CIMF 2018 Program

Canberra International Music Festival 27 April – 6 May 2018

Experience the music adventure

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Concert Calendar

Page

1

OPENING GALA

7.30 pm

Friday April 27

Fitters’ Workshop

5

2

DAPPER'S DELIGHT

11 am

Saturday April 28

Fitters’ Workshop

9

3

ROGER WOODWARD I

3 pm

Saturday April 28

Fitters’ Workshop

11

4

FOUR SEASONS

8 pm

Saturday April 28

Fitters’ Workshop

15

5

BACH ON SUNDAY

11 am

Sunday April 29

Fitters’ Workshop

19

6

ENOCH ARDEN

3 pm

Sunday April 29

National Gallery of Australia Fairfax Theatre

23

7

CLASSIC SOUVENIR

6.30 pm

Sunday April 29

Fitters’ Workshop

27

8

FROM THE LETTER TO THE LAW

11 am

Monday April 30

Starts at National Library of Australia

31

9

ISRAEL IN EGYPT

6.30 pm

Monday April 30

Fitters’ Workshop

37

10

REQUIEM

10 am, 11.30 am

Tuesday May 1

Australian War Memorial

41

11

ROGER WOODWARD II

6.30 pm

Tuesday May 1

Fitters’ Workshop

45

12

GLASS GAMES

12 pm

Wednesday May 2

Canberra Glassworks

49

13

ULYSSES NOW

6.30 pm

Wednesday May 2

Fitters’ Workshop

52

––

taste of the country

8.30 am 4 pm

Thursday May 3

Annual Festival Trip

57

14

ORAVA QUARTET

6 pm

Thursday May 3

Fitters’ Workshop

59

15

THE ASPIRATIONS OF DAISE MORROW

8 pm

Thursday May 3

Canberra Theatre

63

16

RETURN TO BASICS

11 am

Friday May 4

Canberra Grammar School

65

17

A SOLDIER'S RETURN

7.30 pm

Friday May 4

Fitters’ Workshop

67

18

I BASSIFONDI

11 am

Saturday May 5

Fitters’ Workshop

71

19

THE TROUT

3 pm

Saturday May 5

Fitters’ Workshop

73

20

BEOWULF

8 pm

Saturday May 5

Fitters’ Workshop

77

21

PETER AND THE WOLF

11 am

Sunday May 6

Fitters’ Workshop

81

22

BARBARA BLACKMAN'S FESTIVAL BLESSING

2 pm

Sunday May 6

National Gallery of Australia Fairfax Theatre

83

23

FESTIVAL FINALE: SERENADE

6.30 pm

Sunday May 6

Fitters’ Workshop

87

1

Welcome from ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr MLA

Message from Honorary Festival Patrons, Major General the Hon. Michael Jeffery and Mrs Marlena Jeffery

Welcome to the 2018 Canberra International Music Festival, where you can discover your own musical adventure.

The Canberra International Music Festival provides an opportunity for those attending the many and varied performances to experience a wonderful program, exceptional musicianship, great venues and enjoyment from real and close connections between performers and audience.

Across 10 days, venues across Canberra will come alive with the sound of the best classical, contemporary and world music in the Southern Hemisphere.

With 23 ticketed concerts, site-specific events, musical walks and free sessions, there’s something for everyone.

Canberrans are the happiest, longest-living and best-educated Australians and we certainly like our music. With intimate performances in some of Canberra’s best buildings, this year’s festival will inspire, educate and uplift.

The ACT Government is proud to support the Canberra International Music Festival and Canberra’s expanded arts scene. As our city continues to grow, a healthy arts scene is important to add vibrancy to our community and the Festival is an integral part of that.

This Festival attracts many people from interstate and I welcome you all to our city.

You’ve come to one of the world’s best cities to visit this year, according to Lonely Planet.

The Canberra region offers such diverse visitor experiences, from national institutions to our award-winning vineyards.

I hope you enjoy the 2018 Canberra International Music Festival and experience Canberra in all its seasonal beauty.

Andrew Barr MLA ACT Chief Minister

2

As Honorary Patrons, Marlena and I are looking forward to this year’s Festival. It will be performed by very talented local, national and international artists at some of our city’s most iconic venues, set against a backdrop of Canberra’s glorious autumn hues and colours.

This magnificently organised ten day program includes Indigenous cultural music, the ancient traditions of the bard, Baroque and classical music on period instruments and birthday tributes to Claude Debussy and Leonard Bernstein. This mix of musical styles and musicians, involving many of our younger up and coming artists, provides an excellent opportunity for all to enjoy a variety of world class performances. It also demonstrates that the future of great music in this country is in good hands.

Marlena and I are looking forward to this year’s Festival and the opportunity to share these lovely musical experiences with you all.

Michael and Marlena Jeffery

Autumn comes around, a little later this year than we were expecting. But when it comes around, Canberra changes its colours and we have to change our tune. The tunes come from far afield this year and they delve deep into our collective memory: the sweeping stories of men returning from war, and what it means to head back home.

Home is where our roots are, the things who made us who we are, the generations that defined us, named us and gave us history and kinship. The story of Beowulf lifts up a tip of the Anglo-Saxon veil, a tale of adventure that is as riveting now as it once was long before someone committed it to parchment. And Brenda’s story, the story of an Indigenous woman whose lands we share, the story of putting ‘Gambambarawaraga’ to paper and leading us whitefellas through the cycle of the seasons. She has lifted the tip of an even bigger veil that surrounds this land: the way it changes, the way it breathes, the way it burns in the sun and draws from the moon.

How we return to our own sources is the story of this festival. We learn to walk a long way, often only to find ourselves where we started. We would love to remember those first steps but our gait has shifted, our gaze widened and our stumbles have born fruit. No matter how much was gained, nothing ever remains the same.

This is a festival for the dreamers, for all those who believe in green sprigs shooting out of age-old trunks.

Roland

Photo: William Hall

The position of Artistic Director

is supported by

Anna & Bob Prosser 3

Friday 27 april Supported by the Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres

festival extra TALK OF THE TOWN - THE VIOLINISTS Gorman Arts Centre - Main Hall 55 Ainslie Avenue, Braddon 2.00pm | 60 mins Festival Artistic Director Roland Peelman in conversation with Tim Fain and Cecilia Bernardini Meet two major protagonists of the violin: New York based Tim Fain of Philip Glass fame and Cecilia Bernardini, Dutch‑Italian specialist of baroque and classical violin.

A discussion on versatility, virtual reality and the rewards and challenges of classical music in the digital age.

TICKETS $10

The Best Festival Ever: Celebrating 25 years 25 years ago, members of the Canberra commmunity who shared a love of music began presenting concerts in private homes and embassies. From these small beginnings, the Festival has grown into a ten-day event with a national reputation for excellence and innovation.

We think 25 years is worth celebrating.

Become a

2019 Festival Supporter

4

3-12 MAY 2019

We are launching a special birthday appeal with the aim of raising an additional $25,000 for Roland to invest in our 2019 program.

If you simply wouldn’t miss the Festival each year, or this is your first time and you’ll be back, we would like you to join with us to make CIMF 2019 our “Best Festival Ever”.

Find out more at cimf.org.au/25years

Friday 27 APRIL Maliganis Edwards Johnson presents

concert 1

opening GALA

Fitters' Workshop

The Seasons Festival Opening - William Barton and Ned McGowan in duet Philip Glass b. 1957: Chaconne I from Partita

7.30pm | 115 mins William Barton didgeridoo

Ned McGowan b. 1970: Winter Tones Peter Sculthorpe 1929–2014: Autumn Anne Boyd b. 1946: Goldfish Through Summer Rain John Cage 1912-1992: 'Spring' from the ballet The Seasons (1947)

Ned McGowan contrabass flute

Alistair Anderson b. 1948: When the frosts are setting in Anonymous: Rattlin’ Billie (18th century jig) Anonymous: Rattling Roaring Willy (18th century jig)

Hugh Barrett piano

Brenda Gifford b. 1968: Gambambarawaraga (WP) - Beaver Blaze

Turner Trebles & Vocal Fry

– INTERVAL – George Frideric Handel 1685-1759: Arias and Duets: ‘Oh that I on wings could rise’ from Theodora HWV 68 ‘Oh Lord whose mercies numberless’ from Saul HWV 53 ‘Se bramate d'amar chi vi sdegna’ from Serse (Xerxes) HWV 40 ‘Se in fiorito prato’ from Giulio Cesare in Egitto HWV 17 ‘As with rosy steps’ from Theodora HWV 68 ‘Son nata a lagrimar’ from Giulio Cesare in Egitto HWV 17

Tim Fain solo violin Keiko Shichijo piano Brendan Clarke double bass Mark Sutton percussion Susanna Borsch recorder Kate Howden mezzo-soprano Tobias Cole countertenor Bach Akademie Australia dir. Madeleine Easton with

Cecilia Bernadini violin Simone Vallerotonda theorbo Alice Giles baroque harp directed from the harpsichord by

Roland Peelman Vocal Fry is funded by ArtsACT and presented by ANU School of Music

This concert is supported by BEV & DON AITKIN

WP – world premiere 5

Betty Beaver and the Festival Blaze Betty Beaver AM is a stalwart of arts and music in Canberra. A trained cellist and an experienced art entrepreneur, 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.

Betty Beaver Photo: Peter Hislop

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.

In 2017 the Festival commissioned a new Beaver Blaze from Brenda Gifford, proud Yuin woman, for the opening of this year's Festival. This was realised with the assistance of a generous anonymous donor and the Indigenous Composers' Initiative.

Brenda Gifford b. 1968: Gambambarawaraga Suite (WP) - Beaver Blaze The word Gambambarawaraga means 'seasons' in the Dhurgha language of my mob. The Gambambarawaraga Suite is in 9 sections, consisting of musical responses to the moon and various seasons from my South Coast Aboriginal perspective. These movements are connected by a repeating section based on ‘footprints’ (bardju), which represents my journey/ footprints as a Yuin woman and represents our own individual journeys – also our collective footprints and the need to tread lightly on the earth and treat her with respect. This music was trod first on the coast and in the bush, and has now come to be scored and played.

Gadhu (Moon) The moon is an element that works in with the different seasons represented in this piece. eg. high moon, low tide , good fishing etc.

Bardju (Footprints) I’m standing at the headland/ cliff at Wreck Bay, facing the sea, the cemetery to my right, Summer Cloud Bay to my left. In winter I feel the bite of the cold wind in my bones, in spring I feel a light breeze caress my skin, in summer I feel the heat from below rise up and hit me.

Dhugawara a (Winter) Standing on the headland of the cliff at wreck in winter , with a strong wind hitting me and below the waves hitting the rocks relentlessly and loudly, the 8 bars of 3 triplets represent this.

Dhugawara b (Winter) Bardju (Footprints) Gambambara (Spring) By whispering the word Gambambara we invoke the spirits of spring.

Bardju (Footprints) Galaa (Summer) A tribute to beautiful summer, a light breezy song praising her.

Gadhu reprise Orchestration assistance by Chris Sainsbury, who stayed close to my concept and knows my sounds. Thanks to cousin Wendy for your cultural guidance and help with language.

Brenda Gifford 6

Living language Aboriginal language reclamation is fast gaining traction in Sydney and the south-east. For some years it has been unfolding in many public ways already, such as co-branding of National Parks or certain places (whether geographical or civic places), all with consultation of local Aboriginal authorities. The exciting thing about it is that it passes deeper awareness and meaning of a place and the local culture on to all. Language reclamation is not without its politics, but is necessary and welcome.

At Eora College (an Indigenous College in Redfern, Sydney) the Wiradjuri language is being taught to those descended from that area, which spans between about Dubbo down to Albury and east to Lithgow. It's a chance for those in the city to learn their language, often after a break of generations. As well, the Dharawal language of the region

of Botany Bay down to Nowra and west to around Bowral is being taught at La Perouse (the northen end of that region), as an outreach from Eora College.

In Sydney, the last thorough speakers of the Dharug language (also called the Eora language since only the mid-1940s) died in the early twentieth century. This language region included most of Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Much effort is being put into the the reclamation of this language too, in both Sydney central and in Western Sydney. It is one of the most known of Aboriginal languages in the public domain and includes words such as: wallaby, dingo, wombat, and also Coogee (smelly seaweed), Bondi (wave), coo-ee, and corroboree. So most Australians already speak some Dharug/Eora!

Chris Sainsbury

Handel: A Man of the Theatre

T

here is no denying that Handel was a man of the theatre. In the local opera house of his birth place Halle and subsequently in a number of Italian opera houses (Florence, Rome, Venice) he learnt the trade. This involved anything from dealing with opera stars, castrati or noncastrati, coping with the local organisation or lack thereof, delivering parts on time for rehearsal, trying to please a local audience and last but not least keeping track of the finances in order to live another day. His first opera Almira, in Italian, gave the then 20-year old composer a first taste of success in front of a home crowd.

By the time he was invited to London, he had proved himself a true master in the genre with Rinaldo, produced in a mere two weeks during the 1711 season. The scene was thus set not only for a successful run of opera productions in London, but also for Handel to take up residence in the English capital. By 1719 Handel had become the music director of the newlyfounded Royal Academy of Music, specifically to present Italian opera on the London stage.

Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt) is one of the works dating from this period, while Serse (Xerxes) represents Handel’s 1737 come7

back after what seems to have been a stroke.

But before health issues intervened, the sheer fickleness of the opera business urged a career switch of sorts: his re-invention as a composer of oratorio in the English language. It involved a shift from pagan stories from antiquity to Biblical settings (which pleased London’s Jewish community no end), and a greater involvement of chorus scenes.

The bravura aria 'Se bramate' from the beginning of Act II in Xerxes could be described as the dramatic counterweight to 'Ombra mai fu' that starts Act I. People were scathing at the time about the opera’s libretto and demeanour, but ever since its belated revival in the early 20th century, the work has been an enduring success.

The remaining arias all stem from two of Handel’s Nevertheless, whether most beloved oratorios: in Italian opera seria Saul and Theodora.

Saul was Handel’s or dramatic English oratorio, the aria Faustina Bordoni and Senesino, by Antonio Maria Zanetti first collaboration with Charles Jennens. The marking each pivotal moment of dramatic insight into the dramatis crucial role of David was given to a countertenor personae remained the vehicle of choice for in order to convey all the powers of persuasion celebrity singers. Tonight’s selection could be and charisma, and arouse Saul’s jealousy. His described as a showcase of what Handel could aria 'O Lord whose Mercies numberless' is provide for both the male and female alto. followed by the sound of his lyre: the mystic powers of a harp solo.

The star power of castrati in 17th and 18th century opera was legendary and the success of Handel’s As for Theodora, Handel has been quoted as operas depended largely on their involvement. saying "The Jews will not come to it because it When Handel embarked on Julius Caesar, it was is a Christian story; and the ladies will not come Francesco Bernardi aka ‘Senesino’ who was to because it is a virtuous one." Yet, written as late sing it. The title role in Xerxes was initially sung as 1750, it became his favourite work, the result

by Gaetano Majorano, known as ‘Caffarelli’. Both of a drawn-out labour of love. ‘Oh that I on wings commanded vast fees and were known for being could rise’ goes to the heart of the work’s piety, ‘difficult’, sometimes substituting their own the martyr Theodora’s impassioned plea for arias and not averse to crudely upstaging fellow the soul to be set free. Earlier in the work her performers. Caesar’s aria in the beginning of Act Christian friend Irene sings ‘As with rosy steps’, II 'Se in fiorito prato' is just such a an aria that defies description, starring moment. After having fallen one of the supreme examples of head over heels for Cleopatra’s Handel’s ultima maniera, a tribute charms, the aria gives the singer to the Christian faith as the great a solo violin to compete with, the light of dawn from a composer musical equivalent of the Roman who is gradually going blind in the hero’s desire and competitiveness. twilight of his career.

The duet at the end of Act I 'Son Roland Peelman nato a lagrimar' is a touching farewell by the two lovers Cornelia and Sesto forcibly separated by Roman political manoeuvres. It is the kind of piece that will guarantee Caffarelli, by Pier Leone Ghezzi the audience’s return after interval!

8

SATURDAY 28 APRIL

concert 2

Dapper's Delight

Black And Grey A tune from John Playford’s Dancing Master of 1686

Once I loved a Maiden Fair

Fitters' Workshop 11.00 am | 70 mins

A 17th century bittersweet song of love abandoned

The Grey Joak, Blue Joak, Yellow Joak, Widow’s Joak Some very different tunes from 18 century collections, all having the title “Joak” th

Fortune My Foe – Come Live With Me And Be My Love

Susanna Borsch recorders Adrian Brown anglo concertina and voice

Possibly the most popular English song after Greensleeves, with its antidote...

Lillys And Roses - Saddlers Wells – The Bashful Swayne Three tunes taken from Henry Playford’s Dancing Master, the third edition.

Sir John Barleycorn An arrangement of this popular folksong as a tribute to the 70’s band “Traffic”

Ten Thousand Miles Away An early Sea Shanty referring to the distance between England and Australia

– INTERVAL – Grey And Black (M. Clarke, S. Bottomley) A cover of a beautiful song by the English rock band “Tempest” from 1973

Three Hornpipes A selection of triple-time hornpipes from Playford’s Apollo’s Banquet of 1701

Blanket Fair, or the History of Temple Street A Broadside Ballad commemorating London’s “Great Frost” of 1684

Sybelle “Sybelle”: an English form derived from an aria in Lully’s opera Atys

St James’ Frolick A 17th century Broadside ballad concerning a London barber and his client...

Bedlam Cecil Sharp’s pianoforte arrangement of this beautiful folk song

Oh Oh Antonio (C. W. Murphy, D. Lipton) A 1908 English music-hall song made popular by the Australian Florrie Forde This concert is supported by Lyndall Hatch & Robin Gibson 9

Vernacular: adj. and n. ...that writes, uses, or speaks the native or indigenous language of a country or district. ...of arts native or peculiar to a particular country or locality.

