy Petosz director
in cities across Australia, recording and broadcast projects,
The Griffyn Ensemble is a theatrical chamber ensemble
education activities, and special collaborative projects.
that breaks down the barriers of genre and recontextualises music from around the world – whether it is Mexican
The Song Company’s repertoire covers vocal music from
avant-gardist Silvestre Revueltas; legendary songwriter
the 12th century to contemporary classical works, and is
Burt Bacharach; folk hero Mikis Theodorakis; or other living
unique in its stylistic diversity. The company remains at the
composers across Australia and around the world.
forefront of contemporary vocal music through an extensive
The Griffyn Ensemble is a sextet comprising composer/
commissioning program and collaborations with artists and composers of the highest calibre from around the world. A
director (Michael Sollis), soprano (Susan Ellis), double bass
longstanding commitment to education sees the company
(Holly Downes), harp (Meriel Owen), violin (Chris Stone),
regularly perform in schools throughout the country,
and flute (Kiri Sollis). Past programs have included Island
including bringing music workshops to children in regional
Universes: classical music inspired by Australia’s closest neighbours in Melanesia; Behind Bars: an installation in Old
and remote areas.
Melbourne Gaol with music written by composers in prisons
In 2016 The Song Company welcomes its new Artistic Director,
and concentration camps; and Cloudy With A Chance of
Antony Pitts. A British composer, producer, conductor and
Rain: part weather-forecast, part-concert.
teacher, Antony’s career has combined academic, industry
The Griffyn Ensemble are noted collaborators, and have
and professional musical experience at world-class levels. With Anthony The Song Company looks forward to many
worked with scientists such as astronomer Fred Watson,
years of continued innovation and excellence in vocal music.
geomorphologist and weatherman Rob Gell, visual artist
82
Speak Percussion
Tambuco Percussion Ensemble
Eugene Ughetti percussion
Alfredo Bringas percussion
Kaylie Melville percussion
Ricardo Gallardo percussion
Speak Percussion’s ambitious and uncompromising projects
Miguel González percussion
have for over a decade defined the sound of 21st century
Raúl Tudón percussion
Australian percussion music. A multifarious organisation that
With 20 years of international concerts and the recording of
works across new music, experimental and interdisciplinary
an original repertoire, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble has
contexts, Speak Percussion is equally at home interpreting
celebrated an acclaimed career, establishing itself among
masterworks of the genre as it is creating bold new work.
the finest percussion quartets today.
The more than 100 compositions that form Speak’s body of
Four-time GRAMMY Nominees, including Best Classical
work can be regularly seen programmed internationally by
Album, Tambuco was founded in 1993 by four distinguished
ensembles and music institutions.
Mexican musicians and is ranked among the finest and
Speak Percussion works with many of the world’s leading
most innovative in the world. These four musicians refuse
exponents of new music, including Steve Reich (USA), Liza
to be tied down to one style, with a repertoire ranging from
Lim (AUS), Mark Applebaum (USA), Richard Barrett (UK), Jon
structuralist percussion music to a wide range of ethnic
Rose (AUS), Anthony Pateras (AUS), Thomas Meadowcroft
drum music and avantegarde sound interpretation. The one
(AUS), Bent Sørensen (DK), Fritz Hauser (CH), Michael Pisaro
constant is their desire for perfection and unique, virtuoso
(USA) and Robin Fox (AUS).
performance.
Speak Percussion regularly engages with artists from
The musicians of “Tambuco” use all conceivable and inconceivable means to realize their musical ideas. Tambuco has been awarded with many distinctions and prizes from cultural organizations in Mexico and abroad. Tambuco has
diverse disciplines in cross-artform collaborations. Notable collaborators include architects Boa Baumann and Büro Architects, chef Glenn Flood, new media artist Robin Fox,
offered concerts in five continents. They have performed in
choreographer Antony Hamilton and the CSIRO Astronomy
the USA (Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center), Tokyo (Ino Hall),
and Space Science department. Speak Percussion tours
London (Barbican Centre), Paris and Montpellier (Festival de
internationally on average twice a year.
Radio France), Germany (Berliner Festspiele) and Australia (Queensland Music Festival) as well as giving concerts in
Speak’s “breathtakingly impressive” (The West Australian)
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia Cuba,
work has won them several accolades including two AMC/
Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Canada, and
APRA Art Music Awards and the Best Music Award in the
practically all of Mexico's concert halls.
2012 Melbourne Fringe Festival for its large-scale robotics
One of Tambuco's most important activities is collaboration.
project Automation. Over the past five years Speak’s Artistic
As solo ensemble, Tambuco has performed and recorded
Director Eugene Ughetti has amassed significant recognition
with musicians, ensembles and orchestras such as Keiko
through receiving an inaugural Sidney Myer Creative
Abe, Stewart Copeland, Eduardo Mata, Valerie Naranjo,
Fellowship, a MCA/Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music
Nanae Yoshimura, Kifu Mitsuhashi, Kronos Quartet, The
(2011) and the OZCO Creative Fellowship ‘Early Career’, as
Michael Nyman Band, Orchestre Philharmonique de
well as twice being a finalist in the Melbourne Prize for Music.
Montpellier, Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, amongst many others. To date, Tambuco has recorded
Speak is passionate about supporting the next generation
eight CDs. Its most recent album, Carlos Chavez Complete
of musicians and composers through intelligent education
Chamber Music, received three GRAMMY nominations:
programs. Since 2011 speak has annually run its national
Best Classical Album, Best Small Chamber Ensemble and
tertiary level intensive Speak Emerging Artist Program, and
Best Classical Latin Album. Its album Rítmicas was selected
in 2015 launched its new three year high school program,
by Audiophile Audition as one of the best CDs of the year.