I

n musical circles, 'vernacular' can be used to describe music and specifically song that by reason of popularity becomes 'representative of the people'. Although naturally encompassing them both, vernacular is a broader term than either 'folk' or 'popular' music. In music history, it includes all music that traversed the artificial barriers between art and popular music and, in the present day, would also include recorded music that has found its way into the popular tradition.

It is within the depths of the bubbling caldron of 16-18th century English popular music that we wish to explore, imagining a musical antechamber positioned somewhere between the theatre and the street. We use the striking instrumentarium of the anglo concertina – surely one of the most portable and versatile keyboard instruments ever invented – and the recorder, an instrument that emerged around 1500 and was popular with both the alta cappella as well as the chamber ensembles of singers and instrumentalists. Our aim is to find interesting programmes for this unusual and effective combination, looking first at material existing in both high and low cultural sources.

Broadside ballads formed an early movement of popular music, in that they were song texts, of a variety of natures, written to popular melodies.

In an age with no recorded music, they were a unique way of spreading the latest songs throughout the population. They were sold in towns and villages, often being performed on the street by the vendors themselves.

From the middle of the 17th century, tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master and other tune books were immensely popular, both as music to dance to, and as popular song tunes to play on a variety of instruments. In fact, over the 77 years of its publication, we can almost speak of a country-dance craze, which must have provided a welcome alternative to the stiff formal dances of the elite.

Other tunes from our programmes come from the 17th century Masques and 18th century ballad operas. We also make arrangements of dances and tunes of a rustic or popular character from what might be termed art music sources.

Different versions of the same tunes are found in many sources, showing signs of a continuous state of flux (for example in the modernisation of modal tunes over the course of the many editions of The Dancing Master).

This, together with the lack of notated harmonisation, confounds ideas of a 'definitive version' and challenges our notions of authenticity. By using an ‘inauthentic’ instrumentation, we are forced to concentrate on engaging the minds of listeners with our arrangements and performance more than on reconstructing the physical aspects of an ‘authentic’ performance.

In literature 'in the vernacular' could refer to a text, or poem rendered in a language understood by the population at large, rather than the small section who were able to read classical languages. Similarly, we hope our arrangements and performance do likewise and will open our chosen repertoire to new audiences...

Dapper’s Delight: the combination of classically trained recorder player Susanna Borsch and the recorder maker and concertina player Adrian Brown. Their obtuse musical backgrounds provide the inspiration and gel for their musical collaboration, which has resulted in three widely acclaimed albums: Indoors (2011), Disguisings (2014) Vernacular (2017). They have given concerts in many European countries and this is their first tour of Australia. www.dappersdelight.com 10

saturday 28 april canberra times presents

concert 3

Roger Woodward I

Fitters' Workshop

Claude Debussy 1862-1918: Estampes L100 (1903): Pagodes – Soirée dans Grenade – Jardins sous la pluie (Pagodas – Evening in Granada – Gardens under rain)

3.00pm | 100 mins Roger Woodward AC OBE piano

Images Book 1 L110 (1904-1905): Reflets dans l'eau – Hommage à Rameau – Mouvement (Reflections in the water – Homage to Rameau –Movement) Images Book 2 L111 (1907-1908): Cloches à travers les feuilles – Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut – Poissons d'or (Bells through the leaves – And the moon sets on the temple ruins – Goldfish) – INTERVAL – Frédéric Chopin 1810-1849: Études op. 10: No. 1 in C major No. 2 in A minor No. 3 in E major No. 4 in C-sharp minor No. 5 in G-flat major No. 6 in E-flat minor

No. 7 in C major No. 8 in F major No. 9 in F minor No. 10 in A-flat major No. 11 in E-flat major No. 12 in C minor

This concert is supported by Margaret & John Saboisky 11

Claude Debussy, style and substance

S

tyle, according to Proust, is not a matter of technique but a matter of vision. If winning the coveted Prix de Rome as a 22-year-old is anything to go by, Debussy certainly had plenty of technical skill early on. But vision? In its strict meaning this implies ‘seeing’, the ability to perceive something either real or imagined in great detail and use that as a guiding principle to build a more elaborate and possibly new picture of the world. What Debussy saw and heard – from his early but short-lived obsession with Wagner to the wonders of the world brought to Paris for the great 1889 exposition – have become commonplace now: Japanese woodcuts, Javanese gamelan, Chinese lacquer art, Persian artefacts and much more. Such treasures added spice and flavour to an already luxuriously sophisticated artistic scene dominated by such poets as Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine and painters by the name of Monet, Manet or Renoir, to mention just a few. Whilst poets blurred their mind with absinthe and dived into the periphery of human consciousness, the painters drew Turner’s vision to its inevitable conclusion by redefining object/subject through the human eye and its relationship with the changing light of day. For Debussy, too, nature had become a canvas of the mind. The subtle tactile nature of the instruments, the texture, transparency and sonority of chords or melodies, their seductive qualities ‘in the moment’ – these became his guiding vision. Led by the ear first and foremost, rooted in the sheer physicality of sound, Debussy reinvented Rameau’s findings for an audience steeped in symbolist poetry and ‘impressionist’ painting. Debussy: musicien français.

Substance, the product of logical thought and rational deduction, had led Western music down the path of dialectic discourse, brilliantly demonstrated by the first Viennese school: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Subsequent generations continued the principle of classic development within an increasingly complex harmonic field. In the hands of Wagner and his followers, this principle had become an endlessly strung out game of modulation and 12

permutation. By going inward into the quality and nature of the sound itself, Debussy found a way of constructing music that upended the formalistic traditions conditioning the ears of the average 19th century listener. By exploring the sheer physicality of perception and the subtle process of aural association and seduction he created a new sense of form and flow allowing for repetition, variation, contrast, movement and space within a framework often defined by something akin to the golden section. The musical impressions that are formed along the way build an imaginary story for the senses rather than a narrative for the brain. The musical result has a temporal and tactile quality, all the more so since the specific characteristics of the instrument or the space are crucial to the way the sound evolves. In other words, style itself became the new substance, rendering the Germanic division between ‘idea’ and ‘technique’ utterly irrelevant.

The obsession with sound, sonority and ‘timbre’, now enshrined in the activities of IRCAM at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, has never been exclusive to the French, but French musicians and scientists did lay a strong foundation for the empiricist approach to music. While Bach wrote two volumes of ‘The Well-tempered Clavier’, a work of practical, formal and didactic genius, his contemporary Rameau wrote at least a dozen music theory books based around the principle of ‘le corps sonore’ (the ‘sonorous body’).

Rameau’s reasoning and finely attuned musical ear thus laid the foundation for systematic analysis of sound as a natural phenomenon.

The realisation that any given resonating body consists of a series of overtones and that this forms the basis of harmony and colour paved the way for orchestration as we know it and for much of what is going on in music nowadays. For Debussy, the ‘corps sonore’ of choice was the piano. From the moment his right foot pressed down the pedal, a world of sonorities opened up, often prompted by one note, one chord or one improvisatory flourish….

Roland Peelman

From Study to Étude

T

he piano’s development from the days around 1700 when Cristofori built a mechanism of hammers striking the strings is one of the great technological stories of Western music history. By the time J.S. Bach played one of Silbermann’s instruments in Potsdam in 1747, the man who had spent his life on organs and harpsichords was convinced of the piano-forte’s worth and future. The rest, as they say, is history. The instrument called ‘fortepiano’, comprising five octaves, built with a wooden frame and using two strings per note, became the dominant keyboard instrument in the second half of the 18th century. By 1820 makers in France and England were expanding its range up to seven octaves, and were experimenting with steel frames and steel strings. Most importantly, Erard had adopted the ‘double échappement’ mechanism in 1821 which allowed rapidly repeated notes, and thus created an opportunity for a new level of virtuosity.

When the musical instinct drives the fingers rather than the other way around, a new genre can excite an audience and be useful to a great pianist.

The new pianos needed champions, and the likes of Erard and Pleyel found just their man when a young Pole arrived in Paris and enchanted the Paris salons with a poetic touch and a freedom of playing (rubato) that seemed novel at the time. Chopin's first collection of 12 Études stems from his last years in Poland as a very young man prior to the 1831 invasion and his earliest days in Paris, where they were published in 1833. Ordered not chromatically as in Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, but in harmonic sequence based on related keys (starting in C major, moving to A minor, then E major, etc., landing finally in C Minor for the last Étude), the collection clearly salutes Bach by extending the German’s iconic first prelude arpeggio idea across the entire keyboard and concentrating on The new instruments, louder nimble chromatic finger-crawling Chopin by Bisson, 1849 and more robust than their for the second one. The famously predecessors, but now simply hackneyed third Étude is a slow called ‘pianos’, created a buoyant market for melody, the notation and speed of which gave manufacturers who would ship their products Chopin much headache, as the sketches reveal. to every corner of the globe, for piano teachers Each number has a distinct idea and motoric (who else would instruct the daughters of the device that propels the idea. The collection aspiring middle classes?), for the educational opus 25 continues this line of thinking, starting repertoire (Mozart or Beethoven Sonatas were in A-flat Major with accompanying arpeggios mostly beyond the average learner), and last against melody and bass played by the little but not least for publishing companies, enjoying fingers, notoriously daunting pieces with parallel their first real sales boom. Minor masters such as thirds (no. 6), sixths (no. 8) and octaves (no. 10), Cramer, Clementi and Czerny produced volume and again finishing in C minor with double-hand after volume of bite-sized exercises, studies and arpeggios. learning pieces, rarely longer than two pages and each concentrating on a particular aspect of These twenty four Études became a benchmark piano technique. 200 years of mindless piano for generations of pianists and aspiring pedagogy was suddenly set in motion! Yet we pianists across the globe. There are many fine ought to be grateful for the likes of Chopin, Liszt recordings, but to hear all 24 Études in concert and Schumann, who understood that each remains an utterly thrilling experience.

Roland Peelman technical feature also contains a musical idea.

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saturday 28 April principals presents

concert 4

Four Seasons

Canberra Seasons artwork - courtesy of artist Mick Ashley

Fitters' Workshop

Ross Edwards b. 1943: Harp Mantras

8.00pm | 110 mins

Mary Finsterer b. 1962: Four Interludes (WP)

Tim Fain solo violin

Camille Saint-Saens 1835-1921: Danse macabre op. 40 (arr. T. Peemoeller) – INTERVAL – Max Richter b. 1966: Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons Spring 1

Autumn 1

Spring 2

Autumn 2

Spring 3

Autumn 3

Summer 1

Winter 1

Summer 2

Winter 2

Summer 3

Winter 3

This concert is supported by Peronelle & Jim Windeyer

Festival Strings dir. Roland Peelman Seven Harp Ensemble dir. Alice Giles AM: Alice Giles Ingrid Bauer Jacinta Dennett Genevieve Lang Tegan Peemoeller Laura Tanata Esther Wong

WP – world premiere 15

The Seasons SPRING, old-English Spring, related to Germanic root spring-/sprung- etc, meaning jump, leap.

Spring first refers to a place of rising from the ground, the source of a well or river. Its second meaning is the season after winter and before summer, in which vegetation begins to appear, astronomically extending from the vernal equinox to the summer solstice (French printemps, German Frühling, Italian primavera, Dutch lente).

SUMMER, Old English sumor or sumer of Germanic origin (French été, German Sommer, Italian estate, Dutch zomer). The season after spring and before autumn, when the weather is warmest, astronomically from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox.

AUTUMN, Middle-English autumpne, from Latin autumnus (American fall, French automne, German Herbst, Italian autumno, Dutch herfst). The season between summer and winter, astronomically extending from the September equinox to the winter solstice. Figuratively: a period of maturity or incipient decline.

WINTER, from the Old-English winter, a nasalized form of the Indo-European base wed-, wod‑, ud-, meaning wet (French hiver, German Winter, Italian inverno, Dutch winter). The fourth and coldest season of the year, astronomically extending from the winter solstice to the vernal equinox.

Figuratively: in reference to old age, or to a time of affliction or distress.

Roland Peelman

The Human Seasons – John Keats Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves There are four seasons in the mind of man: His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear He furleth close; contented so to look Takes in all beauty with an easy span: On mists in idleness—to let fair things He has his Summer, when luxuriously Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook: Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

The Acton Birdwatchers’ Ode to the Four Seasons – RF Brissenden In summertime we’ll take our ease Upon the lawns beneath the trees And watch the skirts get shorter; And as trim pairs of hot-pants pass Salute them with a spritzy glass Of hock and soda-water.

And then by winter’s fire-side blaze We’ll quaff mulled claret as we gaze On every well-filled sweater; And drink a toast to John Keats, Who said: Heard melodies are sweet, But those unheard are sweeter.

Then as the leaves begin to fall For burgundy and port we’ll call To give our hearts new vigour, So we may have the strength to see Autumnal clothes from neck to knee Enfold each lovely figure.

But come the champagne days of spring, When corks go pop and sweet birds sing And all the world is mating, We’ll take our bottle and our glass And join the ladies on the grass – That is, if you’re still waiting.

16

Ross Edwards: Harp Mantras

O

ne of Australia’s best-known composers, Ross Edwards has created a distinctive sound world which seeks to reconnect music with elemental forces and restore its age-old association with ritual and dance.

Harp Mantras was commissioned by the Seven Harp Ensemble (SHE) to open the World Harp Congress in Sydney in 2014 in the Sydney Town Hall. That performance included didjeridoo performer William Barton. For this performance the SHE uses a dawn chorus from the CD A Madrigal of Magpies recorded by Andrew Skeoch and Sarah Koschak. Of Harp Mantras Edwards writes: “When Australia’s unique Seven Harp Ensemble invited me to compose a work to open the World

Harp Congress we agreed that we should aim to draw the audience into a numinous atmosphere highlighting the harp’s ethereal qualities”.

Edwards' compositions include four symphonies, the violin concerto Maninyas and the internationally acclaimed Dawn Mantras, which ushered in the new millennium from the sails of the Sydney Opera House. His recent Oboe Concerto was rapturously received at its world premiere performance by Diana Doherty and the Sydney Symphony and its U.S. premiere

by Doherty, The New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel. He is currently working on a 5th Symphony commissioned for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre op. 40

C

omposed by Saint-Säens in 1874, Danse macabre is known as a tone poem for orchestra and solo violin. Less known is the fact that its earliest version was an art song for piano and solo voice, based on the legend of the Dance of Death: each year at midnight on Halloween, Death appears calling the dead— young and old, rich and poor—to rise up and dance for him.

Like the original tone poem, Tegan Peemoeller's arrangement for the Seven Harp Ensemble

begins with twelve single notes that represent the twelve strokes of midnight, followed by the arrival of Death (the tritone interval), before the dance begins. By using specific muffling techniques, the harp can mimic the sound of the xylophone used in the orchestral version to imitate the rattling of skeleton bones. Towards the end of the piece, there is an abrupt change of texture which represents dawn breaking, a rooster crowing, and the skeletons returning to their graves (and closets) for another year.

Max Richter

T

he German-British composer sound artist Max Richter has become an influential voice in post-minimalist music and in the meeting of contemporary classical and alternative pop since the early 2000s. He studied composition at the Royal Academy in London and then with Luciano Berio in Italy. Unusually prolific, he writes for stage and screen and devises major musical projects and installations. His Four Seasons ‘re-composition’ from 2012 has

been hailed as a major departure in the Vivaldi catalogue, even though about 75% of Vivaldi was discarded and replaced by looping techniques.

His immersive 8-hour long Sleep project was first performed in September 2015. “I think of it as a piece of protest music,” Richter has said.

“It’s protest music against this sort of very super industrialized, intense, mechanized way of living right now. It’s a political work in that sense. It’s a call to arms to stop what we’re doing”.

17

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Sunday 29 April

concert 5

bach on Sunday

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750: Actus Tragicus BWV 106, ‘Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit’ Sonatina

Fitters' Workshop 11.00am | 75 mins

Chorus: ‘Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit’ Arioso (tenor): ‘Ach Herr, lehre uns bedenken’ Aria (bass): ‘Bestelle dein Haus’ Chorus, Arioso (soprano): ‘Es ist der alte Bund’

Bach Akademie Australia dir. Madeleine Easton

Aria (alto): ‘In deine Hände befehl’ ich meinen Geist’ Arioso & Chorale (bass, alto): ‘Heute wirst du mit mir im Paradies sein’

Neal Peres Da Costa continuo

Chorus: ‘Glorie, Lob, Ehr' und Herrlichkeit’

Tobias Cole alto

Daniel Yeadon

cello piccolo,

solo viola da gamba

Richard Fomison baroque trumpet Susannah Lawergren soprano

Sonata in G minor for viola da gamba no. 3 BWV 1029 Vivace — Adagio — Allegro

Richard Butler tenor

Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 BWV 1047 Allegro — Andante — Allegro assai

Andrew Fysh bass

Kantate BWV 175, ‘Er rufet seinen Schafen’ Recitative (tenor): 'Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen' Aria (alto): 'Komm, leite mich' Recitative (tenor): 'Wo find ich dich?'

Aria (tenor): 'Es dünket mich, ich seh dich kommen' Recitative (alto, bass): 'Sie vernahmen aber nicht' Aria (bass): 'Öffnet euch, ihr beiden Ohren' Chorale: 'Nun, werter Geist, ich folg dir'

Andrew O’Connor baritone

Neal Peres Da Costa and Daniel Yeadon appear courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music

This concert is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer 19

Bach on Sunday

F

or all the squillions of words written about abound about the third sonata being a reBach’s tenure in Leipzig, his commitment to working of a concerto for two traverso flutes. the Lutheran service, his brilliance as a keyboard Whatever their origins might be, all three sonatas player, or his grand compositional ventures such are works of great eloquence and concerted as The Well-tempered Clavier, The Art of the elegance. Indeed, the intricate energy of Bach’s Fugue, the Cantata Cycles and more, we should concertos is in the air in the opening Vivace of never underestimate his ear for characteristic the third gamba sonata, and its Adagio cantilena instrumental colour and his uncanny ability to seems tailor made for the affectionate and extract both subtle and strikingly original effects ‘human’ quality of the solo gamba. Throughout from the instruments and players at his disposal. the work the cembalo part combines the left All the works in this concert (with one stand-out hand basso continuo with a treble part that exception) explore pithy writing for instruments responds to and interweaves with the gamba. that two decades on would be relegated to the By the third movement the cembalo truly leads and the two instruments dustbin of history: the merge into something that recorder or Blockflöte, is greater than the sum of soon to be abandoned its three parts. for the traverso flute, and the viola da gamba, A pair of gambas (12 losing its distinction in strings in total) combined the simplified harmonic with a pair of recorders progressions of mid-18th supported by basso century ‘galant style’, continuo form the basis in favour of the fourof the early cantata string violoncello which, Gottes Zeist ist die incidentally, had long allerbeste Zeit BWV 106. found comfort between The 22-year-old Bach the legs (da gamba) could not have chosen a instead of on the shoulder more suave, comforting Thomaskirche Leipzig (1749) (da spalla) or on the arm or peaceful combination (da braccio). of instruments for what is th Once a great favourite at the 17 century French essentially a funeral cantata transformed into a royal court, the viola da gamba with its six or picture of Paradise - the earthly Paradise we lost seven strings, fretted neck and wider body and the Heavenly Paradise awaiting us. Death opens up interesting harmonic resonances, not as a tragic end but as a blissful sleep waiting subtleties of tone and articulation that made it for eternal salvation. In this cantata, written very compatible with the lute, and particularly when he was still organist in Mülhausen, Bach the bass-lute or theorbo. As late as 1735 not only shows his taste and compositional Telemann published 12 solo Fantasias for the skill, he displays a profound understanding of instrument (re-discovered in 2015). Bach wrote history, reflected in the cantata’s idiosyncratic three sonatas specifically for it a few years later structure and choice of texts. With Old but otherwise reserved the instrument for very Testament quotations for the first part, he special pieces and occasions such as the aria restricts himself to lower voices interweaving ‘Es ist vollbracht’ in his St John Passion or the stern old-style motet fugato as a symbol for Cantata 106 that starts today’s concert. ‘der alte Bund' (the old bond), until the soprano voice heralds the voice of Christ and announces Only the first of the three gamba sonatas the New Covenant. The work can thus finish in is preserved in an Autograph, and theories the spirit of Luther’s Chorale ‘Fried und Freud’ 20

(Peace and joy) which transforms the tone and texture of the ensemble, ending with a threefold angelic ‘Amen’.

The dizzying heights of the clarino or baroque trumpet in its top register also created new opportunities. Whether written for the court trumpeter in Köthen, J.L. Schreiber, or J. Altenburg whom he heard in Weissenfels in 1713, Bach did not shy away from stratospheric virtuosity if he felt like it. What is required for the F-trumpet part in the Second Brandenburg Concerto has daunted many players over the last 200 years. Yet, in combination with flauto, violino and hautbois as part of a concertato group, the instrument shines like no other.

Composed around 1717/18, the concerto adopts the simple Italian three movement style and throws the four instruments around in playful semi-quaver fashion as he nearly always does in the key of F. But the effect is simply miraculous. He completed a fresh copy of the manuscript of all six Concertos himself and sent it to the Margrave of Brandenburg with the following grovelling handwritten dedication: “ (…) rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigour of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him.”

Thomaskirche. In this position, Bach began the massive undertaking of writing five annual cycles of Cantatas. In March 1725 he lost his regular librettist which forced him to break off the series and make other arrangements for the period after Easter. Bach then collaborated with the Leipzig-born poet Christiane Mariane von Zeigler (1695 – 1760), and in that same year set music to nine of her texts, including the cantata Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen BWV 175.

The work is written for the first Tuesday after Pentecost, still celebrated as Whit Tuesday in Lutheran Germany during Bach’s time – and first performed on 22 May 1725. The text combines the Gospel words of John 10: 1-11 (Jesus as the Good Shepherd) through all seven movements with von Zeigler’s poetic commentary on the parable of the sheep called by name but fleeing from the stranger. Framed in three large sections, the cantata contrasts the idyllic world of Jesus as shepherd with a loyal flock of listeners against those who do not yet hear the good news.

Bach begins each section with a recitative and employs unusual and contrasting instrumental backing for each of the three main arias. Three recorders accompany the opening recitative and aria, painting a pastoral scene (‘He calls his sheep by name'). The second aria (the arrival of the shepherd), is a bourrée for the tenor solo with an obligato part for the violoncello piccolo.

The full strings component finally enters before the bass aria paints Jesus’ victory over the grave.

Here two trumpets conjure up the world of the Devil as well as Jesus’ victory in battle. The final 4-part chorale bundles all of these forces in a glorious setting of 'Komm, heiliger Geist'.

By the end of May 1723, Bach had moved to Leipzig to take up the position of Kantor at the

Roland Peelman

Save the Date: 3-12 May 2019 www.cimf.org.au/25years

21

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Sunday 29 April In association with the National Gallery of Australia

concert 6

ENOCH ARDEN

Franz Schubert 1798-1828: Impromptu op. 90 no. 4 in A-flat Major (D. 899/4) Johannes Brahms 1833-1897: Intermezzo op. 117 no. 3 in C-sharp Minor: Andante con moto Richard Strauss 1864-1949: Enoch Arden, op. 38 TrV 181 melodrama on a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

National Gallery of Australia, Fairfax Theatre 3.00pm | 75 mins John Bell AO OBE narrator Simon Tedeschi piano

This concert is supported by Harriet Elvin & Tony Hedley 23

Richard Strauss: Enoch Arden melodrama on a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

E

noch Arden is a melodrama for narrator and piano, written in 1897 by Richard Strauss to the words of the 1864 poem of the same name

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

These days the term 'melodrama' refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions; but the French word mélodrame, combining the concepts of music and drama, referred originally to a technique of combining spoken recitation with pieces of accompanying music. By the early 19th century this practice was well established, in opera and elsewhere. In addition to the operatic

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1869).

Photo by Julia Margaret Cameron

use of melodrama by Mozart (Zaïde), Beethoven (the grave-digging scene in Fidelio) and Weber (the incantation scene in Der Freischütz), pianoaccompanied melodramas were composed by Liszt, Schubert, and Wagner, among others. A decade after Enoch Arden Schoenberg sought an even closer integration of speech and music with the notated Sprechstimme (‘spoken voice’) in his Gurre-Lieder and Pierrot Lunaire. Copland’s Lincoln Portrait is in effect a mélodrame, as is Poulenc’s Babar, and Sculthorpe used accompanied speech to highlight dramatic moments in his cantata The Great South Land.

24

Like many a compositional project, Strauss’s Enoch Arden was inspired not so much by purely artistic goals as by more practical considerations: in order to solidify the composer’s friendship and beneficial professional relationship with the actor Ernst von Possart, a popular and powerful figure renowned as a master of poetry recitation, who in 1896 helped Strauss obtain the prestigious position of chief conductor at the Munich Opera. To return the favour, Strauss sought a suitable poem to which to compose a piano accompaniment that he could perform together with Possart. Enoch Arden was one of Tennyson’s most popular narrative poems (two silent films were made of it, in 1911 and 1915), and Strauss’s setting achieved his goals admirably.

He and Possart toured extensively together, performing (in German translation) to large and appreciative audiences.

Tennyson’s poem tells a story of three childhood friends in a small seaside village whose destinies are poignantly entwined in a manner perfectly calculated to appeal to Victorian bourgeois sensibilities. The orphaned “sailor’s lad”, Enoch, has a touch of Heathcliff about him; reserved yet passionate, his “large gray eyes and weatherbeaten face" exert an irresistible romantic appeal on young Annie Lee, “the prettiest little damsel in the port”. Their playfellow, Philip Ray (“the miller’s only son”) grows up to see Annie courted by Enoch and married to her, while he must look on disconsolately. Driven by the need to provide for his family in the wake of a period of misfortune, Enoch enlists with a merchant vessel bound for China. On the voyage back he is shipwrecked and subsists for a dozen years as a Crusoe-like castaway on a desert island. When Enoch is at last rescued, he returns to his village a ghost of his former self, recognized by no one.

Where once Philip had crept away unseen into the “hollows of the wood” after glimpsing Enoch’s courtship of Annie Lee, now Enoch finds his ultimate redemption in remaining invisible to Annie and Philip, who have in the

Richard Strauss in 1904. Photo by Edward Steichen

meantime married and brought up Enoch’s children together with one of their own.

Strauss’s score provides a short prelude and several brief interludes that articulate the passage of time or changes of scene. The prelude music returns when the stranded Enoch recalls images of his home, including the “low moan of the leaden color’d sea" (suggested by the surging G minor scales of the piano’s left hand). Most of the music, however, is designed to accompany portions of the recitation. Here the reciting text is carefully coordinated with the piano accompaniment, and sometimes accented syllables are aligned with the downbeat or the middle of a measure. But since the text is recited rather than sung, the speaker is able to declaim with a natural flexibility of rhythm and accent unavailable to the singer of lieder or of opera.

Each of the three main characters is given a distinct leitmotif when first named, one after another, each in a different key and with a frank naiveté appropriate to their initial childish state.

Annie’s consists of a gently sinuous chromatic turn-figure in G, Philip’s a simple triplet idea in E, and Enoch’s a more energetic, leaping gesture in E-flat with an accented dissonance.

These principal leitmotifs are transformed and developed in the style of modern music drama, even though long stretches of unaccompanied recitation break up the music into small sections.

Philip’s theme sinks and fragments with his “dark hour, unseen" in the woods, but returns to chime the merry wedding bells when Annie, despairing of Enoch’s return, later agrees to become his wife. Enoch’s theme shadows him throughout his wanderings and undergoes the most extensive transformations, as for instance when Annie misinterprets a dream-vision of him “under a palm tree” as signifying that his departed soul has gone to rest among the heavenly host, or later at the opening of Part 2, when he is watching wearily on the shore of his desert island for the sight of a sail. The three main character-motives are all dramatically developed and intertwined at the emotional climax of the poem, when Enoch looks in, silently and unseen, at the domestic idyll of Annie, Philip, and the children gathered about them.

While successful with the public at the time that Strauss wrote it, Enoch Arden fared less well over the years with music critics, who considered it slight and lacking in melodic development. But as the soundtracks of film and television dramas have gained critical respectability, so interest has revived in a performance genre that is not unallied to that of the audiobook. In recent years the work has attracted some notable names both as speakers, including Dietrich FischerDieskau, Michael York, Claude Rains and Patrick Stewart, and as pianists, including Glenn Gould, Emanuel Ax and Marc-André Hamelin.

With acknowledgements to James Pritchett and Thomas Grey.

25

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Sunday 29 April

concert 7

CLASSIC SOUVENIR

Fitters' Workshop

Franz Schubert 1798-1828: Impromptu op. 90 no. 3 in G-flat major (D. 899/3) Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1828: Sonata in G major for violin and piano op. 96 Allegro moderato Adagio espressivo Scherzo: Allegro - Trio Poco allegretto – INTERVAL – Pyotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky 1840-1893: Souvenir de Florence op. 70 Allegro con spirito Adagio cantabile e con moto Allegretto moderato Allegro vivace

6.30pm | 100 mins Keiko Shichijo, fortepiano – Paul McNulty after Conrad Graf opus 318 (Vienna 1819)

Cecilia Bernardini, classical violin Orava Quartet: Daniel Kowalik violin David Dalseno violin Thomas Chawner viola Karol Kowalik cello with

James Wannan viola and

Miles Mullin-Chivers cello

This concert is supported by Koula Notaras and Jenny & Emmanuel Notaras 27

Black keys

I

n 1827 towards the end of his tragically short life, Schubert wrote a series of eight piano pieces that were given the title of ‘impromptu’.

The word hints at a spontaneous improvisatory quality – we can safely assume that several of these pieces would have started as an improvisation by Schubert on the piano – and perhaps follows the lead of J. V. Voříšek, who had published Impromptus five years earlier.

The third impromptu was not published till 1857, and at that time the publisher decided on altering the key to G major as the original seven flats might have been a turn-off for amateurs…

The piece in essence is a song, or a serenade, with a long sustained languid melody played by the right little finger whilst the other fingers spin out a continuous accompaniment. The original G-flat key uses all the black keys and captures a particular sound on the instrument that would have only become possible around that time.

Chopin too captured this tonal quality of the black keys very assertively in his fifth Étude op. 10, and on many other occasions. By the end of the century Debussy and Puccini had turned it into an art form.

Roland Peelman

Beethoven's op. 96

W

ritten in 1812, Beethoven’s Violin Sonata op. 96 comes at the end of a remarkably productive period of activity. He finished the sonata in November after putting the last touches on his Eighth Symphony. The work was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph who played the piano part in the first performance, on December 29. The violin part was written specifically for Pierre Rode, and Beethoven took great care in writing a part that suited Rode’s style. The sonata, in the amiable key of G major (think the Fourth Piano Concerto) is clearly conceived on lyrical rather than overtly dramatic terms.

Shortly before completing the work, Beethoven wrote to the Archduke Rudolph “… I did not make great haste in the last movement for the sake of mere punctuality, the more because, in writing it, I had to consider the playing of Rode. In our finales we like rushing and resounding passages, but this does not please R and – this hinders me somewhat.”

The finale became a set of seven variations on a simple cheerful theme with a witty Adagio-

Presto coda to round it off. But the first three movements too excel in understatement and superbly detailed interplay. Rather than developing a grand duel between piano and violin, as one might describe the Kreutzer Sonata, Beethoven developed a musical dialogue with refined classic gestures, from the opening trill to the laconic presto statement that concludes the work. The challenge for the players is to shape every small element and make it part of a broad unfolding canvas, a vision of ‘Elysium’, the Elysian fields where man can become God and find beauty and truth in equal measure.

Much has been written about the serene ethereal beauty of this canvas, a reflection of Beethoven’s supreme craftsmanship, a growing reputation in Vienna and elsewhere, and his hope for marital bliss. The personal crisis that followed at the end of 1812 slowed down his output considerably and brought home the looming reality of life as a single man, facing the certain loss of hearing.

Roland Peelman

Souvenir de Florence

I

n October 1886, upon being awarded honorary membership of the Saint Petersburg Chamber Music Society, Tchaikovsky made a promise to write some sort of chamber music work. The busy correspondence with his brothers, friends,

28

colleagues and patrons allows an unusually candid insight into the genesis of the new work.

By June 1887 he was jotting down early sketches for a string sextet, with two violins, two violas and two cellos. But, as he writes “….with little

enthusiasm... I'm beginning to fear that I am losing my powers of composition, and becoming angry with myself". Other major projects such as the opera Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) and a trip to US intervened until, in the spring of 1890, he returned to the idea of the string sextet. As he told his brother Modest in June 1890, “I began it three days ago and am writing with difficulty, not for want of new ideas, but because of the novelty of the form. One requires six independent yet homogeneous voices. This is unimaginably difficult". A little later the sextet seemed ready in draft form and he confides to Modest: "At the moment I'm terribly pleased with myself”. Later that summer the full score was completed and sent to St Petersburg for copying. "I will not allow it to be printed or learned by your company, until I have corrected any passages that might prove awkward, bad, or unmusical... You know this is my first attempt to break free from the quartet. What a wonderful thing the sextet is!“ he wrote to Eugen Albrecht, the violinist who would first get to play the piece.

Two days later: “I ask you to be frank about pointing out technical shortcomings”. A private performance in Tchaikovsky's apartment at the Hotel Rossiya in St Petersburg took place at the end of 1890. Sure enough, he then decided to "radically alter the string sextet, which turned out to be astonishingly bad in all respects”. All the revisions were not carried out until January 1892 when, arriving in Paris, he wrote "I now have two free weeks, which I have decided to dedicate to revising my Sextet. I'm looking for somewhere to stay in Paris where I want to try to spend this time incognito.” The sextet was eventually performed in public towards the end of the year, in St Petersburg as well as Moscow.

And such was the connection between Russia and USA in those days that the piece was performed at Carnegie Hall as early as January 1893, in a transcription for string orchestra by Anton Seidl. The work has since enjoyed a very successful double career.

The title of the work ‘Souvenir de Florence’ belies all the trouble and anxiety the work created.

Florence had always been Tchaikovsky's favourite holiday destination. For many of his

Florentine sojourns, Tchaikovsky stayed at a small villa owned by Nadezhda von Meck, the generous benefactress and confidante whom Tchaikovsky, as a condition of their unusual relationship, was never to meet. His last visit to Florence came early in 1890, as he was completing his opera Pique Dame, and the very year he became serious about this chamber piece. The Sextet has come to be known by its artful subtitle, ‘reminiscence of Florence’, and the eventual result gave him much satisfaction: “What a Sextet - and what a fugue at the end it's a pleasure! It is awful how pleased I am with myself; I am embarrassed not by any lack of ideas, but by the novelty of the form."

The opening Allegro con spirito bursts forth full of D minor fervor, contrasting with a serenade-like second theme that one could easily associate with Italian ardour. The coda employs cross-rhythms reminiscent of Dvořák as it builds to heady levels of excitement. The D major Andante Cantabile begins with an opulent chordal introduction to a melancholic theme accompanied by guitar-like figuration. In the central section of the piece, the players are instructed to play a punto d'arco (with the point of the bow). English music critic Colin Mason describes this passage as "an essay in sheer sound effect, without the least musical content whatever, probably unique in the whole realm of [pre-twentieth century] chamber music."