Sounds Unheard.
Tambuco recorded also with Kronos Quartet on their Grammy nominated album Nuevo.
83
Singers Marco Beasley tenor
A mother, singer, producer, songwriter, pianist and business
Marco Beasley was born in Portici, near Naples, in 1957.
woman, this 4-time ARIA Award-winning and 7-time platinum-selling singer first received widespread praise as
During his musical studies at the University of Bologna, he
the angel-voiced songstress of indie-pop band George, and
deepened his knowledge of the two stylistic pivots of the
has since explored the reaches of jazz, pop and classical
late Renaissance – recitar cantando and sacred and secular polyphony. He thus began an active concert career which
music.
quickly took him to some of the most prestigious venues,
Her various releases include her folk trio’s self titled album
from the Mozarteum in Salzburg to the Concertgebouw in
Elixir, the No. 1 selling classical album Two of a Kind with
Amsterdam, from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome to
her mother Maggie, her gold-selling top ten solo album Skin
Lincoln Center in New York.
and the acclaimed Songs of the Southern Skies. She has
As a singer, actor and writer, the personality of Marco Beasley
also worked with the country’s top orchestras including her fruitful collaborations with Richard Tognetti and the
embraces the carefree soul of Naples, the joie de vivre of
Australian Chamber Orchestra.
making music, and the desire to confront the world of poetry and literature. From Gregorian chant to polyphony, from the
Noonan’s affinity with jazz shone through on the ARIA award
sixteenth-century frottola to motets, from recitar cantando
winning album, Before Time Could Change Us, recorded with
to the great Neapolitan songs, up to modern re-inventions
revered pianist Paul Grabowsky. In her 2009 ARIA winning
of historical genres: Marco’s exceptional qualities both vocal
release Blackbird, Noonan collaborated with an historic
and expressive, united with his personal sensibility and
ensemble of iconic jazz players including Joe Lovano, Ron
fantasy, result in interpretations which are always new and
Carter, Lewis Nash and John Scofield.
allow him to cover an enormous range of musical styles and
Katie’s folk/jazz trio of 14 years features Katie’s saxophonist
periods.
husband Zac Hurren (winner of the National Jazz Award
His personal research into vocal production and the
2009) and Stephen Magnusson, regarded by many as
intelligibility of sung texts have earned him the praise of an
Australia’s finest jazz guitarist. In 2011, Elixir released their
ever-increasing public. In 2009 the Dutch VSCD (Association
long awaited 2nd album First Seed Ripening, largely inspired
of Theater and Concert Halls) nominated him for Best
by the words of legendary Australian poet Thomas Shapcott.
Performer of the Year.
The album won the ARIA award for best Jazz Album 2011.
Marco Beasley’s discography is ample and wide-ranging.
Katie finished 2012 with a project in duo with classical
Most recordings are with the ensemble Accordone, which
guitarist Karin Schaupp. Songs of the Southern Skies,
he founded together with Guido Morini and Stefano Rocco
featuring re-creations of iconic Australian and New Zealand
in 1984. In 2014, he chose to leave the group in order to
compositions, both classical and contemporary, with
venture down an even more personal and independent path
special appearances from Iva Davies, Gurrumul, Maori diva
unconnected with the name of the ensemble.
Whirimako Black, Sydney Symphony oboist Diana Doherty, young members of Brisbane’s Voices of Birralee, Clare
2013 marked the release of the CD Il Racconto di
Bowditch and The Living End’s Chris Cheney.
Mezzanotte, in which the singing is more than ever the sound of a narration, an intimate and contemplative tale recounted
Spanning her career to date, Songbook(2013) sees Katie lay
entirely by single voice.
intimate, acoustic, re-imaginings of her most-loved songs over lush string arrangements. The Songbook album was launched in conjunction with an actual song book featuring sheet music
Katy Noonan singer
(for the first time ever), rare photographs and the stories
Katie Noonan’s technical mastery and pure voice makes her
behind the songs. Katie toured Songbook to the USA and
one of Australia’s most versatile and beloved vocalists.
Canada as well as embarking on a national tour of Australia.
84
Taryn Fiebig soprano
State Opera, Musica Viva, the ABC, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and the Canberra International Music
Helpmann Award-winning soprano Taryn Fiebig is one of
Festival. In 2007 she received a Canberra Critics Circle
Australia most popular and versatile artists.
award for music and was named the Canberra Times Artist
As a soloist, she has performed the 15th Century
of the Year. She has recorded nine CDs of music varying
Masterpiece El Cant de la Sibil-la with the Australian
from lieder to operetta, premieres of Australian music and
Brandenburg Orchestra for their popular Noël Noël
Christmas songs. In 2013 she received an OAM for services
Christmas concerts. Internationally, Taryn has performed
to the performing arts.
in Los Angeles with the contemporary music ensemble L.A. EAR unit, in England with the English Chamber Orchestra
Maartje Sevenster alto
in St. John’s Smith Square, London and on BBC Radio 3
MaartjeSevenster has sung with such renowned conductors
and Radio 4 in the radio dramas Southland and Pembroke,
as Yakov Kreizberg, Roy Goodman, Jaap van Zweden, Marc
Arcadia.
Soustrot, Nicholas Smith and Reinbert de Leeuw. Recently, Maartje was alto soloist in Copland's In the beginning,
In 2005, Taryn joined Opera Australia as a principal soprano.
Janáček's Diary of One Who Vanished, J.S.Bach's Easter
Her many roles with this company have included Susanna in
Oratorio and Magnificat and Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus, in
Le nozze di Figaro, Galatea in Acis and Galatea, Musetta in
performances in the Canberra region. In 2015 she was
La bohème, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, The Plaintiff in Trial by
narrator in Glenda Cloughley's Passion for Peace. Maartje is
Jury, Clorinda in Cenerentola, Belinda in Dido and Aeneas,
a member of Coro Canberra.
Papagena in The Magic Flute, Rose in Lakmé, Servilia in La clemenza di Tito, Karolka in Jenufa, Mabel in The Pirates of
Tobias Cole countertenor
Penzance and Gianetta in The Gondoliers. In 2008/2009,
Tobias Cole Artistic Director of Canberra Choral Society
she sang the leading role of Eliza Doolittle in the national
Distinguished Artist in Residence at the Australian National
tour of My Fair Lady. Taryn won the Helpmann Award for
University and winner of the Green Room Award and the
her portrayal as Lucy in Bliss (which she sang in Sydney,
Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Study Award has performed
Melbourne and at the Edinburgh Festival).
throughout Australia the UK and USA.
She sang Esmeralda in The Bartered Bride for New Zealand
Highlight performances have included Ottone in
Opera, Sicle in L’Ormindo for Pinchgut Opera, appeared
L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Apollo in Death in Venice and
as soloist with the Queensland and Adelaide Symphony
Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Chicago Opera
Orchestras, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Sydney
Theater); title role in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten (State Opera
Youth Orchestra and performed in recital with flautist Jane
of South Australia); title role in Julius Caesar Medoro in
Rutter and harpist Marshall McGuire. In 2013/2014, she sang
Orlando and Oberon (Opera Australia); title role in Xerxes
Musetta, Pamina, Zerlina, Oscar (Un ballo in maschera)
(NBR NZ Opera Victorian Opera) Roberto in Griselda and
and The Woodbird (Der Ring des Nibelungen) for Opera
Athamas in Semele (Pinchgut Opera); St Matthew Passion
Australia.
(Opera Queensland); La Speranza in L'Orfeo (Australian
Taryn returned to the national company in 2015 as Pamina,
Brandenburg Orchestra); title role in Handel’s Alexander
Zerlina and Susanna in David McVicar’s new production of
Balus (Canberra Choral Society); Dr Who Spectacular
Le nozze di Figaro. She also appeared as soloist with the
(Melbourne Symphony); Messiah and St John Passion
Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony.
(Queensland Symphony); Shawn Parker’s This Show Is
For Opera Australia in 2016, she sings Pamina, Despina (in a
About People (Sydney Festival); Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
new Così fan tutte) and Gutrune in Der Ring des Nibelungen.
John Adams’ El Niño and Bach’s B minor Mass (Sydney Philharmonia); as well as appearances at the Canberra
© Patrick Togher Artists’ Management 2015
International Music Festival Australian Festival of Chamber
Louise Page soprano
Music and Woodend Winter Arts Festival.
Canberra soprano Louise Page is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and versatile singers, performing throughout
In 2015 Tobias returned to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra to perform Carmina Burana and directed the
Australia and Europe with groups such as the Vienna
Canberra Choral Society in Handel’s Hercules.
85
David Greco baritone
Robert MacFarlane
Baritone David Greco has established himself as a fine
Robert Macfarlane studied at Elder Conservatorium and
interpreter of Art Song, Oratorio and Opera throughout
Hochschule für Musik ‘Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’. Most
Europe and Australia. He first appeared with Dame Emma
recent engagements have included Pong in Turandot with
Kirkby in her Australian concerts in 2006, and has featured
the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Israel in Egypt for
a soloist with Australia’s finest ensembles, including the
the HalberstädterDomfestspiele, St John Passion with
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Pinchgut Opera, and
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with
Australian Haydn Ensemble. David has been based in the UK
Gewandhaus Orchestra/Thomanerchor, Ircano in Hasse’s
for the last two years, during which time he was a member
Semiramide in Graz and Leipzig, Monostatos in The Magic
of Westminster Abbey Choir and appeared as a member of
Flute for West Australian Opera, and Britten’s St Nicolas with
Glyndebourne Festival Opera in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
under Laurence Cummings. He toured the UK and France in
tenor
Messiah with TheAcademy of Ancient Music, under Richard
Javier Vilariño baritone
Egaar. In Europe he works frequently with ensembles such as
Javier Vilariño is one of Australia’s most eclectic and
Freiburg Barockorchester, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
engaging performers; his repertoire spans works from Bach
under the direction of Ton Koopman
to Piazzolla. A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Opera Studio, Javier has performed in Italy and
2016 sees David’s debut as a principal artist with Opera
Spain at the Instituto Michelangelo di Lingua e Cultura
Australia in The Love of Three Oranges. He will also feature in
and the Barcelona Conservatorio. International highlights
Purcell’s King Arthur in the Brisbane Baroque Festival and in
include a private performance for the Malaysian Prime
concerts with Sydney Symphony, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs
Minister, a recital with renowned accompanist Professor
and the Sydney Chamber Choir.
Dalton Baldwin in Barcelona; locally, he took part in Bizet’s
David has been based in the UK for the last two years during
Carmen on Sydney Harbour with Opera Australia. Javier
which time he was a deputy bass with Westminster Abbey
has rediscovered his passion for the music of his Latin
Choir. He appeared at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in The
background and has teamed up with local guitarists to
Fairy Queen (Purcell) and was invited to tour the UK and
perform repertoire by Spanish and Argentinian composers.
France in Messiah with The Academy of Ancient Music.