After this unusual episode, the opening theme returns, and we are treated to outpourings of bel canto beauty in the cello. The Scherzo in A minor probably sounds more Russian than Italian, with violas playing in unison to open the Trio section.

The finale is an abridged sonata form and is the movement that gave him so much trouble in writing. The first theme returns to form the basis of the fugue about which Tchaikovsky justifiably boasted to his brother. The work has become such a standard over the last century that the same kind of elevation expressed by the composer at the end of the work is generally shared by players and audience alike. Clearly, this classic souvenir has been worth all the trouble.

Roland Peelman 29

Monday 30 april In association with the National library of Australia

FESTIVAL EXTRA John Bell on words National Library of Australia Theatre 9.30am | 60 mins

Australia’s master of the spoken word interviewed by Genevieve Jacobs

Tickets: $25 John Bell AO OBE Photo: Pierre Toussaint

Monday 30 april – Friday 4 May In association with the National Gallery of Australia

FREE EVENT Sunset National Gallery of Australia James Turrell Skyspace Turrell's magic space reverberates with the tones of German recorder sensation Susanna Borsch.

From Monday to Friday, two short performances each evening at 5:15 and 5:45pm: Ti-Tse (The Flute) (Chinese Folktune) Alrune (1979) by Roland Moser Lillys And Roses – Saddlers Wells – The Bashful Swayne – three tunes from Henry Playford’s Dancing Master, third edition

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Monday 30 April In association with the NATIONAL LIBRARY of australia, the NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY and the HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

concert 8

From the Letter to the Law

National Library of Australia – 11 am: Roger Smalley 1943-2015: Nine Lives (2007)

National Portrait Gallery – ca. 11.30 am: Mary Finsterer b. 1962: Tract for cello solo (1993) Spherica for 2 violins (2008) Ignis for viola d'amore and cello (2017) (WP)

High Court of Australia – ca. 12.00 pm: Martin Wesley-Smith b. 1945: Seven Widows at the Gates of Sugamo (2008) Words by Peter Wesley-Smith Sharon Calcraft b. 1955: Sevenfold Amen (2008) Larry Sitsky b. 1934: Fantasia No 13 - Perpetuum Mobile (2006)

This concert is supported by Andrew Blanckensee, in memory of Anne & Alan Blanckensee, music lovers

National Library of Australia National Portrait Gallery High Court of Australia

11.00am | ca. 90 mins Kate Howden mezzo-soprano Roland Peelman piano James Wannan viola d’amore Christopher Pidcock cello Veronique Serret violin Anna Da Silva Chen violin Seven Harp Ensemble dir. Alice Giles AM: Alice Giles Ingrid Bauer Jacinta Dennett Genevieve Lang Tegan Peemoeller Laura Tanata Esther Wong

WP – world premiere 31

Interview with Mary Finsterer

by Annie Pirotta Canberra has changed so much lately.

What is it like to come back now for you?

I love coming back. There are many aspects about Canberra that are familiar and give it a sort of welcoming feeling. The most beautiful thing about it is the design of the city - it has some grand architecture and it connects well with the natural landscape. Apart from growing up here, I lived here in the early 2000’s in Weetangera.

Behind where we lived was a beautiful reserve.

You're always close to nature in Canberra, and the way in which the city continues to develop is thoughtful and retains that essential beauty.

Of course, it has changed in the years I've been away, but the integrity of the city is still intact.

Tell us a little about your family, how and why they ended up in Canberra?

My father came to Canberra with a group of young Germans. Dad was a cabinet maker and joiner by trade. The building company, AV Jennings recruited them to build facilities for the Snowy Mountain scheme and then in and around Canberra. They became known as the 'Jennings Germans '. My mother, who was originally from Lithgow in NSW, grew up in Sydney. She later moved to Canberra as a nurse to work in the area of obstetrics. She is Australian with IrishEnglish heritage. Her lineage goes back to a convict who was an Irishman. He was sent here for rebelling against the crown. He was one of the forerunners of Fenian movement in Ireland. I have four siblings, two sisters and two brothers.

What was it like to grow up here? The schools?

What was there for young people to do?

I spent all of my childhood in Canberra – born and bred! I went to St Brigid's Primary School in Dickson and Merici College, and had a wonderful time at both. The schools arranged ‘socials’ where they would hire a band and turn the school hall into a dance venue. I recall Merici College hired my brother’s band on a couple of occasions. Back then, young people would benefit from being able to socialise within their school in a casual way. We also arranged our own 32

parties and social gatherings. My mother was very community oriented. She would allow us to have friends over regularly and often we’d have up to 15 friends around all pitching in, cooking pancakes and so on.

Your musical roots?

My mother was my main influence. She was a naturally gifted singer and I have many fond memories of her singing around the house. She also encouraged all her childern to follow their passions and organised for us to do a lot of cocurricular activities. I studied piano and played sport. There was also a strong cultural tradition with German and Irish dancing and this was well supported in Canberra. We were constantly busy. My father also comes from a musical family, but he couldn't learn an instrument as all of the teachers were serving in the military during the war. My older brother lived for music and he was a big influence in my early years. He taught himself the guitar and was in quite a few bands in Canberra before going to Sydney to study at the Conservatorium.

Why and when did you leave Canberra?

In my teenage years, it was a natural progression to venture out into the wider world and seek out opportunities so I moved to Sydney after I had finished Year 12. I worked a lot in hospitality and other odd jobs. This experience made me appreciative of the general routines of life. I believe that if you can approach the humblest of tasks with a sense of wanting to do your best, it prepares you for those projects you feel privileged to be a part of. It's important for me to approach my work with equal dedication to all things. It's how you deal with those less significant things that gives you grounding.

Your connection with Holland has been very strong for a long time. Why is that? You have never sounded like a Dutch composer (whatever that means!).

I first went to Holland in 1991 and have developed a strong association with it since that time. It

feels like a second home to me, and I always feel like I'm welcomed there, as if I'm a local. In terms of musical style, I never really thought about who I should sound like, and I've never tried to sound like somebody either. I think that my style is perhaps a synthesis of the diverse background I have both culturally and in terms of life experience. A person growing up in Holland has

Mary Finsterer

a completely different experience to me, so it stands to reason that I write with a different style and sound. There are elements in my music that derive from a Dutch influence, but I know that I don't sound like a Dutch composer and I don't think that I should.

How do you perceive your musical evolution?

I think having that diversity of music appreciation from a young age really helped me to embrace and allow myself to be influenced by other traditions. From an early age I listened to a diversity of styles and genres, from country, rock and roll, jazz to classical. In terms of composition from an academic point of view, my earliest influence was from a modernist aesthetic. When I was studying, I was very interested in how I could develop systems and methodologies. Modernism played a central role in that, and still does. But I can’t ignore early musical experiences. Hopefully in one's life, there is opportunity to develop and learn about other systems, traditions, styles and genres, and integrate them into a form that sounds like your own voice. That's what I've done, and I think

it's fair to say that to embrace all the different cultures and influences we have available to us is quintessentially Australian. Over the last ten years or so, my work has been increasingly influenced by early music as I've always loved it.

I guess the most prominent example of that was my opera, Biographica.

Photo: William Hall

Your opera Biographica premiered last year at the Sydney Festival after a long gestation period. Would you consider another opera?

I've already started drafting ideas for the next opera. I'm really excited about it. I'm particularly looking forward to working once again with Tom Wright, who was the librettist for Biographica.

Tom is a great collaborator and having great people to work with is just as inspiring as the music.

What is it that inspires you, or gives you a hook into the next work?

I'm always inspired by different things.

Sometimes it's a gesture, sometimes it's a musical idea. I also love to chat with Dean about ideas, as being an artist, he always has an interesting perspective. Stories are also very important to me and increasingly so throughout my current writings. I rediscovered a love of stories from reading to my children when they were little, they've enabled me to reconnect with that inspiration and it has given me plenty to do over the coming years.

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Roger Smalley: Nine Lives Born in England, Roger Smalley first arrived on Australian shores in the 1970s, directly from the highly pressured surroundings of the Stockhausen household and the European modernist circles. After a few visits, Australia became home, and it is in Perth, the most isolated city in the world, that he reconnected with the icons of the Western canon, including cats. His output of solo music, chamber

music and orchestral work stands out in its unwavering commitment to compositional craft, instrumental polish and formal scrutiny.

This expertly written cycle from the end of his creative life offers terrific opportunities for good singers who love furry pets with attitude. Smalley passed away in 2015 but would have turned 75 this year.

Roland Peelman

Martin Wesley-Smith: Seven Widows at the Gates of Sugamo t the conclusion of the Pacific War, the of planning and waging aggressive war. Seven various allies brought proceedings against of these defendants, including Prime Minister Japanese suspected of war crimes. Many trials Hideki Tojo, were found guilty, and were executed were held in Asia for offences against the laws on 23 December 1948 at Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. and usages of war, with nearly 1,000 soldiers In this piece the seven widows bewail the fate of and camp guards being sentenced to death. their husbands; Katsuko Ito hears the voice of The international military tribunal which sat in her husband Tojo from beyond the grave , as he Tokyo 1946-48 tried twenty-five men accused replies in anger and sorrow.Â

A

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Sharon Calcraft: Sevenfold Amen

S

haron Calcraft writes: "Sevenfold Amen flashed into reality as a fleeting auditory image of cicadas singing their particular deafening and dance-like summer song. I also recalled a line from African-American poet Maxine Clair: ‘And choirs of cicada droned a fugue of The Seven-fold Amen’. Somewhere in all this there is also St John the Revelator (the traditional author of the Book of Revelations), exiled on Patmos and writing the letters to the Seven Churches in Asia. The deeper register of

the harp is of particular interest to me and has a similar effect on my being as the sound of the theorbo.”

Calcraft has sustained a strong interest in the harp from the time of her first illuminating encounter with the playing of jazz harpist Alice Coltrane, to her present working relationship with Alice Giles, and she is able to bring out more of the instrument than is often heard.

Larry Sitsky: Fantasia No 13 - Perpetuum Mobile

T

he Fantasia No 13 - Perpetuum Mobile was one of the first works commissioned for the SHE. It was first performed on their inaugural concert tour to the American Harp Society Conference in San Francisco. Sitsky utilises the unique harmonic and acoustic possibilities

available with seven harps - both through moving the sounds back and forth across the ensemble, and also by using different pedal settings or scales for each instrument, culminating in a virtual tsunami of sound.

FRENCH TERM

2

COURSES

A sweet taste of France

30 April - 7 July 2018 Young learners & adults

!

New

Class with a glass Apéro Sport Get more info and sign up on afcanberra.com.au ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE DE CANBERRA - 66 McCaughey Street - TURNER ACT 2612

Te l : 0 2 6 2 5 7 6 6 9 6 - e n q u i r i e s @ a fca n b e r ra . co n . a u

Monday 30 april In association with the ANU School of Music

festival extra TALK OF THE TOWN - the pianists ANU School of Music Larry Sitsky Room 4.00pm | 60 mins

Internationally renowned Australian pianist Roger Woodward works with two young piano students.

With support from the Theme & Variations Foundation

TICKETS $10

Friday 18 May Back by popular demand, a night of teasing trivia, tasty treats and baroque brilliance.

Will your table win?

Handel’s Susanna

1-2 September Canberra Playhouse

Directed by Caroline Stacey Featuring Tobias Cole

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Join our mailing list for details: www.handelinthetheatre.com.au/subscribe

Monday 30 April Barlens presents

concert 9

ISRAEL IN EGYPT

Fitters' Workshop

George Frideric Handel 1685-1756: Israel in Egypt HWV 54 Oratorio in two parts (1756 version) Libretto by Charles Jennens based on the Book of Exodus Part I: Exodus Recit. - Tenor: Now there a rose a new King Solo - Alto: And the children of Israel sighed Double Chorus: And their cry came up unto God Recit. - Tenor: Then sent he Moses Chorus: They loathed to drink of the river Air - Alto: Their land brought forth frogs Double Chorus: He spake the word Double Chorus: He gave them hailstones Chorus: He sent a thick darkness Chorus: He smote all the first-born of Egypt Chorus: But for his people Chorus: Egypt was glad Double Chorus: He rebuked the Red Sea Chorus: He led them through the deep Chorus: But the waters overwhelmed Double Chorus: And Israel saw that great work Chorus: And believed the Lord – INTERVAL – This concert is supported by Peronelle & Jim Windeyer

6.30pm | 120 mins Bach Akademie Australia with Cecilia Bernadini violin Coro Luminescence Chamber Singers with Dan Walker tenor Kompactus Youth Choir Susannah Lawergren soprano Chloe Lankshear soprano Tobias Cole alto Richard Butler tenor Andrew Fysh oam bass Andrew O’Connor bass Daniel Yeadon baroque cello Neal Peres Da Costa harpsichord and organ dir.

Roland Peelman

Neal Peres Da Costa and Daniel Yeadon appear courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music 37

Part II: Moses' Song Double Chorus: Moses and the children of Israel Double Chorus: I will sing unto the Lord Duet - Two Sopranos: The Lord is my strength Double Chorus: He is my God Chorus: And I will exalt Hlm Duet - Two Basses: The Lord is a man of war Double Chorus: The depths have covered them Double Chorus: Thy right hand, O Lord Double Chorus: And in the greatness Double Chorus: Thou sentest forth Thy wrath Chorus: And with the blast of Thy nostrils Air - Tenor: The enemy said Air - Soprano: Thou didst blow Double Chorus: Who is like unto Thee Double Chorus: The earth swallow'd them Duet - Alto and Tenor: Thou in Thy mercy Double Chorus: The people shall hear Air - Alto: Thou shalt bring them in Double Chorus: The Lord shall reign Reclt. - Tenor: For the horse of Pharaoh Double Chorus: The Lord shall reign Recit. - Tenor: And Miriam, the Prophetess Solo Soprano and Double Chorus: Sing ye to the Lord A musical Exodus

T

he return of the people of Israel to their homeland as told in the book of Exodus was the starting point for Handel’s 1738 oratorio, first performed on April 4, 1739. Israel in Egypt recounts the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt, the advent of Moses the liberator, the plagues visited on the Egyptians (frogs, flies, hail, darkness – grand opportunities for word painting), the crossing of the Red Sea (or was it the Sea of Reeds?), and a suitably exuberant song of praise.

Adding to Exodus a few passages from Psalms 105 and 106, Charles Jennens provided Handel with a libretto that in a different era might well be called sensationalist, but which at that point in history appealed to those who had never felt comfortable with the aristocratic taste for all things Italian, to those of the Jewish faith (about 6,000 in London at that time), and to

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those who particularly enjoyed the choral style of these oratorios. Israel in Egypt is unique in its abundance of music for the chorus: no less than twenty-six out of thiry-nine numbers, eighteen of them scored for double chorus. For the soloists, in contrast, there only four recitatives, five arias, and three duets – Messiah has a much higher ratio of solo numbers. The reason is simple: the real protagonist in this work is not Moses, but the people of Israel. Written in the same year as John Wesley’s ‘conversion’, the work captures both the theatrical operatic grandeur of the subject, some 200 years before Hollywood’s celluloid reinvention, and the pietist/evangelical movements on the rise within Protestantism at that time. This above all is what makes the work stand out: the story and shared fate of a people, their destiny and their collective breaking of the

contrasted with more reflective duets and arias.

While Moses and Miriam are mentioned in the text, the oratorio lacks a conventional plot and any clearly defined individual characters. The work’s momentum is derived from the music alone, composed (i.e. ‘put together’) during On all accounts, Israel in Egypt should have the month of October 1738. Handel made use been a tear-away success. The reception, of every choral trick in his repertory – fugues; however, was tepid. The lack of virtuoso arias cantus firmus themes with moving counterwas considered the main issue and almost melodies; antiphonal double choirs; thunderous immediately Handel started tweaking its choral homophony, structure, adding and more. It should more solo music also be noted that in the process. he borrowed an Not until amateur unprecedented choruses started amount of material, growing in number both from his own in the 19th century compositions did the work gain and from other popularity. One of composers such the earliest existing as Alessandro recordings of the Stradella, Johann piece took place Caspar Kerl and W.M. Turner: The Fifth Plague of Egypt in the Crystal Palace Don Dionigi Erba. in London on June 29, 1888. The 4,000-voice But his skill and imagination in the process of chorus was recorded from 100 feet away, and the adaption or re-imagination always wins out. sound of the wax-cylinder recording has greatly Who would suspect that the double chorus 'He degraded, but the boldness and sheer scale of gave them hailstones', with its vivid depiction of the undertaking gives us some idea of what the pelting hail and running fire, was once a sinfonia piece eventually meant to so many people. In and bass aria from Stradella’s Serenata? The Handel’s lifetime an oratorio would have been word painting is wonderfully effective in all performed by a modest group of singers with an the plagues, beginning with the eerie, jagged equally modestly sized orchestra. For tonight’s chromatic lines of 'They loathed to drink', and performance we have brought together some 32 it is hard not to smile during the leaping violin choristers – the Fitters’ Workshop is not exactly lines that mimic the frogs in 'Their land brought forth frogs'. 'There came all manner of flies' the Crystal Palace! provides perfect buzzing contrast with the Part One starts with the Israelites’ bondage in monolithic 'He spake the word'. The relatively Egypt, followed by descriptions of the plagues simple but powerful choral recitative 'He that persuade the Pharaoh to let the Israelites sent a thick darkness' calls forth the image of go. Eventually, the Israelites are led out of Egypt, dark clouds, settling down on the land. Other only to be pursued by the Egyptian army shortly examples occur in the fading lines predicting the thereafter. This Part culminates in the parting 'melting away' of 'all the inhabitants of Canaan' of the Red Sea, the destruction of the Egyptian in 'The people shall hear'. But it is probably the army, and the Israelites’ acknowledgment of the infectious galloping rhythms of 'the horse and his rider' in the opening and closing portions of power of their God. Part Two that will linger most in the listener’s ear, Part Two is essentially an extended celebration long after the oratorio has ended. of the victory described in Part One, through a sequence of large choral compositions Roland Peelman shackles made possible by a common belief in God’s grace. Without the religious overtones, it could be read as a blueprint for the abolitionist movement or even the burgeoning union movement of the 19th century.