Instrumentalists Anna McMichael violin Anna McMichael is an Australian born violinist who returned
Anna has performed with Ensemble Offspring, Pinchgut
to live in Australia in 2010 after 17 years in Europe performing
Opera and the Omega Ensemble, and is a member of
in many of the major ensembles and orchestras.
Ironwood. She has been invited to perform concerts with the pianist Daniel de Borah for Recitals Australia in Melba Hall
Anna has performed at many European music festivals
lunch concerts, in Brisbane, at the Tyalgum and Camden
with a number of Dutch chamber ensembles and toured
Haven Festivals, and for “Sunday Live”, ABC Classic FM. Anna
extensively with groups such as the London Sinfonietta,
has tutored at ANAM and the Canberra School of Music, and
Amsterdam Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands
has appeared with the Australian World Orchestra since
Chamber Orchestra, and the Royal Concertgebouw
2011. Together with pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska, Anna
Orchestra. In Australia, Anna has performed at 4 Canberra
has recorded old and newly composed Lullabies for the Tall
International Music Festivals as guest artist, been a soloist
Poppies label which have been performed at the Port Fairy
and member of Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, guest
Spring Music Festival, the Mona FOMA Festival in Hobart
Associate Concertmaster of Adelaide Symphony Orchestra,
and Duneira in 2013; this recording was CD of the Week on
Assistant Concertmaster of the Canberra Symphony
ABC Classic FM. Anna is Co-Director of the Tyalgum Music
Orchestra, Concertmaster of both Orchestra Victoria and
Festival.
Auckland Philharmonia.
86
Rohan Dasika double bass
with which he performs his own music, and which since its formation in 1994 has played in a number of major
Rohan Dasika is a double bassist emerging as a valued
international events.
contributor to Australian music. He has appeared as a chamber musician in festivals including the Bendigo
His development as a classical guitarist has been enriched
International Festival of Exploratory Music (2014), Australian
byhis intense relationship with the world of Flamenco. The
Festival of Chamber Music (2015), with future appearances
fusion of both styles has created a unique way of playing
in the 2016 Four Winds Festival and Canberra International
and listening to Spanish music, and José María has made an
Music Festival. He also regularly performs in the Melbourne
indispensable contribution to projects like Pasión Española
and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, as well as with the
with Plácido Domingo (Grammy Latino 2008), Habañera
Camerata of St. Johns.
Gipsy with Elina Garança (2010), Caprichos Líricos with Teresa Berganza, and in his role as director and artistic
Virginia Taylor flute
adviser to Paco de Lucía for the latter’s Japanese début with
Virginia is recognised internationally as a leading pedagogue,
the Concierto de Aranjuez in 1990. Recently he has created
flute performer and musician. The recipient of numerous
Reyana Editions, specializing in the publication of his own
awards and 1st prizes, she has performed concerti, solo
compositions.
recitals and chamber music across many countries. Virginia performed as Principal Flute with the Australian Chamber
Andrey Lebedev guitar
Orchestra for over 10 years, as well having been guest
Born in Moscow and brought up in Australia, Andrey
principal flute with many of the major symphony orchestras
Lebedev is currently studying at the Royal Academy of
within Australia and overseas.
Music in London.His extensive solo repertoire includes many important works from the late twentieth century, by
Virginia’s CDs are released on ABC Classics, Tall Poppies and
such composers as Berio, Britten, Ginastera, Henze and
Move Records. Over many years, she has commissioned
Takemitsu, and he has given the world premieres of major
and premiered many new Australian works. 2016 will see
compositions by Peter Sculthorpe and, under the auspices
the premiere of a new work by Australian composer Mark
of the Julian Bream Trust, both Leo Brouwer and Sir Harrison
Isaacs, along with a recording of a major new work for flute
Birtwistle. A lover of chamber music, Andrey performs
and piano by Paul Dean. Concerto performances for 2016
regularly with flautists Brontë Hudnott and Alena Lugovkina,
include Jonathan Dove’s Flute Concerto with the Canberra
mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and, in Australia, with
Symphony Orchestra and Matthew Hindson’s iconic flute
the Llewellyn Guitar Quartet. Recently, he has appeared as
concerto House Music with the Willoughby Symphony.
soloist in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with Orchestra
Virginia is a regular performer at music festivals throughout
Wellington in New Zealand.
the region, including the Hong Kong Youth Music Festival,
Among the prestigious venues where he has appeared are
Tutti Beijing, The Townsville Festival and the Canberra
the City Recital Hall (Sydney), the Arts Centre (Melbourne),
International Music Festival. She is also Artistic Director
the International Guitar Festival (Adelaide), The Sage
of the bi-annual Australian Flute Festival. In 2016 Virginia
(Gateshead), St John’s, Smith Square, Wigmore Hall and
was appointed Head of Flute and Senior Lecturer at the
Kings Place (London) and the World Expo (Shanghai). His
Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University.
forthcoming engagements include an evening concert at the Academy entirely of Australian composers, followed by
José María Gallardo del Rey guitar
UK recitals for the International Guitar Foundation, and solo
Since his début in Seville at the age of eight, José María has
recitals across Australia and for the Zagreb Music Institute in
achieved universal public and critical acclaim. As a mature
Croatia.
artist with a profound affinity for all aspects of the guitar, he has become a leading authority on the instrument among
Andrey is an artist with Arts Global and has been selected by
conductors and players alike, and a soloist in great demand
the Tillett Trust, City of London Music Foundation, Countess
by orchestras throughout the world. He is director and
of Munster Musical Trust and International Guitar Foundation
founder of La Maestranza, a Spanish chamber ensemble
for their ongoing ‘Young Artist’ schemes.
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Rupert Boyd guitar
James Tawadros percussion
Australian guitarist Rupert Boyd is acclaimed as one of the most talented guitarists of his generation. He has been
Bree van Reyk and Lauren Brincat percussion
described by The Washington Post as “truly evocative”, and
Bree van Reyk is an Australian percussionist, drummer,
by Classical Guitar Magazine as “a player who deserves to
composer and sound artist. She has toured and recorded
be heard.” He has performed across four continents, from
extensively with the likes of Paul Kelly, Holly Throsby, Sarah
New York’s Carnegie Hall, to festivals in Europe, China, India,
Blasko, Katie Noonan, Darren Hanlon, and the Australian
the Philippines and Australia. His solo CD Valses Poéticos
Chamber Orchestra. Lauren Brincat is an Australian
received the following review in Soundboard, the quarterly
artist who works across diverse media, from video and
publication of Guitar Foundation of America: “Boyd’s playing
performance to sculpture and installation. Brincat has
is beautifully refined, with gorgeous tone… musically and
exhibited widely across Australia, including exhibitions
technically flawless... [the Granados is] one of the best
at Anna Schwartz Gallery, MONA FOMA, Queensland Art
recorded performances of this work on guitar.”
Gallery and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Together Lauren Brincat and Bree van Reyk have created work
Victor Rufus electric guitar
for AGNSW, the MCA, GOMA, MOFO, Next Wave and
Born and raised in Blue Mountains, NSW, Victor Rufus
Performance Space.
studied classical guitar under the wing of Georg Mertens,
Alice Giles harp
obtaining the Associate Diploma in Music, Australia (AMusA), going onto further study under Mike Price at the ANU School
Alice Giles is celebrated as one of the world’s leading
of Music obtaining his BMus (Hons) in jazz performance. In
harpists. First Prize winner of the 8th Israel International
July 2011, Rufus completed a study exchange in the Masters
Harp Contest, she has performed extensively as soloist
of Astrophysik program at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-
word-wide. Regarded by Luciano Berio as the foremost
Universität Bonn, Germany. Currently he performs in with
interpreter of his Sequenza II, solo recitals include London’s
contemporary and period groups based in the ACT, NSW
Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd Street 'Y' and Merkin Hall and
and Victoria as well as teaching at several institutions. His
Frankfurt Alte Oper. She is a frequent guest at international
album Tanzverbot with collaborative jazz group RasRufus
music festivals and as soloist with orchestra, with regular
was released in October 2013.
tours and master classes in Europe, North America and Asia. As recipient of an Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship she
Joseph Tawadros oud
performed at Mawson Station in 2011 to commemorate the
At just 32 years of age, Joseph Tawadros has established himself as one of the world’s leading oud performers and composers. A virtuoso of amazing diversity and sensitivity, Joseph continues to appear in concert halls worldwide, dazzling audiences with his brilliant technique, passionate musicianship and his joyous style of performance.
Centenary of the First Australasian Antarctic Expedition. Her discography includes solo, chamber music and concerto discs for the Tall Poppies, Musikado, ABC Classics, CDI, and Marlboro Recording Society labels. She is director of the Seven Harp Ensemble, and was Chair and Artistic Director of the World Harp Congress, Sydney July 2014.
A resident of Australia since 1986, Joseph has been responsible for expanding the oud’s notoriety in mainstream western culture, and has also been recognised in the Arab world, being invited to appear on the judging panel of the Damascus International Oud competition in 2009. He took part in Istanbul’s first Oud festival in 2010.
Nadia Ratsimandresy ondes martenot Born in Paris, Nadia Ratsimandresy discovered the charms of music and the Ondes Martenotat the age of 9 years in the class Françoise Pellié Murail in Evry. Admitted to the Paris
Joseph has toured extensively, and has collaborated with celebrated artists such as Zakir Hussain, Sultan Khan, Béla Fleck, John Abercrombie, Camerata Salzburg, Christian Lindberg, Neil Finn, Kate Miller-Heidke, Katie Noonan, Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the Academy of Ancient Music in London.
Conservatoire in 1998, Nadia graduated in 2002 with first class Advanced Training Diplomas in Ondes Martenot and Musical Acoustics. Nadia is dedicated to chamber music and the performing arts. In 2006 she co-founded the 3D Trio with soprano
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Virginie Colette and guitarist Sophie Marechal, with
2002. His monograph Off the Record: Performing Practices
whom she has premièred numerous compositions. She
in Romantic Piano Playing (Oxford University Press, New
collaborated with the Italian pianist Matteo Ramon Arevalos
York: 2012) has received critical acclaim. Limelight Magazine
on the program Messiaen around Messiaen, dedicated
hailed it as ‘engaging and thought provoking … an outstanding
to Messiaen and his students, and released on CD for the
contribution’ and a book that ‘no serious pianist should
English RER label Megacorp in 2008, following a tribute tour
be without.’ Alex Ross—music critic of The New Yorker and
that year. Volta, a group comprising 2 ondes, electric guitar
author of The Rest is Noise—honoured it as a notable book
and percussion, has been navigating between rock and
on his 2012 Apex List. In 2012, Off the Record was the subject
contemporary music since 2012.
of both a five-part series broadcast by ABC Classic FM during the Sydney International Piano Competition and an
Nadia also works with Judith Depaule’s company, Mabel
in depth interview with Christopher Lawrence for the ABC
Octobre, in Paris (You dream - Yuri did it cosmic spectacle,
Classic FM Music Makers programme.
2007 - Not Even Dead, a multimedia show for children, for which Nadia composed the score, 2010 - The Cosmic
Professor Da Costa appears courtesy of the Sydney
Voyage, 2011); and with the ensemble from Valenciennes,
Conservatorium of Music.