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Tuesday 1 May In association with the Australian War Memorial

concert 10

requiem

Peter Sculthorpe 1929-2014: Introit and Kyrie from Requiem for cello solo (2004) Samuel Barber 1910-1981 Adagio for Strings (1936) Eleanor Daley b. 1955: 'In Flanders Fields’ on words by John McCrae (1915) Maurice Ravel 1875-1937: Three Birds of Paradise (1915) Gordon Hamilton b. 1982: Dark Hour on words by Billy Hughes (1916) William Barton b. 1981: Improvisation Peter Sculthorpe: Qui Mariam and Lacrimosa from Requiem for cello solo Frederick Septimus Kelly 1881-1916: Elegy in Memoriam Rupert Brooke (1915) arr. for string quintet by Richard Divall

Australian War Memorial 10.00am | 55 mins 11.30am | 55 mins William Barton didgeridoo Miles Mullin-Chivers cello solo Orava Quartet: Daniel Kowalik violin David Dalseno violin Thomas Chawner viola Karol Kowalik cello Pietra Quartet Anna Da Silva Chen violin Benjamin Tjoa violin Justin Julian viola Miles Mullin-Chivers cello Peter Clark violin Jessica Oddie violin

Peter Sculthorpe: Libera me and Lux Aeterna from Requiem for cello solo

Veronique Serret violin

Edward Elgar 1857-1934 arr. John Cameron: Lux Aeterna

Christopher Pidcock cello

James Wannan viola Jacqueline Dossor double bass Luminescence Chamber Singers with Dan Walker tenor 41

Requiem

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eter Sculthorpe’s Requiem of 2004 is one of the major achievements of his later years. It has somewhat obscured an earlier work from 1979 also called Requiem, but scored ‘for cello alone’ and directly inspired by the Gregorian chant from the catholic liturgy. The cello work covers the main components of a Requiem Mass with the addition of two Marian movements and explores the full range of what is possible on the cello, lower string tuned down a full tone (scordatura). In today’s event, the six movements frame a number of works from countries involved in World War I. The Australian F.S. Kelly, gifted sportsman as well as a talented musician, forged a friendship with the English poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) from the moment they enlisted in 1914 in the Hood Battalion. On their way to the Dardanelles, the young poet tragically died of an infection.

It was 23 April 1915, barely two days before the landings on what became Anzac Day. Kelly was

deeply moved and almost immediately started sketching an Elegy for strings. He took part in the burial on the island of Skryos before serving at Gallipoli. Recovering from injuries in Alexandria gave him a chance to complete the piece. By the end of 1916 Kelly himself had become a casualty of war, shot in the head as he served in one of the battles on the Somme.

The terrible losses on the Western battlefield between 22 April and 25 May 1915 are immortalised in a simple poem by the Canadian John McCrae. 'In Flanders Fields', was written on May 3 1915 by McCrae, an army doctor and artillery commander, after burying a fellow soldier who had died in the second battle of Ypres. McCrae himself did not survive the war.

He succumbed to pneumonia in 1918. His 1915 poem, musically set by a fellow Canadian, has become a potent symbol of the lives lost in Flanders’ fields.

Peter Sculthorpe

John McCrae

FS Kelly

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In the same year 1915 Frenchman Maurice Ravel, aged 39 and having failed the military service test twice because of his diminutive stature, was finally accepted as a truck-driver. The experience was short-lived but his touching song about three birds of paradise lives on. Written after the departure of his close friend Roland-Manuel to the trenches, it takes the form of a folksong, or perhaps a love song patriotically disguised - each bird representing a colour of the French flag.

The Welsh-Australian Billy Hughes, a strong patriot and Australia’s war-time Prime Minister stayed closely in touch with the British upper command during the Great War. Reflecting on the Australian experience at Gallipoli the previous year, he allowed himself some off-the-cuff remarks at London’s Savoy Hotel in March 1916.

This is what he said: “In the dark hour when night is yielding doggedly to

day, these young soldiers went out to die. As the blast of the whistle sounded, the first wave leapt from the trench. But nearly all fell back upon their fellows waiting their turn. None got more than a few yards, a hail of death into their poor bleeding bodies.”

Two works, one by an Englishman and the other by an American, do not relate directly with World War I, but their iconic status has been long associated with unspeakable loss and sadness. Samuel Barber’s Adagio was written in 1936 as part of a String Quartet, his opus 11. Ever since Toscanini performed it with a full string orchestra, the work has taken on a life of its own. Elgar’s equally famous Nimrod variation from the 1898/99 Enigma Variations has long been appropriated for British funerals and memorials. Every year it is played at the Cenotaph, Whitehall in London on Remembrance Sunday.

Maurice Ravel

Roland Peelman

Samuel Barber

Billy Hughes

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Tuesday 1 May Supported by the Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres

festival extra TALK OF THE TOWN - STRING QUARTETS Gorman Arts Centre - Main Hall 55 Ainslie Avenue, Braddon 2.00pm | 60 mins Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centre Director Joseph Falsone in conversation with the Orava and Pietra String Quartets Two home-grown Australian quartets: Orava Quartet reflecting on their first ten years share stories with the freshly-minted Pietra Quartet.

TICKETS $10

Join us in Murrumbateman, the heart of Canberra’s wine district — Shaw Vineyard Estate offers a relaxing escape amongst the vines.

NEW CELLAR DOOR OPEN SOON!

Visit our impressive Cellar Door and sample the Estate range of wines whilst browsing an exquisite gallery of hand painted ceramics, exclusively sourced from Italy.

Wednesday to Sunday 10am–5pm

PREMIUM COOL CLIMATE WINES 44

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Tuesday 1 May THEME AND VARIATIONS PIANO SERVICES present

concert 11

Roger Woodward II

Fitters' Workshop

Claude Debussy 1862-1918: Suite bergamasque L 75 Prélude Menuet Clair de lune Passepied

6.30pm | 95 mins Roger Woodward AC OBE piano

L’isle joyeuse L 106 Frédéric Chopin 1810-1849: Ballade no. 4 in F minor, op. 52 – INTERVAL – Frédéric Chopin: Études op. 25 No. 1 in A-flat major No. 2 in F minor No. 3 in F major No. 4 in A minor No. 5 in E minor No. 6 in G-sharp minor

No. 7 in C-sharp minor No. 8 in D-flat major No. 9 in G-flat major No. 10 in B minor No. 11 in A minor No. 12 in C minor

This concert is supported by dianne & Brian anderson 45

Debussy at the piano In late 1913, the French composer Debussy sat down at a contraption called a ‘Welte-Mignon reproducing piano’ and recorded 14 of his own piano pieces for posterity. The machine was designed to encode the nuances of the player, including pedaling and dynamics, which could then be reproduced onto piano rolls. By all accounts, Debussy was delighted with the result.

The piano always was Debussy’s natural home, serving as a direct pathway to playing music at first. Soon enough the instrument became a fertile sounding board for harmonic experimentation which led to a number of works that redefined the sound and repertoire of the instrument. As Debussy put it later in life, his piano oeuvre deserved to find a place somewhere “to the left of Schumann and to the right of Chopin”. Studiously avoiding anything resembling ‘Sonata’, his most prominent works such as Images and Estampes ("Prints") do use the tri-partite form, whereas the two books of Votre âme est un paysage choisi Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

By the time the Suite was published (1905), Debussy had established his signature style, a formidable international standing as a composer and a reputation as a home-wrecker. L’isle joyeuse from 1904 is a stand-alone number inspired by Watteau’s painting L’Embarquement de Cythère, in which a happy group of revellers depart for/from the mythical island of Cythera in the Mediterranean, birthplace of Venus, the goddess of love. The ‘happy isle’ also refers however to the Channel Island of Jersey where Debussy escaped to in 1904 with the wife of a well known banker, Emma Bardac. It created serious scandal in the Paris upper classes, but Emma became his second wife, gave him a daughter and much needed solace in the last years of his life . The famous pianist Marguerite Long studied L’isle joyeuse with Debussy and quoted him as saying of the start of the piece, 46

Préludes and the late Etudes are classic 12 part constructions in the Bach-Chopin tradition.

Chopin because the Polish master had left his footprints in Paris (as well as several students, one of them being Marie Vauté de Fleurville, Debussy’s first proper piano teacher). Bach because Chopin’s legacy of 24 Preludes and 24 Etudes had been prompted by a steady diet of Bach in his native Poland.

The earliest Debussy work in the two Woodward recitals is the Suite Bergamasque, written in 1890 at the age of 28, but left unpublished till fifteen years later. The suite's title and its most famous movement are both related to poems

by Paul Verlaine. Originally entitled Promenade sentimentale, after another poem by Verlaine, Debussy had many doubts about the piece but much nudging from his publisher resulted in the change of title to Clair de Lune and its eventual release as part of the Suite Bergamasque, a name drawn from the same poem: Your soul is a chosen land crossed by wand’ring minstrels playing lute and dancing, yet almost sad underneath their fancy disguises.

a frantic trill like a siren to call everyone on or off board, ‘C’est un appel’. The piece could be described as a wild boat ride to the island, or as an even wilder escapade onto the island of love, with minstrels, dancers and cupids swept up in the general revelry. Suffice it to say that the piece is one of Debussy’s most exuberantly virtuosic piano works.

The trio of compositions titled Estampes or Prints dates from 1903 and combines three contrasting sound pictures. In the text of the first piece, 'Pagodes' Debussy marked that it should be played "almost without nuance", as if by an innocent bystander immersed in the bell sounds of the Javanese gamelan. 'La soirée dans Grenade ' evokes Moorish Spain as a languid dance in the Habanera rhythm interwoven with a seductive Moorish arabesques. The Spanish composer Manuel de Falla commented that "not even one measure of this music is borrowed from

Spanish folklore, yet the entire composition in its most minute detail, conveys Spain admirably".

'Jardins sous la pluie ' describes a garden in the town of Orbec (Normandy) during a violent rainstorm. Two French folk melodies pop up amidst the clatter of the rain: 'Nous n'irons plus aux bois' and 'Dodo, l'enfant do '.

The two volumes of Images (not to be confused with the Images for orchestra) represent "the most recent discoveries of harmonic chemistry"

The second cycle of Images stems from the end of 1907 and was published at the beginning of the next year. Apart from a singular innovation, the notation of the highly differentiated piano part on three staves, its language deepens the chemistry of the first cycle. ‘Cloches à travers les feuilles ’ is a study in the mixing of sonorities, whereas ‘Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut ’ conjures up far-off India as well as China; the third movement was inspired by a Japanese lacquer painting of goldfish in his workroom. The

Claude Debussy at the piano

in the composer’s own words. This was no idly hyperbolic claim. Behind the flashing arpeggios and shimmering chordal progressions the music loses its focus, much as one's eyes seem to dilate after gazing intently at an object for any length of time. It is an ingenious agglomeration of whole-tone progressions and endlessly varied pentatonic and chromatic figurations. While the most sonorous climaxes of 'Reflets' mirror the powerful sea music of his orchestral output (La Mer most notably), the highly impressionistic nature of the coda, with its pattern of three descending notes is one of the most memorable and musically effective the composer ever attained. The second piece honours Rameau in the form of a slow, purposeful Sarabande, a sombre processional tread in triadic chords albeit written entirely in Debussy’s own idiom.

The final section, 'Mouvement', is a keyboard toccata, a kind of continuous vibration that allows for some miraculous sound effects.

dedicatee of the third movement, Ricardo Viñes, gave the first performance of the cycle.

The above-mentioned Marguerite Long along with Viñes represent the first generation of pianists who championed this new repertoire.

Alfred Cortot and Walter Gieseking became great exponents of the Debussy sound by the middle of the century and these days we have benchmark interpretations by BenedettiMichelangeli, Aimard, Collard and many others to cherish, including Roger Woodward who instinctively understood the modernity of Debussy’s sound structures and captures the unique chemistry of the writing.

By the time Debussy made his piano roll recordings, he was 52 years old, and suffering from cancer. The deprivations of war and the enduring physical discomfort made his last years difficult yet strangely productive. He died less than five years later, on March 25, 1918.

Roland Peelman 47

wednesday 2 May In association with the NATIONAL ARBORETUM CANBERRA and the ANU SCHOOL OF MUSIC

festival extra A MUSICAL CONSTITUTIONAL AT THE ARBORETUM National Arboretum Starting from the Margaret Whitlam Pavilion 8.30am | 120 mins After the bushfires of 2001 and 2003, a large Arboretum was constructed and planted across the affected area.

Currently The National Arboretum Canberra features 94 forests of different types of rare, endangered and symbolic trees from around Australia and the world. Two forests are nearly one hundred years old. The site offers spectacular views over Canberra, a magnificent Bonsai collection, award-winning infrastructure, and above all trees. In the National Arboretum we can see the forests grow.

This musical walk is art of the Arboretum’s Tree Week.

Dairy Farmer’s Hill, ca 8.50am Alex Raupach b. 1989: ‘On the pulse of morning’ for trumpet solo (WP) inspired by the poem by Maya Angelo Alex Raupach, trumpet Bonsai Garden: Improvisations by Ned McGowan Ned McGowan, flute and contrabass flute Gallery of Gardens: Especially devised installations and performances Students from ANU School of Music directed by Dr Kim Cunio Dapper's Delight Margaret Whitlam Pavillion: Joseph Haydn 1732-1809: Allegretto from String Quartet op. 76 no. 6 Anton Webern 1883-1945: Langsamer Satz Ned McGowan b. 1970: Hymn Pietra Quartet Followed by morning tea TICKETS $55

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wednesday 2 May In association with Canberra Glassworks

concert 12

Glass games

Eugene Ysaÿe 1858-1931: Sonata for violin solo op. 27 no. 2 'Jacques Thibaud' Obsession – Prelude: Poco vivace Malinconia – Poco lento Danse des ombres – Sarabande (Lento) Les Furies – Allegro furioso Roger Smalley: Landscape with Figures for bassoon solo Igor Stravinsky 1882-1971 Three pieces for clarinet solo Ned McGowan b. 1970: Workshop for alto recorder and electronics

Canberra Glassworks 12.00pm | 90 mins Claire Edwardes vibraphone Susanna Borsch recorder James Wannan viola Anna Da Silva Chen violin Ned McGowan flute Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet Ben Hoadley bassoon Fletcher Cox trumpet

Giacinto Scelsi 1905-1988 Two pieces for Trumpet (1956) Kate Moore b. 1979: Spel (Game) for vibraphone solo Benjamin Drury b. 1994: Stained Glass for vibraphone and electronics (WP) Commissioned by Arn Sprogis and Margot Woods Luciano Berio 1925-2003: Naturale for viola, percussion and tape This concert is supported by Anonymous

WP – world premiere 49

Glass Games The ancient art of glass blowing has found a welcome contemporary home in Canberra Glassworks. This concert aims to give a playful commentary on the art of glass and the building itself. Essentially it is a sequence of solo works for different instruments, exposing the nooks and crannies of the old Powerhouse building and showcasing the sonorities of the instruments in this most special space.

After hearing a memorable performance of Bach’s solo Sonata in G minor by Joseph Szigeti, the Belgian violinist/composer Eugène Ysaÿe sketched out no less than Six Sonatas in a fevered twenty-four hours during the summer of 1923. He decided to name each Sonata after one of his peers and appropriate their playing style in each piece. Jacques Thibaud, known for his elegance and sweet tone, became the dedicatee and subject of the second Sonata.

Ysaÿe had mentored the young French violinist for years and knew him well - too well perhaps!

‘Obsession’ is a reference to Thibaud’s regular warm-up sessions with the Bach’s E Major Preludio that starts the work and is quoted repeatedly. It is followed immediately with a passage marked ‘brutalement’, about the last thing Thibaud was inclined to. The movement is notable for its absence of multiple stopping, its closeness to the figurations of J S Bach and the introduction of the plainsong ‘Dies irae’. This well-known hint to hell and all its fury continues to provide the material for the following movements—maybe another private joke? except for Malinconia, cast in the mould of a sicilienne, and no doubt designed to show off Thibaud’s delicate tone.

Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet solo were written shortly after the Soldier’s Tale Suite in 1919. By this stage the composer had developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhard, a keen amateur clarinettist. The three short pieces, a gesture of thanks as much as a study in restraint and musical concentration, use both the A and Bb clarinet. The first two exemplify Stravinsky’s Russian manner whereas the last one resembles the ragtime music in Soldier’s Tale.

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Landscape with Figures, Roger Smalley’s work for solo bassoon from 1992 was the start of an extended investigation of the bassoon leading to a mini concerto (Figures in a Landscape) followed by a contrabassoon concerto in the ensuing years. The solo piece was inspired by Smalley’s memory of a scene in Antonioni's film Blow-Up in which a fashion photographer (played by David Hemmings) enters a London park at dusk and strolls between an avenue of trees, observing and photographing the various everyday events that take place around him.

The isolated staccato notes represent this line of trees interrupted by a sequence of tiny musical "scenes" - first a brief rapid outburst, then a sustained legato melody, a scurrying scale section and a lilting waltz. The excursions become more prolonged, culminating in the highest register of the bassoon. When the music comes to a final halt an extended coda references the final title in Schumann's Kinderscenen: "The Poet Speaks".