Art Zoyd (The Man with a Camera in 2007 - Half Asleep Already, 2011 - Three Dreams Not Valid, 2013).
Jacob Abela piano
In addition to more specific projects (Sweet Dreams, a
Jacob Abela is a pianist, composer, and ondist based in
show of German and Swiss choreographers Isabelle Schad
Melbourne. He is in high demand as a soloist, chamber
and Simone Aughterlony, for which she co-wrote the music
musician, and orchestral musician around Australia. Jacob has appeared in festivals including the 2014/15 Metropolis
with Laurent Dailleau, 2009 - Between 2'0" involving the
New Music Festival, Bendigo International Festival of
Trio 3D, with composers André Serre-Milan and Tao Yu,
Exploratory Music, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival,
2013), Nadia has developed a solo program for electronic
and Sydney Festival. He is also a casual musician with the
wave instruments, inaugurated in September 2012 with
Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.
a re-interpretation of Solo für mit Melodie-Instrument Rückkopplung (1965-1966) by Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Marcela Fiorillo piano
recreated for Ondes Martenot.
Marcela Fiorillo was born in Argentina. She is a graduate
Nadia has been Professor of Ondes & Synthesizers at the
from the National Conservatory of Music and a Licentiate of
Regional Conservatoire of Boulogne-Billancourt since
the National University of Arts-Buenos Aires. In her career
January 2015.
as performer, teacher and composer she has appeared on the most prominent stages of Argentina including the Teatro Colón. She toured USA, Italy, France, China, Malaysia
Neal Peres Da Costa harpsichord
and Thailand. In Australia, Marcela has performed at the
A graduate of the University of Sydney, the Guildhall School
Castlemaine State Festival, on the ABC’s Sunday Live, and
of Music and Drama (London), the City University (London)
in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart. Marcela has
and the University of Leeds (UK), Neal Peres Da Costa has
recorded ten albums including Argentine, Latin American,
forged a highly successful career as a performing scholar,
Spanish and Australian music; Liszt and Beethoven. Her
music educator and researcher, specialising in historically
Awards include the 2007 Canberra Times “Top Ten Concerts
informed performance. Currently, he is Associate Professor
of the Year” and Canberra Critics Circle Award, the 2008
and Chair of the Historical Performance Unit at the Sydney
Canberra Critics Circle Award for conducting the premiere of
Conservatorium of Music (University of Sydney). Previously
“María de Buenos Aires” by Piazzolla; and the 2014 Canberra
held posts include at the University of New South Wales, the
Critics Circle Award for her CD Weereewa - Voices of the
Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College in London, and
Land. Marcela is currently a member of the Performing Teaching Fellows program at the ANU School of Music.
the University of Leeds from which he was awarded a PhD in
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James Crabb accordion Scottish born James Crabb is one of the world’s leading
Genevieve Lacey, appearing at the Huntington Festival and
ambassadors of the classical accordion. His solo
with Elision at ANAM.
and chamber music repertoire ranges from original
James has also embarked on two new exciting
contemporary works, frequently collaborating with
collaborations, one with violinist Anthony Marwood and
composers, to transcriptions from Baroque through to the
the other with recorder player Genevieve Lacey. Crabb and
21st Century, Tango Nuevo and folk music.
Lacey’s first recording together with ABC Classics, Heard This and Thought of You, has been released.
James’ great passion and acclaimed authority for the music of Astor Piazzolla has resulted in collaborations with the original members of Piazzolla’s own quintet along with two
Lyn Fuller carillon
highly acclaimed recordings, with the Australian Chamber
Lyn Fuller is Lead Carillonist at the National Carillon Canberra
Orchestra and with Richard Tognetti and the Tango Jam
and has played the instrument since 1995. Lyn presents
quintet.
regular recitals, is currently the president of the Carillon Society of Australia and also editor of the society’s magazine
Highlights of recent seasons include performing Piazzolla’s
Dulci Tomes. Along with teaching the instrument, Lyn has
Aconcagua with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
a particular interest in music written for the carillon by
and the Ulster Orchestra, concerto for accordion The
Australian composers, student composers and women.
Singing (Sally Beamish) at the BBC Proms, conducting and
Lyn enjoys working with Australian composers and ensuring
performing Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires (Victorian
that their music is played. She has premiered works by Elena
Opera), as well as performing at the Australian Festival of
Kats-Chernin, Larry Sitsky, Graeme Koehne, Becky Llewellyn
Chamber Music.
and Judith Clingan. Lyn herself has been commissioned to
This year James’ engagements include working as mentor
write two compositions for the carillon.
and teacher at the Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Music Camp, giving numerous recitals together with
And ... Hossein Valamanesh artist Born in Iran, Hossein Valamanesh immigrated to Australia
He lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia and is
in 1973. He graduated from South Australian School of Art,
represented by Greenaway Art Gallery Adelaide, Grey Noise
1977 and has exhibited in Australia and overseas including
Dubai and Karen Woodbury Melbourne.
Germany, Poland and Japan, Finland, UAE and UK. He has completed a number of major public art commissions
Raihan Ismail writer
including An Gorta Mor, memorial to the Great Irish Famine,
Raihan Ismail is a lecturer at the Australian National
1999, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney and 14 Pieces on North
University's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, specialising
Terrace, Adelaide, both with Angela Valamanesh He was
in political Islam and Sunni-Shi'a sectarianism.
awarded an Australia Council Fellowship 1998. His work is
Raihan was born in Egypt and raised in Malaysia. She
included in most major public Australian art collections. A
migrated to Australia in 2007 and became an Australian
major survey of his work was held at the Art Gallery of South
citizen. She now lectures for undergraduate and
Australia in mid 2001 and a survey of his more recent work
postgraduate courses in Middle Eastern politics and Islamic
was held at Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, 2002.
studies. She is the author of Saudi Clerics and Shi'a Islam,
Wakefield Press recently published a monograph of his work,
published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She is presently
titled Hossein Valamanesh, Out of Nothingness, with essays
studying the politics of Islamic religious institutions, and
by Mary Knights and Ian North. In 2014 he undertook a
cross-sectarian co-operation in Iraq. She lives in Canberra
Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in Washington DC.
with her husband and daughter.
90
2016 Festival Young Artists Proudly sponsored by Arn Sprogis & Margot Woods and Anne & Roger Smith, a group of young artists has been able to take part of the festival for several years. Selected from a wide field of applicants across Australia and neighbouring countries, this group involves young singers, wind players, string players and pianists. The 2016 Festival Young Artists are: Aaron Chew, keyboards (Canberra, ACT) Aaron will be playing harmonium in the Rossini Mass, give several mini recitals in the Smokestack, and will play piano in the High Court. Laura Barton, violin (Wellington, NZ) Alys Rayner, violin (Canberra, ACT) Emma Rayner, cello (Canberra, ACT Thea Turnbull, viola (Sydney, NSW)
The five wind players will be heard as a quintet in Ainslie Hall on Wednesday 3 May and at Poachers Pantry on Thursday 4 May. In addition they are part of the ensemble for Ginastera’s Serenata on May 7. Lana Kains, soprano (Hobart, Tas)
Clare Richards, soprano (Sydney, NSW) Stephanie Dillon, mezzo (Sydney, NSW) Padraic Costello, alto (Hawai'i, USA)
The four string players work closely with the Boccherini Trio and Anna McMichael and Forma Antiqva, concentrating on baroque practice.
James Doig, tenor (Sydney, NSW)
Kim Falconer, flute (Melbourne, Vic)
Greg Bannan, bass (Perth, WA) The singers all work with The Song Company, Marco Beasley and Roland Peelman. They will take part in the world premiere of Gerard Brophy’s Canticles and perform as a group in the Gardens concert on May 6 and in Vivaldi Unseasoned on May 7
Edward Wang, oboe (Sydney, NSW) Magdalenna Krstevska, clarinet (Melbourne, Vic) Justin Sun, bassoon (Canberra, ACT) James Bradley, horn (Sydney, NSW)
Julian Chu-Tan, tenor (Wellington, NZ) Oliver Mann, bass-baritone (Melbourne, Vic)
2015 Festival Young Artists and their sponsors Photo: William Hall
91
2016 Festival Team Roland Peelman Peppi Wilson
Artistic Director
General Manager
Rachel Walker
Production Manager
Hanna-Mari Latham Miranda Borman Dan Sloss
Office and Finance Manager
Marketing and Communications Consultant
Festival Staff & Producer
Gabrielle Hyslop Geoff Millar
External Venues Producer
Publications Manager
Liz McKenzie
Volunteer Coordinator
Jenny Harper
Billeting Coordinator and Front of House Manager
Margaret Janssens Helene Stead
Membership Secretary and Catering Coordinator
Front of House Manager
Kiri Backhouse
Marketing Assistant
Helen Moore
Front of House Host
Jill Sketchley
Transport Coordinator
Steve Crossley
Logistics Coordinator
Marita Petherbridge Barb Barnett
Production Officer
Venue Manager
Rachel Gould
Venue Manager
Roni Wilkinson
Venue Manager
Andrew Blanckensee Neil Simpson
Lighting Designer
Darren Russell Alex Raupach
Bar Manager
Technical Consultant Production Assistant
Freya Petersen, Elena Phatak, Matt Bradley, Leilani Wagner Peter Hislop, William Hall and Anthony Browell Jon Holder
Videography
Kimmo Vennonen Sam Behr
Photography
Audio Recordings
Graphic Designer
92
Production Interns
Pro Musica Board: Bev Clarke
President
Dr Arn Sprogis
Vice-President
Dorothy Danta
Vice-President
Will Laurie
Treasurer
Govert Mellink
Secretary
Associate Professor Royston Gustavson Anna Prosser
Fundraising and donor development
Jennie Cameron Romi Slaven
Management and Governance
Fundraising and donor developmentÂ
Legal and governance