In the aftermath of WWII, Luciano Berio became one of the trailblazers of European modernism. His investigations in serial and post-serial music were balanced with a healthy appetite for ‘other’ music, be it jazz, pop or folk music, encouraged by his first wife the singer Cathy Berberian. For her he wrote Folksongs in 1964 and even after their split, several works of his incorporate the raw unstudied utterance of folk song. Naturale written for viola solo with the backing of percussion and a tape part is a remarkable compositional feat, a curious hybrid and a fascinating reflection on what we might call ‘natural’. The tape consists of raw field recordings of Peppino Celano, from Palermo in Sicily, singing the complex abbagnate or street vendor cries of the region. The viola and percussion material itself is derived from folk song material the composer used for Voci (Folksongs II).

In an interview with musicologist David Osmond-Smith, Berio discussed his thoughts on juxtaposing two media of folk origins: “I’m not an ethnomusicologist, just a pragmatic egoist. I tend to be interested only in those folk

techniques and means of expression that I can in one way or other assimilate without a stylistic break, and that allow me to make a few steps forward in the search for a unity underlying musical worlds that are apparently alien to one another.”

Giacinto Scelsi, the other Italian represented here, could be described as ‘alien’, one of the most enigmatic and reclusive figures in 20th‑ century music. Largely unknown during his lifetime, his alternative to the Western modernist canon embraced music of the East and textural idiosyncracy as we encounter it in folk music or improvised music. His best known work is ‘Four pieces on a single note’ used in Martin Scorcese’s Shutter Island. The four pieces for trumpet from 1956 certainly use more than one note, but its material is concentrated, earthy and otherworldly at once.

Kate Moore was composer-in-residence at the Festival here in 2015. Her Betty Beaver commissioned work The Dam went on to earn her the Matthijs Vermeulen Prijs, the most coveted composition prize in the Netherlands two years later. She is currently the recipient of the National Trust Gallop House Residence in

Perth. The vibraphone solo Spel is an extract from Coral Speak, a cycle composed in 2016.

‘Spel’ means ‘game’ in Dutch, whereas only one letter more turns it into magic.

Commissioned by Arn Sprogis and Margot Woods for this year’s festival, the new work

by Ben Drury Stained Glass also features the vibraphone against electronically manipulated sounds, using samples of glasses found in the composer's mother’s kitchen. The work is a direct reference to the sound and perception of glass as something inherently pure and the long tradition of changing glass in order to conjure new effects or transform a space visually.

The American composer/flautist Ned McGowan has an equally strong connection with the Netherlands, living in Amsterdam since his student days in the 90s. Alex Ross (The Rest is Noise) commented on McGowan’s music: “If you are having a slow day, his samples will wake you right up.” The industrial sounds incorporated in Workshop are a reminder of the history of this building as a Powerhouse and the mechanics of traditional machinery against the nimble human skills required to manage them.

Roland Peelman

Canberra Glassworks ( Lannon Harley)

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wednesday 2 May

concert 13

ulysses now

G.G. Kapsberger ca 1580-1651: 'Sfessania' and 'Passacaglia' Claudio Monteverdi 1567-1643: Scenes from Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria SV 325 (1640) Prologo Act I scene 1: Penelope’s Lament – ‘Di misera regina’ Act I scene 5: Neptune at sea – ‘Superbo è l’huom’ Act I scene 6: Chorus of Phæacians Act II scene 5: ‘Non voglio amar’ – INTERVAL – Alex Pozniak b. 1982: In Search of Asylum for piano quartet (2014)

Fitters' Workshop 6.30pm | 100 mins I Bassifondi Kate Howden mezzo-soprano Andrew Fysh oam bass Tobias Cole countertenor Dan Walker tenor Chloe Lankshear soprano Wynton Johnstone treble AJ America mezzo-soprano Luminescence Chamber Singers Cecilia Bernardini baroque violin

Mary Finsterer b. 1962: Angelus for clarinet, cello and piano (2015)

Stephen Freeman viola da braccio

Robert Davidson b. 1965 and Stephanie Arnold b. 1986,: Across the Water (2016)

James Wannan viola

Veronique Serret violin Christopher Pidcock cello Susanna Borsch recorder Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet Stephanie Arnold cello Rachael Shipard piano Roland Peelman piano, harpsichord

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Ulysses: from Homer to Monteverdi Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years, So you are old by the time you reach the island, Wealthy with all you have gained on the way, Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933), from the poem Ithaka (1911)

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thaka is the central place of action in Monteverdi’s Venetian opera Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria from the late 1630s. Long before Cavafy wrote his Ithaka poem, Ulysses’ place of origin and place of destiny was immortalized

by Homer as a symbol of marital faithfulness and as a mythical pole of attraction, the thing we call ‘home’. Penelope keeping the home fires burning whilst knitting prodigiously and steadfastly rejecting a long list of suitors, may not be the central idea in Homer’s epic, but in Monteverdi’s opera she became the chief protagonist. Her counterpart Ulysses is the warrior who, having spent ten long years in the siege of Troy, securing victory after treachery, butchery and debauchery – the things men do in war – then takes just as many years to find his way back home. The Gods are not kind to him, and as befits the Olympian household, change their minds frequently about the poor man’s punishment or reward. The obstacles are fierce, the adventures and temptations equally daunting, but his return to the island, aided by his grown-up son and not without some additional scheming, is inevitable.

Homer’s tale covers all of the latter, the sack of Troy, the escape, and Ulysses’ chequered journey home with distractions and calamities a plenty on the way, only to find his palace swarming with men upon his arrival. Monteverdi’s opera concentrates on the homecoming and the subsequent struggle to prove his true identity and reassert his authority, but not before painting Penelope centre-stage and transforming the epic about a man on a difficult journey into a grand parable of marital love.

First staged during the 1639–40 Venice carnival by the theatrical company of Manelli and Ferrari, the work received a Bologna season before being revived in Venice the next year. There is evidence that the work may have become one of the most popular operas in the 17th century before disappearing into obscurity. What remains of the original score has not been without controversy. How much is missing? How to orchestrate it? How to cast it? A multitude of characters (anything from Gods to mortals and much in between) can be reduced to 14 singers with multiple doublings, and the ‘open’ score offers as much scope for extension as for reduction. Every single production of the piece since the early 20th century has made different decisions. In tonight’s performance, using a modest ensemble of period instruments, we concentrate on a few highlights, including the remarkable Prologue, Penelope’s impassioned solo moments, Neptune’s rants, and one palace scene with the suitors.

Opera was a novel affair in the early 17th century, but its meteoric rise in popularity is due in no small measure to the wealth of the Northern Italian city states, and a growing mercantile class with a taste for entertainment. Opera brought the great stories of the past alive in the form of elaborate spectacle, complete with music, dance, design and theatre tricks. It is easy to see how the Ulysses story could provide all of the above in spades. The work starts with an extended allegory featuring Time as an old man, Man himself in his most vulnerable state (L' Umana Fragilità), at the mercy of fickle Lady Luck (Fortuna) and young mindless warrior Cupid always ready to strike (Amor). By the time 53

a woman of flesh and blood, Penelope, makes her entrance emboldened by responsibility and nurtured by love, we understand her plight and through her, the plight of Ulysses. ‘Di misera regina’ is a most private and tortured moment of a woman in power, with music to match, a dramatic recitative that wanders in and out of ‘song’ following her state of mind. In comparison, Neptune’s scene ‘Superbo è l´uom’ ('Isn’t man great?') is hollow bluster. One of several moments in the opera that feature this most antagonistic of gods, Neptune’s virtuosic bass tirade paints the boiling of his blood as much as that of the seas. Most of the ensemble scenes in the opera feature three voices, whether they be Phaeacians or Gods, suitors or sirens. Two

of these scenes we perform tonight, the first being the scene where the Phaeacians bring Ulysses to their shore in defiance of the Gods.

For their just reward they are turned into stone!

The second one from Act II is a pivotal palace scene that places Penelope’s heart of stone against three of the suitors who have their eyes set on a wedding with “singing and dancing”. It is a deliciously calibrated scene where the music accurately reflects the underlying conflict. All the plotting and scheming eventually culminates in a grand contest of archery. The suitors are defeated and, after twenty years, Penelope and Ulysses are reunited.

Roland Peelman

Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria di Claudio Monteverdi

Penelope Kate Howden mezzo-soprano Il Tempo / Neptune / Antinoos Andrew Fysh oam bass L’humana fragilita / Anfinomo Tobias Cole countertenor Pisandro Dan Walker tenor La Fortuna Chloe Lankshear soprano Amore Wynton Johnstone treble Ericlea AJ America mezzo-soprano Luminescence Chamber Singers directed from the harpsichord by

Roland Peelman

Portrait of a Musician, thought to be Claudio Monteverdi, c.1590.

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I

n an age where intercontinental travel is commonplace and interstellar travel is on the cards, the notion of a modern Ulysses figure might seem conveniently obsolete. Yet the travelers who do encounter obstacles, repression, rejection, abandonment or internment, the ones who are forced to flee warfare, terrorism and sectarian violence are amongst us. According to United Nations statistics, there were about 65.6 million people forcibly displaced across the globe in 2016 and 22.5 million refugees worldwide. The unprecedented level of migration from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe during 2016, ca 1.2 million people, put tremendous pressure on social services in countries such as Italy, Germany and Greece. And we are all witnessing the political consequences, a resurgent extreme right anti-immigration backlash, barely contained by Europe’s parliamentary democracies.

The three works in the second half of this concert allude to the plight of asylum seekers, directly and indirectly. Sydney-based Alex Pozniak’s Piano Quartet ‘In search of Asylum’ was written three years ago for an Australia Piano Quartet project around asylum seekers and Australia’s off-shore detention policy, which though embraced by both main political parties, has been contentious, scandal-plagued and expensive. The work explores the extreme sonic possibilities of the four instruments in fairly anguished textures opening up into a more spacious harmonic spectrum towards the end of the piece.

Ulysses now Mary Finsterer’s Angelus returns to a sequence of triadic chords that defies any sense of strict metre. Inspired by the eponymous 1859 painting of Jean-François Millet, Finsterer uses Gregorian chant, the basis for the century-old Angelus tradition, elongated and suspended by the clarinet and cello above the piano’s chord progressions. It provides the piece with a serene arch of eternal calm or acceptance, recalling the image of Millet’s peasant couple, heads bowed in prayer in the middle of the fields.

Across the Water emerged out of oral history interviews that Stephanie Arnold conducted with Melbourne-based asylum seekers. It uses Robert Davidson’s compositional technique of translating pitch, rhythm and prosody, emphasis, pauses and hesitations of recorded speech into music.

While the asylum issue has been part of the national conversation for many years, it remains a challenge for the Australian public to engage directly with asylum seekers. A greater awareness of their opinions and perspectives can support the control and authority asylum seekers have over their story. For the asylum seekers involved in this work, this kind of acknowledgement is a sign of listening, understanding and respect.

Thus, Across the Water is about the act of listening itself. The use of speech melody, repeated, edited phrases and musical imagery challenges audiences to listen not just to what is being said, but how it is being said, and to imagine and understand why it might be said.

Roland Peelman Companion House is a communitybased organisation that works with adults and children who have sought safety in Australia from persecution, torture and war-related trauma.

Donations to Companion House make a real difference towards a range of support services not otherwise available through other funding sources. www.companionhouse.org.au 55

Wednesday 2 May In association with Muse Canberra

Festival Extra Festival at Muse Muse Canberra (East Hotel) 69 Canberra Avenue

9.00pm | 60 mins Ned McGowan (flutes) with Claire Edwardes (percussion) Two extraordinary musicians let their hair down at a small recital in Canberra’s artiest evening club.

Tickets: $55 (includes a glass of wine and cheese plate) More information at www.musecanberra.com.au

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Muse FOOD, WINE & BOOKS

02 6178 0024 www.musecanberra.com.au

Thursday 3 May In association with Strathnairn Arts, Brindabella Hills Winery, Clementine Restaurant and Lovat Chapel, St. Augustine's Parish, Yass

Annual Festival Trip

Taste of the country

Strathnairn Arts: Adrian Brown with help from Susanna Borsch: A Little Bit of Cucumber A somewhat risqué Cockney Music Hall song from the late 19th century The Trees They Do Grow High A British folk song with dark medieval undertones of love and death Jim Jones An Australian folk song from the transportation era The Ballad of Grace Darling A patriotic song about the heroine (and possibly the first English “celebrity”) from the mid 19th century

Brindabella Hills Winery I Bassifondi play: Dances by Foscarini, Kapsberger and de Murcia

Strathnairn Arts Brindabella Hills Winery Clementine Restaurant Lovat Chapel, Yass

8.30am - c. 4.00pm Adrian Brown anglo concertina Susanna Borsch recorder & voice I Bassifondi: Simone Vallerotonda theorbo. guitars, direction

Gabriele Miracle percussion

Federico Toffano colascione & chitarra battente

Pietra Quartet

Lovat Chapel, Yass

Anna Da Silva Chen violin

Pietra Quartet plays:

Benjamin Tjoa violin

Joseph Haydn 1732-1809 String Quartet op. 76 no. 6 in E-flat major (1796/7) Allegretto Fantasia. Adagio Minuet - Alternativo Finale. Allegro spirituoso

Justin Julian viola Miles Mullin-Chivers cello

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Thursday 3 May

FREE EVENT Music for Lunch NGA Fairfax Theatre

12.45pm | 30 mins Rachael Shipard Theme and Variations Foundation 2017 Award Recipient

plays: Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750, arr. F. Busoni Chaconne in D Minor BWV 1004 Ferruccio Busoni 1866-1924 Variations and Fugue in free form on Chopin's Prelude in C Minor op 22 (Variationen und Fuge in freier Form über Fr. Chopin's c-moll Präludium, K213) The Theme & Variations Foundation was formed by Ara and Nyree Vartoukian to encourage and support exceptional young Australian pianists. With the help of friends and colleagues who share a passion for music and pianos, the foundation took shape in late 2011 and was officially launched at the NSW Government House in the presence of Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir and Mr. Vladimir Ashkenazy on 14th February 2012.

Thursday 3 May Supported by the Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres

festival extra TALK OF THE TOWN - DUTCH TREAT Gorman Arts Centre - Main Hall 55 Ainslie Avenue, Braddon 2.00pm | 60 mins Festival Artistic Director Roland Peelman in conversation with four international festival artists who all call Amsterdam home: celebrated fortepiano specialist Keiko Shichijo, flautist and composer Ned McGowan along with Adrian Brown and Susanna Borsch from Dapper’s Delight.

All four have carved out a unique creative pathway in a very competitive environment.

TICKETS $10

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Thursday 3 May

concert 14

ORAVA QUARTET

Joseph Haydn 1732-1809: String Quartet No. 30 in E-flat, 'The Joke', op. 33 no. 2 Hob. III:38 (1782) Allegro moderato Scherzo: Allegro Largo Presto Sergei Rachmaninov 1873-1943: Romance and Scherzo (String Quartet No. 1) (1889) Romance. Andante espressivo Scherzo. Allegro

Fitters' Workshop 6.00pm | 75 mins Orava Quartet: Daniel Kowalik violin David Dalseno violin Thomas Chawner viola Karol Kowalik cello

Claude Debussy 1862-1918: String Quartet in G Minor L 85 (1893) Animé et très décidé Assez vif et bien rythmé Andantino, doucement expressif Très modéré – En animant peu à peu – Très mouvementé et avec passion

This concert is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer 59

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet No. 30 in E-flat, 'The Joke'

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n 1781, after a lapse of ten years, a 49-yearold Joseph Haydn returned to the string quartet, composing a set of six and published as Op. 33 by Artaria in Vienna. The publication bore a dedication to the “Grand Duke of Russia” and so these quartets are commonly known as the “Russian” quartets. Perhaps most famous is the second quartet in E-flat: the comic disintegration of the theme in the bubbly tarantella finale, repeatedly fooling the listener as to whether the piece has ended or not, has spawned the quartet’s English nickname ‘The Joke’. The story goes that Haydn wrote the ending in order to win a bet that ‘the ladies will always begin talking’ before the music stops. His outrageous deception can still throw listeners of both sexes (Clara Schumann wrote of how she laughed aloud after a performance by the Joachim Quartet.)

The relaxed first movement encapsulates Op. 33’s prevailing spirit of easy, conversational give-and-take, and is a locus classicus of Haydn’s famed monothematicism, where a single idea

suffices for a varied and inventive movement.

The Scherzo is an Austrian peasant dance known as a Schuhplattler, with heavy repeated chords to accompany the stamping of feet. Mozart seems to have taken this movement as the model for the minuet in his own E-flat major Quartet, K428.

In the trio the first violin gives a graphic imitation of an Austrian village fiddler, complete with deliciously vulgar slides (glissandi) between notes that were eschewed by squeamish nineteenth-century editors.

Amid all this frivolity, the Largo e sostenuto third movement introduces a note of gentle gravity. It opens, unprecedentedly in Haydn’s quartets, with a solemn duet for viola and cello before the two violins repeat the melody, intermittently cushioned by drowsy cello murmurs. On each reappearance Haydn enriches the texture: first in a trio, with the melody in the second violin, then finally in a full quartet sonority, with the viola creating a wonderfully eloquent counterpoint from the murmuring semiquavers. from notes by Richard Wigmore

Sergei Rachmaninov: Romance and Scherzo (String Quartet No. 1) achmaninov made two attempts at writing long, languid lines, some commentators have a string quartet. Both works were left seen it as the spiritual twin of the Andante unfinished, each with only two movements. cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s first quartet.