Volunteers: Andreea Ardeleanu, Jessicca Atkins, Peter Baghurst, Maureen Boyle, Bernadette Brennan, Bev Clarke, Merrilyn Crawford, Sally Curlewis, Marianne Davidson, Anne Davis, Bernadette Doherty, Rachael Eddowes, Jenny Harper, Iwona Hawke, Ian Hawke, Norman Hughes, Barbara Inglis, John Inglis, Aline Jee, Barbara Jesiolowski, Jack Knudson, Gayle Lander, Rachel Letts, Caitlin Magee, Pamela McKay, Liz McKenzie, Elena Melara, Govert Mellink, Daniel Morrison, Judy Newton, Brendan O’Loghlin, Anne Piggott, Anna Prosser, Jan Reksten, Jacqueline Richardson, Richard Rowe, Julie Shaw, Jackie Simons, Jill Sketchley, Dietlind Sommer, Arn Sprogis, Helene Stead, Ewa Talent, Helen Tan, Jane Thompson, Gabrielle Tryon, Michael Ware, Jennifer Whipp, Alison White, Tamara Wilcock Billeters: Liese Baker, Klara Bereskinoff & John Marshall, Andrew Blanckensee & Julie Matthews, Peter & Margaret Callan, Jane Carver, Chris & Rieteke Chenoweth, Tim Colebatch & Mary Toohey, Mary & Philip Constable, Sally Curlewis, Robert Goodrick, Kathleen Grant, Jenny & David Harper, Gini Hole, Peggy Horn, Elspeth & Graeme Humphries, Barbara & John Inglis, Mary Martin, Jeff & Sally McCarthy, Judy McKenna, Helen Moore, Vicki Moss, Eric Pozza & Megan Curlewis, Anna & Bob Prosser, Marja Rouse, John Studholme, Rupert & Janet Summerson, David Uren, Kate Wall, Peronelle & Jim Windeyer, Margot Woods & Arn Sprogis, Teresa Zarlenga Special thanks to: Principals: Sandy Belford and team, for the new Festival branding and design concepts TryBooking: Delma Dunoon Wesley Music Centre: Liz McKenzie ANU School of Music: Associate Professor Royston Gustavson, Dr Kate Bisshop-Witting ANU School of Art: David Williams, Denise Ferris
93
Canberra International Music Festival
Donor Honour Board Pro Musica would like to acknowledge and sincerely thank the following donors for their ongoing support for the Canberra International Music Festival. We would also like to thank those donors whose generous contributions remain anonymous or are less than $500. The following donations reflect cumulative donations made from 2008 to the present. We recognise that many of our donors have supported our Festival prior to 2008. We are extremely grateful for all the support received from our community of donors. Pro Musica is registered as a tax deductible recipient. Donations can be made by phoning our office on 02 6230 5880 between the hours of 9.30 and 12.30 weekdays or by downloading a donation form from our website: www.cimf.org.au Odyssey (above $200,000) Barbara Blackman Philanthropist Barbara Blackman has been a long term supporter of the Festival. A gift of $630,000, specifically for the 2006-2008 festivals, greatly assisted the Festival’s growth and provided for the development of a strong program of contemporary notated music. Barbara has continued to support the Festival, and we thank her for her generosity.
Discovery ($25,000 - $50,000) Betty Beaver
Margot Woods & Arn Sprogis
Marjorie Lindenmayer Encounter ($10,000 - $25,000) Bev & Don Aitkin
Margaret & Peter Janssens
Dianne & Brian Anderson
Marlena & Michael Jeffery
Warren Curry & Randy Goldberg
Anna & Bob Prosser
Harriet Elvin & Tony Hedley
Ann & Roger Smith
David Geer
Peronelle & Jim Windeyer
Christine Goode Quest ($1,000-$10,000) Michael Adena
Cathy Compton & Tony Henshaw
Sandra & Neil Burns Donna & Glenn Bush
Alison Clugston Cornes & the late Richard Cornes
Debbie Cameron
Sue & Ray Edmondson
Jennie & Barry Cameron
Carolyn & Tom Flynn
Barbara Campbell
Gail Ford
Rieteke & Chris Chenoweth
Margaret Frey
Susan & David Chessell
Robin Gibson 94
June Gordon
Jonathan Mills
Lyndall Hatch
Catherine & Chris Murphy
Judith Healy & the late Tony McMichael
Jenny & Emmanuel Notaras
Meredith Hinchliffe
Koula Notaras
Barry Hindess
Carolyn Philpot
Rosanna Hindmarsh
Robert Purdon
Ines-Maria & Cec Hodgkinson
Margaret & John Saboisky
Peta & Brand Hoff
Marylou Simpson
Elspeth & Graham Humphries
Judy & David Taylor
Leonie Hunt
Ken Unsworth
Claudia Hyles
John Ward
Marilyn Jessop & Malcolm Grey
Peter Weiss
Libby & Will Laurie
Mandy & Lou Westende
Gail & Bill Lubbock
Muriel Wilkinson
Wendy May
Peter Wise
Adventure ($500- $1,000) Jeanine & Emilio Cataldo
Helen Moore
Anne Cawsey
Vicki Moss
Hilary Charlesworth
Claire Parkhill
Bev Clarke
Diana Shogren
Isobel Crawford
Janet Tomi
Paul Eggert
Leon Trainor
Meryl Joyce
Rachel Walker
Janis Laurs
Anne & Adrian Walter
Rosie & Ross Maclaine
Margaret & David Williams
Lillian & Govert Mellink
David Windsor
Thank You The Canberra International Music Festival is an event run by members of the Canberra community. We receive strong support from the ACT Government, the Australia Council for the Arts and a number of foreign governments. However, without the support of our local business sponsors (who contribute financially and inkind), and the generosity of individual donors and volunteers, our wonderful festival would not be a reality. Each year our community of donors contributes significantly to the cost of presenting concerts and supporting our artists. We also have the privilege of working with an enthusiastic and highly skilled team of volunteers who contribute their time during the year and throughout the Festival. The Board and staff of Pro Musica would like to convey our gratitude for your generosity and ongoing support.
In addition to the support mentioned elsewhere in the Program, we would like to acknowledge that the participation of the musicians from Spain would not have been possible without the support of the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE), under the Mobility grants awarded by the state company Acci贸n Cultural Espa帽ola (AC/E).
All information in this program is correct at the time of publishing. The Artistic Director reserves the right to make changes, alter, amend or delete sections of the scheduled program without notification. Copyright Pro Musica Inc. 2016 96
our partners The Festival is proud to work with a number of partners both in government and in the private sector. These partnerships are crucial to the Festival's ongoing sucess and we proudly acknowledge their support.
principal government partners
major partners
festival partners
cultural partners
festival supporters
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