Not, therefore, being a quartet in the traditional Together, this Romance and the genial Scherzo sonata-form structure, the first has been were the first orchestral performances of the published under the title ‘Two Movements for young Rachmaninov – in 1890, he had arranged String Quartet’. The first of these movements, the pieces for string orchestra for an Open entitled 'Romance', dates from 1889–90 when, Beginners’ Concert at the Conservatoire. at age seventeen, the composer was still a from notes by Cyrus Meher-Homji student at the Moscow Conservatoire. With its

R

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Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor ebussy’s String Quartet, written in 1893, has become one of the most beloved in the repertoire partly because of the stunning sensual beauty and variety of textures Debussy manages to create with these four homogeneous string instruments. The sounds he creates flutter and undulate; his harmonic language is often iridescent. Turner was one of Debussy’s favorite painters, and the sense of motion and activity one sees in Turner’s skies and seas has aural analogues in so many moments of this piece.

D

The piece also has a dramatic arc reminiscent of an epic journey in that one ‘motto theme,’ stated at the opening of the piece, appears throughout in different guises and in a variety of settings. This theme is transformed rather than developed in the traditional sense. Because of this a listener may feel he is following a protagonist through travels in unexpected lands, in the manner of Homer’s Odyssey or, to get back to France, Voltaire’s Candide.

As any hero feels on his home turf, the initial statement of the theme is forthright and selfassured, but it quickly slips away into uncharted territory. Already after its first encounter with alien material the theme is more uncertain, modulating through various key areas looking for a way to understand new surroundings. Often one recognizes the theme in flight, or at sea, in transition from one experience to the next; other times it is self-assured again, as if settled in a new territory, albeit temporarily. The first movement ends with a furiously brilliant version of the motto theme in double notes, fully mobilized, in contrast to its more stable, if full of potential, version at the opening.

The scherzo movement features many new versions of this theme: one playful and jaunty which becomes an ostinato background, a more seductive, drawn-out version, plus a bravura declamatory version on the lowest string of the first violin. This last, somewhat unexpected, version is perhaps a tip of the hat to Eugene Ysaÿe, the great Belgian violinist whose eponymous quartet premiered the work.

The slow movement is the only one not to offer a version of the motto theme. Instead, there is an encounter with the new, the other. In the same key (very distant from the opening key of the work) and metre as the corresponding, and likewise profoundly eloquent, movement of Beethoven’s last quartet, Op. 135, this movement also starts out with exploratory bars leading into a broad, poetic theme. This, plus the addition of mutes, gives a distant, introspective quality to the movement.

The most uncertain part of the work is the start of the last movement: the return of the motto theme, chords that slip languidly, even groggily, and a section that builds up steam with the main theme gathering momentum to lead into the main section of the movement proper. There is a sense of preparing for a homecoming, the recounting of adventures, and there are two major climaxes both featuring the motto theme in full splendor. When the pace quickens twice as the piece nears its conclusion there is a sense of great excitement and triumph. The hero has returned home, and this home is now bright with the possibilities of lessons won through experience, now in G-major rather than G-minor as it was at the start.

Mark Steinberg

Save the Date: 3-12 May 2019 www.cimf.org.au/25years

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CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE AND THE MUSIC HOUSE PRESENT

GUARDIAN

ALL MUSIC

ALL ABOUT JAZZ

Patrick White 1989 (Barry Jones)

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Thursday 3 May Presented by THE CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE in association with BRINK PRODUCTIONS

concert 15

THE ASPIRATIONS OF DAISE MORROW

THE ONLY DEATH TO FEAR IS THE DEATH OF LOVE A word-for-word adaptation of Patrick White’s short story Down at the Dump, featuring the Zephyr Quartet. Brutally funny, profound in its understanding of human nature, and filled with magic and wonder.

Actors, musicians and audience share the space in a circle of burnt earth beneath a canvas of Australian sky. The work shifts and swirls, drawing the audience into the sensual immediacy of a strangely familiar world – the suburb of Barranugli.

PERFORMANCES Tuesday, 1 May: 7.00pm pre-show talk with Director Chris Drummond, 8.00PM showtime Wednesday, 2 May: 8.00PM Thursday, 3 May: 8.00PM, followed by post show Q&A Friday, 4 May: 8.00PM Saturday, 5 May: 2.00 8.00PM For 2018 CIMF Pass Holders, the 3 May performance is included in the 23-concert package. Others wishing to attend this performance must purchase tickets directly from Canberra Theatre. Choose Your Own Adventure pass purchasers and Pro Musica members are eligible for a 10% discount on tickets for any performance. Contact the Festival Office for more details.

Canberra Theatre 8.00pm | 80 mins

Cast: Paul Blackwell Lucy Lehmann Genevieve Picot James Smith Zephyr Quartet: Belinda Gehlert violin Emily Tulloch violin Jason Thomas viola Hilary Kleinig cello Director: Chris Drummond Designer: Michael Hankin Musical Director: Hilary Kleinig

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S o m e yo u n g p l a ye r s

Fletcher Cox

Oliver Shermacher

Rachael_Shipard

Peter Clark

Wynton Johnstone

Tobias Aan

Pietra Quartet

Helena Popovic

Magdalenna Krstevska

Kompactus Luminescence

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Jessica Oddie

Friday 4 May In association with the Canberra Grammar School and Musica Viva in schools

concert 16

RETURN TO BASICS

From the Quill to the Cloud A series of presentations that highlight the relationship between music and technology through the ages, featuring: Benjamin Bagby: The oral traditions and the early history of Western notation

Canberra Grammar School Performing Arts Centre, Tim Murray Theatre

11.00am | ca. 90 mins

Simone Vallerotonda and I Bassifondi, lute, theorbo: Music in the wake of the printing press – 16th century part books and tablatures Cecilia Bernardini, violin : The burgeoning publishing industry in the early 19th century Adrian Brown: A garden of earthly delights – performing historical popular music today Ned McGowan: From analog to digital: modern notation and recording technology, self publishing, and the meeting of sounds acoustic and electronic Followed by a Q&A with the artists and Mary Finsterer, composer in residence

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WIN A HARVEST OF RICHES

WITH THE CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL AUTUMN RAFFLE

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Season of Song presents

CANBERRA CHORAL SOCIETY AND CAPITAL ORCHESTRA PRESENT

THE NATIONAL

SONGS FROM THE

BELLE ÉPOQUE L AETITIA G RIMALDI SOPRANO

A MMIEL B USHAKEVITZ PIANO

French soprano Laetitia Grimaldi and South African-Israeli pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz perform songs by Fauré, Massenet, Hahn & Duparc, presented in the style of a Parisian salon concert.

SUNDAY 13TH MAY 2018 AT 3PM Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest

Admission, incl. program & refreshments $35; concessions.

66 Tickets at door or online: www.trybooking.com/UYXH www.artsongcanberra.org 6286 7373

A COMIC ORATORIO BY ERIC IDLE & JOHN DUPREZ 18 BASED ON MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN 2 JUNE 20

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH ORIGIN™ THEATRICAL ON BEHALF OF THEATRICAL RIGHTS WORLDWIDE, NEW YORK.

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW! www.ticketek.com.au

LYN HALL

@LLEWEL

National Capital

OrchestrA Musical Director Leonard Weiss

Friday 4 May

concert 17

a soldier's return

Peter Meechan b. 1980: Letters for Home (2014): (i) The Bittersweet Love Song (ii) The Trench (iii) In Memory

Fitters' Workshop 7.30pm | 135 mins

Jodie Blackshaw b. 1971: The Bitter and the Sweet (WP)

Canberra Wind Symphony dir. Geoff Grey

David R. Holsinger b. 1945: In the Spring, at the time when Kings go off to war (1988)

Tim Fain violin Jacqueline Dossor double bass Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet

Samuel R. Hazo b. 1966: Chorus Angelorum (2009)

Ben Hoadley bassoon Fletcher Cox trumpet

James Barnes b. 1949: Lonely Beach (1992)

Nigel Crocker trombone Claire Edwardes percussion

Poems (in order of reading): Bec Lally: All for the price of your worthless self Phil Courtney: Haiku Elissa Croker: Six Human Emotions Heath Schofield: Not My Choice Brad Mackay: My Kabul Job Scott Grainger: Declaration Heath Schofield: Edge of the World

Paul English narrator

– INTERVAL – Igor Stravinsky 1882-1971 L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) (1918) This concert is supported by gail ford

WP – world premiere 67

The Canberra Wind Symphony sound The wind orchestra genre emerged in the 1950s to showcase the diverse possibilities of blending certain woodwinds, brass and percussion. Unlike military bands or community concert bands, the instrumentation of the wind orchestra is specifically one player per part (with the exception of clarinets where doubling occurs, as parts are often divisi). This effectively makes it a 35 to 40-piece chamber ensemble, featuring all musicians as equally significant contributors.

Over the past 30 to 40 years the repertoire has evolved from its band-like origins to the vibrant contemporary classical art music now being created, with genre-leading writers telling their stories with the beautiful colours, striking textures and intriguing rhythms that this seemingly mismatched group of instruments creates.

Tonight’s program features recent work by American, Canadian composers as well as a newly commissioned premiere by the Australian composer Jodie Blackshaw. Her new piece is the second movement from a larger work based on Leunig’s Prayer Book. It reflects upon those Australians who fell in France in 1918 during the Battle of Hamel.

The title refers to Leunig’s words “fade and die”, with countless soldiers lying in unmarked graves. Also, how bitter, and how sweet it must have seemed for the men and women returning home without their comrades. Blackshaw has

used dissonance and consonance to recognise this struggle, enabling beautiful glimpses amongst moments of pain and reflection. An allusion to the ‘Last Post’ and an airy, foreboding soundscape end the work, reflecting upon a soldier’s last moments on the battlefield, and the thanks and blessings we count each and every day for their sacrifice.

Peter Meechan’s Letters for Home also reflects on the stronger emotions that form part of a warrior’s thoughts during conflict. David Holsinger’s work, inspired by the verse from Chronicles 20:1-3, takes us into the Biblical battle itself: the assault of King David’s army, led by Joab, upon the cities of the Ammonites. Samuel R. Hazo’s Chorus Angelorum has similar biblical overtones: a chorus of angels accompanies two souls to the next world. As a memorial piece, the music evolves from the initial angels' song, through their journey to heaven, and ultimately their return to comfort those who mourn.

Lonely Beach by James Barnes is as confronting and aggressive as it is calming and beautiful. A soldier stands before a major battle amongst 10,000 brothers-in-arms … yet he feels so desperately lonely. Through him we experience fragility, terror, sacrifice, loss and, ultimately, the realisation that no matter how persistent humans are with self-destruction, the day following will yet dawn.

The Australian Defence Force Arts for Recovery, Resilience, Teamwork and Skills Program (ADF ARRTS) This Program is held biannually in Canberra for the workforce and society. Geoff Grey (the serving wounded, injured or ill members of the Lieutenant Colonel version) is the foundation ADF. It is a no-uniform, no-rank, non-judgemental Artistic Director of the program, and the Creative introduction to the arts-based pursuits of Music Producer for its output showcase. & Rhythm, Visual Arts, Acting & Performance, The poems presented in this performance and Creative Writing. Its foundation lies in trust, were created by participants in the ADF ARRTS respect and self-honesty … and fun!

Program Creative Writing stream. The writers Since May 2015, 134 men and women have embraced this unique opportunity for refinding their purpose, enhancing reintegration with families, and re-engagement with both 68

were variously mentored by Assoc Profs Tony Eaton, Jordan William and Paul Magee and Dr Owen Bullock from the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Arts and Design.

Stravinsky’s 1918 Soldier’s Tale

Part 1 The Soldier's March Airs Beside a Stream The Soldier's March (reprise 1)

Pastorale Airs Beside a Stream (reprise 1) Airs Beside a Stream (reprise 2)

Part 2 The Soldier's March (reprise 2) Royal March Little Concert Three Dances: 1. Tango; 2. Waltz; 3. Ragtime

A

fter the 1913 succès de scandale of The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky joined a not inconsiderable coterie of Russian expatriates in Switzerland. Neither a revolutionary like comrade Lenin nor a nascent Dadaist (the movement grew from Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich 1916), he needed a safe haven for his young family and a convenient base to work from, ideally in the vicinity of a few wealthy patrons. After getting his German nanny out of St Petersburg he settled down on the outskirts of Montreux and Lausanne. The times were no longer right for lavish productions. Straightened circumstances thus prompted an artistic volte-face, the first (and not the last) major change of direction in his long career. Gone are the colourful extravagances of late romantic symphonic writing. Gone is the exuberance of a young composer with the world at his feet.

Instead he finds himself writing for small ad hoc ensembles enforced by the grim deprivations of war. His source of inspiration remained Russian fair and square: the village wedding of Les Noces, the folk tale of Renard and a slew of small pieces such as Pribaoutki or the Berceuses du chat.

But other things also started to enter his life. His friend the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet had brought back a collection of ragtimes from US. Before long, three different Ragtimes enriched the Stravinsky catalogue, one as part of The Soldier’s Tale.

The Devil's Dance Little Chorale The Devil's Song Great Chorale Triumphal March of the Devil It might have surprised his Russian fans, but Stravinsky‘s ability to take on a foreign concept and turn it in something new and undoubtedly ‘Stravinsky’ was a sign of things to come. Some writers have compared this with Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt – 'alienation' techniques.

To write a piece about a soldier selling his soul to the devil after four years of catastrophic casualties takes a sharp critical mind and some chutzpah. But to coin the piece as a dark burlesque takes the cunning of a survivor.

The story for L’histoire du soldat was drawn from the writings of Afanasyev with the help of the Swiss writer C.F. Ramuz. It deals with the quintessential Faustian pact between good and evil coated in a folk tale about a simple soldier who returns from battle (a deserter?) and sells his soul (his violin) to the devil in return for a book on stock market predictions (particularly in the arms industry). There is no singing, only “reading, playing and dancing”, with an instrumental septet and four roles – in our performance taken by one single actor. The tersely chiselled dances and marches that make up the score for The Soldier’s Tale drive the action, envisaged for a makeshift stage with minimal props and ‘crude’ acting that befits a folktale. The work was premiered in Lausanne on 28 September 1918 with the help of Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart, a keen clarinetist to whom the work is dedicated.

Roland Peelman

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Saturday 5 May

concert 18

I BASSIFONDI

Giovanni Paolo Foscarini 1600-1647 Li cinque libri della chitarra alla spagnola, Roma, 1640 Hieronimus Kapsberger 1580-1651 Libro IV d’intavolatura di chitarone, Roma, 1640

Gagliarda francese Passacaglia sopra la O Aria di Firenze per la A e C Toccata arpeggiata Sfessania Passacaglia Colascione

Antonio Carbonchi 17th c.

Le dodici chitarra spostate, Firenze 1642

Scaramanzie Jacaras

Ferdinando Valdambrini romano 17th c.

Libro I & II di chitarra, Roma 1646

Capona

Angelo Michele Bartolotti ?- before 1682 Secondo libro di chitarra, Roma 1655

Passacaglia per la D

Francesco Corbetta 1615-1681 Varii capriccii per la ghittarra spagnuola, Milano 1643

Passacaglia per la X

Alessandro Piccinini 1566-1638 Intavolatura di Chitarrone libro II, Bologna 1639 Santiago de Murcia 1673-1739 Codex Saldìvar, Città del Messico, 1732

Fitters' Workshop 11.00am | 70 mins Simone Vallerotonda theorbo, guitars & direction

Gabriele Miracle percussion

Federico Toffano colascione & chitarra battente

Partite sopra l’aria francese Corrente Cumbées Folias gallegas Zarambeque y muecas Tarantelas

I bassifondi is supported

by CIDIM - COMITATO NATIONALE ITALIANO MUSICA

This concert is supported by MARGOT WOODS & ARN SPROGIS 71

False Alphabet – When Letters Hide Something

T

he treatise Nuova inventione d’intavolatura, per sonare li balletti sopra la chitarra spagniuola (“A newly invented tablature for playing balletti on the Spanish guitar”), published in 1606 by Girolamo Montesardo, radically revolutionized the way to write and perform guitar music. For the first time, an extremely practical guitar notation was proposed: the alphabet. It consisted in the correspondence between any chord, whether major or minor, and a letter. This simplified way of writing enabled any amateur or professional musician who owned a guitar to play a dance or accompany a voice, by performing the "letters" written on a single stave with superimposed rhythmic information. The proliferation of works printed in alphabetical notation, including favourite tunes, ground basses, dances, was soon enormous.

This "language" – conveying a precious and

varied technique of rasgueado (also known as picco e repicco, or quick strumming) capable of realizing any kind of rhythm – was a distinguishing feature for guitarists. Next to the ordinary alphabet, they used to employ a complementary alter ego of sorts: the alfabeto falso - false alphabet. It included the same chords as the former, but “dirtied” with extraneous and crushed notes (acciaccaturas).

The idea of using chords as harmonic colour was therefore put into practice for the first time by Italian guitarists of the early 17th century, who made it their own unique speciality.

Mirroring a typical instrumental session in 17th‑century Italy, this morning's program features some of the most representative works of that period in the same spirit of sharing and improvisation – a particular characteristic of the ancient way of making music together.

I Bassifondi. Photo: Matteo Casilli

72

Saturday 5 May

concert 19

THE TROUT

Franz Schubert 1798-1828: Sonata in D major for violin and piano, D 384 Allegro molto Andante Allegro vivace Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827: Trio in E-flat op. 70 no. 2 Poco sostenuto – Allegro, ma non troppo Allegretto Allegretto ma non troppo Finale. Allegro, E-flat major

Fitters' Workshop 3.00pm | 70 mins Keiko Shichijo fortepiano (Graf, Vienna 1812)

Cecilia Bernardini classical violin Daniel Yeadon classical cello James Wannan classical viola Jacqueline Dossor classical double bass

– INTERVAL – Franz Schubert 1798-1828: Quintet in A major “The Trout” D 667 Allegro vivace Andante Scherzo: Presto Andantino – Allegretto Allegro giusto

Daniel Yeadon appears courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music

This concert is supported by Margaret Frey and anonymous 73

Schubert in happy times Schubert began composing The Trout Quintet in 1819, while on holiday in Steyr, in the Alps.

His friendship with the town’s amateur cellist Sylvester Paumgartner led to a commission for a piano quintet that includes a set of variations on the song that lent its name to this popular work: Die Forelle or The Trout.

Schubert had composed the song two years earlier in 1817 on a poem by a certain Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-1791), variously described as a feeble writer of doggerels or as a maligned genius. Schubart was a gifted writer and musician but also a bit of a rogue. The combination of amorous adventures, outspoken new ideas straight out of the Enlightenment textbook and a modern taste in music did not endear him to the local authorities in Ludwigsburg, the home of a conservative German princeling, the duke of Württemberg.

When the Duke sent mercenaries to George III to help fight the American rebels, Schubart turned into a full blown satirist ridiculing the petty and narrow-minded Duke. It was not long before he had to flee the duchy and take up the life of a publicist in two Imperial cities, Augsburg and Ulm, outside the Duke’s jurisdiction. The Duke however resolved to ensnare and silence him. Like a trout in muddied waters, Schubart was lured back for a visit under the pretense that all had been forgiven. He fell into the trap and ended up in the dungeon of Hohenasperg.

Midway through his imprisonment, around 1782, Schubart composed the poem “The Trout”, a barely concealed metaphor for what happened to him, coated in an air of childish naivety.

Franz Schubert took Schubart’s “Trout” and made its simplicity immortal. A surviving letter indicates how fully he appreciated Schubart’s political subtext, calling it his little “tyrant” song.

Vienna post-1815 was ruled by the iron fist of Metternich and his reactionary cohorts. Young bohemians had to be equally vigilant about any revolutionary sympathies. Schubert also recalls the circumstances of the composition, late in

74

the evening of a gathering with friends during the course of which he “made the acquaintance of one glass too many of a strong punch”!

The Trout Quintet is a leisurely work, conceived during the 1819 summer holidays, lubricated no doubt by Paumgartner’s own punch, and completed in the autumn of that year upon his return to Vienna. The instrumentation is unusual, including a part for double bass rather than second violin. Mr Paumgartner probably received more than he had bargained for: a generously laid-out work in five movements.

The central key of A Major in Schubert’s tonal spectrum almost always suggests a bright atmosphere, from convivial to amiable. There is no sense of great drama, turmoil or deep introspection in this quintet and the movements do not shy away from long repetitions without much alteration. Instead, what the work creates is an ongoing line of conversation between five soloists with plenty of harmonic surprises, interesting chromaticism and Schubert’s characteristic traits of piano octaves in the higher register counterbalancing the more filledout lower regions in the strings.

As Alfred Einstein wrote: “The Schubert of this quintet is not the great Schubert, but the one whom we cannot help but love.”

The year before the song Die Forelle, in March 1816, Schubert composed three Sonatas entitled ‘Sonatas for piano, with violin accompaniment’ in true 18th century fashion. The pieces were not published till eight years after Schubert’s death. The publisher Diabelli advertised them as ‘Sonatinas’, probably in order the lure the amateur market. And indeed, this D major Sonata is diminutive and technically undemanding. From the opening unison (no small hint to Mozart’s E minor Sonata K304) to the final dance-like Rondo, every musical idea comes with disarming ease and gracefulness, as if Mozart was suddenly resurrected in a Vienna of kindness and generosity.

Roland Peelman

Ludwig van Beethoven: Trio in E-flat op. 70 no. 2 Much of the early development of the piano trio genre as we know it occurred in tandem with technological advancements of the fortepiano.

In the early days, the string players needed to avoid overpowering the fortepiano. As the piano became stronger and more resonant, the need for restraint shifted to the pianist. This explains why Haydn piano trios started off as masterfully accompanied piano sonatas. Mozart strove for a different three-part balance, but resisted the cello somewhat. By the time Beethoven burst onto the scene, the fortepiano was gaining in strength and in size: first five, then six and eventually six and a half octaves. He perfectly understood the challenge and the opportunity, to judge from his first published opus in 1795. By giving the trio four movements he brought it into the realm of the string quartet and symphony.

Over time, his trios became weightier and more calibrated between the three instruments. The two trios op. 70 stem from the summer of 1808 in Heiligenstadt, by which stage he already had six symphonies, numerous string quartets and hefty piano sonatas under his belt.

Both trios of op. 70 are substantial and highly contrasting. The first one probes the extremes of the trio spectrum, whereas the second one in the key of E-flat works its way through from the centre. It is relaxed in comparison, spacious and

classically poised. If we needed any convincing about the cello’s long awaited emancipation, here it is. The work begins with a cello solo, joined by violin and only then the piano, a pattern maintained through most of the first movement until reversed in the recapitulation. The mood is quizzical, unresolved and rather than serving as introduction, the opening statement continues to define the central tension in the first movement.

The second movement could be seen as a homage to his predecessors Mozart and Haydn, but not as from a student paying his dues.

This is the voice of a master who recognizes the traits of both but has utter confidence in his own judgment of phrasing, figuration and ornamentation, the trademark components we recognize as typically classical. The Allegretto of the third movement is not a brittle scherzo, but a long and tender melodic line in the violin yielding to the piano in the second stanza only to follow in canonic echo. If the strings seem to lead in the first three movements, the full variety and grandeur of the piano permeates the finale.

Here Beethoven displays the full gamut of his developmental skills, delivering a triumphal finale that befits its key companions.

Roland Peelman

Beethoven's Broadwood

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Saturday 5 May

concert 20

BEOWULF

PHOTO: OLGA GEORGE

Fitters' Workshop Scenes from Beowulf

T

he Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf survives in a single manuscript source dating from the early eleventh century (British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. XV). Although scholars do not agree on the dating of the poem -- theories range between the sixth century and the date of the manuscript -- it is clear that the story has its roots in the art of the scop (creator), the ‘singer of tales’ -oral poet, singer, story-teller and reciter in one person -- at formal and informal gatherings, whose services were essential to the fabric of tribal society in early medieval England. The scop would re-tell the story of Beowulf, in song and speech, perhaps accompanying himself on a six-stringed harp (this we know from contemporary accounts and surviving instruments). His pre-literate audience was attuned to the finest details of sound and meaning, meter and rhyme, timing and mood. The performance - which, for the entire epic, might last between four and six hours - would never be exactly the same twice, as the scop subtly varied the use of poetic formulæ to shape his unique version of the story.

8.00pm | 100 mins Benjamin Bagby voice and Anglo-Saxon harp

The central dilemma of any attempt to re-vocalise a medieval text as living art is based on the fact that a written source can only represent one version (and possibly not the best version) of a text from an oral tradition in which musical notation was unknown.

This concert is supported by Susan & David Chessell 77

The impetus to make this attempt has come from many directions: from the power of those oral storytelling traditions, mostly nonEuropean, which still survive intact; from the work of instrument-makers who have made careful reconstructions of seventh-century Germanic harps; and from those scholars who

have shown an active interest in the problems of turning written words back into an oral poetry meant to be absorbed through the ear/spirit, rather than eye/brain. But the principal impetus comes from the language of the poem itself, which has a chilling, direct and magical power that modern translations can only approximate.

The Instrument The 6-string harp used in this performance was built by Rainer Thurau (Wiesbaden, Germany), based on the remains of an instrument excavated from a 7th century Alemannic nobleman's grave in Oberflacht (near Stuttgart). The study of this instrument also informed the reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo instrument now on display at the British Museum. The remarkably intact pieces of oak clearly show a thin, hollow corpus with no soundholes. There are strong indications, supported by contemporary iconography, that such an instrument had six gut strings, a tailpiece and a free-standing bridge. This scop’s instrument serves as a key piece of evidence in reconstructing the performance, for it provides the ‘singer of tales’ with a series of six tones. Although several possible tunings present themselves, the six tones used in this performance were arrived upon through a careful study of early medieval modal theory, yielding a gapped octave which contains three perfect fifths and two perfect fourths. The

resulting series of tones serves as a musical matrix, upon which the singer can weave both his own rhetorical shapes and the sophisticated metrics of the text (in my reconstruction work, I never made musical notations or consciously created any 'melodies', preferring to work with simple modal gestures). The Anglo-Saxon ear was finely tuned to this web of sounds and syllable lengths, which was always experienced as an aural event, inextricably bound up with the story being told. The harp is a relatively quiet instrument, but in the ear of the performer it rings with an endless variation of gestures, melodic cells and repetitive figurations which give inspiration to the shape of the vocalisation: in the course of the story the vocalist may move imperceptibly or radically between true speech, heightened speech, speech-like song, and true song. The instrument acts as a constant point of reference, a friend and fellow-performer, a symbol of the scop and his almost magical role in the community of listeners.

Synopsis of the story Although this performance uses video supertitles, the following summary will give an overview of the story up to the point where the re‑telling of Beowulf will stop, encompassing roughly the first third of the entire epic (lines 1-1062):

F

ollowing the formal call of ‘Hwæt!’ (Listen!), the scop reminds the listeners of some geneology: the legendary arrival of the great leader Scyld, found in a boat along the Danish coast, a solitary baby with no possessions. But when he grows up he becomes a unifier, warleader and king of the Danes. On his death he is again set adrift, but now the boat is piled high with treasure and the standard floats in the wind on the mast above him. He leaves a son, Beow, already famous as a king in South Sweden (the northern part of Denmark in the fifth century).

78

Beow carries on the Scylding line as a good and able ruler and is succeeded by his son Halfdane.

Halfdane in turn is a worthy king, and has three sons - Heregar, Hrothgar and Helga - and a daughter, Yrsa, who marries Onela of the royal line of Sweden. Eventually, Hrothgar becomes king and rules long and well.

With the kingdom stable, Hrothgar orders that a great banquet hall be built. Workmen from far and near are brought to build and decorate this royal building. Its fine workmanship and gilded gables are famous in Denmark and abroad.

Hrothgar names the hall ‘Heorot’ (Hart). The drinking and laughter of the warriors, and the harping and songs of the scop provoke a savage monster named Grendel, a descendant of Cain, who lives in the marshes nearby and cannot bear this human gaiety in his loneliness. Only gradually do we learn details of the creature: that it takes four men to carry his head on a spear, and that his hand has sharp claws like steel spikes. For weeks and months Grendel visits the hall nightly, devouring sleeping warriors and carrying off others to the moor to feed on later. At last, only drunken, boasting fools will linger in the hall after dark, until they too are slaughtered.

courtier sitting at Hrothgar's feet, who taunts Beowulf for supposedly having been defeated in a legendary swimming contest with Breca.

Beowulf sets the record straight by recounting the dangers – attacking sea-monsters, storms, vast distances – and claiming that they had merely dared each other to a boyish hunt for sea-beasts. Separated by the winter storm, they swam, carrying swords and wearing chain-mail, two different paths: Breca to Norway and Beowulf to the land of Finns. Beowulf ends his retort with a taunt that Unferth has slain his own brother, the ultimate crime, even though by accident.

With such ‘heroes’ as this, it's no wonder the Danes can't deal with Grendel themselves! The queen, Wealhtheow, pours ritual mead for the feasting warriors and Beowulf boasts to her that he will defeat Grendel or die in the attempt.

Twelve years pass, and news of Hrothgar's assailant travels eventually to other lands. Beowulf, sister's son to Higelac, King of the Geats, hears of Hrothgar's distress, and with consent from his uncle, sails with fifteen companions from At nightfall Hrothgar and southwestern Sweden all the Danes depart from on the east coast of the Heorot to sleep elsewhere, Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV f. 132r Oslofjörd. When the Danish leaving Beowulf and his coastal watchman learns men to occupy the hall that they have come to Hrothgar's aid, he shows benches. Beowulf removes his helmet, chainthem the path to Heorot. The Geatish warriors mail and weapons and boasts again: that he will march with their spears, swords, helmets, shields use no weapon in this fight, since Grendel uses and chain-mail to the high-gabled hall. At Heorot none. As darkness descends Grendel comes Beowulf and his men enter with challenges and gliding up from the misty marshes, and pushes formal speeches, the strict codes of a warrior’s open the great door, his eyes gleaming with behavior in court. King Hrothgar had earlier given evil. Immediately he grabs and eats a sleeping protection to Beowulf's father, Ecgtheow, during warrior. Next, the monster reaches for Beowulf, a feud. Learning Beowulf's name, Hrothgar but the hero grasps his arm and rises to his feet. recalls hearing of the extraordinary strength and Beowulf’s men cannot help him since Grendel reputation of the Geatish hero. has put a spell on all weapons so that none can The strangers are warmly received and Beowulf is seated on the bench with Hrothgar's young sons. No Dane has confronted Grendel and lived. But the enthusiastic welcome shown to the Geats irritates the jealous Unferth, a drunken

harm him. During the ferocious struggle that follows, the hero wrenches off Grendel's arm.

The sounds of the combat terrify the Danes outside: Grendel howling with pain, benches torn up and overturned, the hall shaken to its 79

foundations. Grendel, leaving a trail of blood, escapes without his arm and limps back to the fens where he dies. Beowulf fixes the arm high above the hall as a symbol of victory. Heorot is cleansed of the evil monster, and in the morning people come from far and near to inspect the sight, following Grendel's trail to a boiling pool of bloody dark water in the marshes.

Young and old race their horses jubilantly back from the water, praising Beowulf, while an old scop, keeper of many ancient stories, makes up a new song about Beowulf’s deeds of the previous hours. He also sings the well-known story about Sigmund and the dragon. As the morning fog clears and the Danes converge on Heorot, Hrothgar appears with his queen and her retinue of women. Seeing the wrecked hall and Grendel’s arm, the king gives thanks, praising Beowulf, offering to take him as a son, and promising him rich rewards. Beowulf gives

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a speech in reply: he describes the combat and regrets only that he cannot show Grendel’s entire body. Everyone agrees, looking at Grendel’s claw, that no sword could have ever defeated the monster. Order is quickly made in the half-wrecked hall, and a great celebratory feast is prepared: mead is poured and Hrothgar makes good on his promise: Beowulf is given a golden standard, a richly adorned helmet and chain mail, a priceless sword, and eight horses, one with a royal saddle decorated with jewels.

Beowulf’s men are also given gifts, and the Geatish warrior killed by Grendel is atoned for with gold.

The storyteller ends the story by reminding us that in those days God controlled all mankind, as He still does today. Still, human prudence in all things is best. Anyone who lives for long in this world will endure much: both good and evil.

Sunday 6 May Icon Water presents

concert 21

PETER AND THE WOLF

Holly Harrison b. 1988: The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (WP) Luigi Boccherini 1743-1805: Minuet from String Quintet in E major, op.11, no.5 (G 275) Sergei Prokofiev 1891-1953: Peter and the Wolf, op.67

This concert is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer

Fitters' Workshop 11.00am | 60 mins Festival Sinfonia dir. Leonard Weiss Paul English

narrator

WP – world premiere 81

A Mad Tea-Party Holly has been mad about Alice disappearing down the rabbit hole for a long time. She has now written the music for a mad tea-party to be held in Canberra. She has brought all her friends along: Ned on flute who is supposed to sound a bit like Alice, Ollie on clarinet (he’s the Mad Hatter himself), Anna the March Hare and

Miles the Dormouse. Paul will tell you all about it because he likes tea. Oh, and I forgot Claire who likes to keep Time.

Penny and Greg are also mad about Holly, so they made it all possible.

Sergei Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf,

S

ergei Prokofiev was born in a village in the Ukraine. Even as a young child he was very clever at music: he was composing piano pieces when he was five, and he wrote an opera at nine.

His first teacher was his mother, a talented pianist. He studied music for ten years at St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1904 to 1914, winning the prize for best student pianist when he graduated. He travelled widely; he spent many years in London and Paris, and toured the United States five times.

But in 1936, Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union to live, and one of the first things he did

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after his return was to write Peter and the Wolf for a children's theatre in Moscow.

Prokofiev made up the story and wrote the narration himself, drawing on memories of his own childhood.

He decided to use the music to introduce the children to the orchestra, so each character in the story is represented by a different instrument or group of instruments: Peter by the strings, the bird by the flute, the duck by the oboe, the cat by the clarinet, the wolf by the horn section, and so on.

Sunday 6 May In association with the National Gallery of Australia

concert 22

THE ART OF SPEECH

Barbara Blackman's festival blessing

Erik Satie 1866-1925: Gnossiennes Troisième Gnossienne (ca. 1890) – Lent Quatrième Gnossienne (1891) – Lent Cinquième Gnossienne (1889) – Modéré Komitas Vardapet 1869-1935: Six Dances (1906) Yerangi Unabi Marali

Shushiki Het u Araj Shoror

National Gallery of Australia Fairfax Theatre 2.00pm | 90 mins Kate Howden mezzo-soprano Keiko Shichijo piano

Erik Satie: Socrate (Socrates) (1917/18) Portrait de Socrate (Portrait of Socrates) text from Plato's Symposium Les bords de l'Ilissus (The banks of the Ilissus) text from Plato's Phaedrus Mort de Socrate (Death of Socrates) text from Plato's Phaedo

A small Canberra Symposium Barbara Blackman in conversation with Andrew Ford on Socrates, solitude and seeing into the future.

This concert is supported by Anonymous 83

Barbara Blackman AO

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uthor, 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.

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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 Helena 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.

Satie by Cocteau (1916)

Satie by Boldrini

Satie in White The emergence of photography at the end of the 19th century created a new visual medium dominated by black and white and multiple shades of grey. Suddenly the strange otherworldly visions of Blake or Milton or Dante became a reality as the effects of lighting and pixilation became tangible. Erik Satie, a peculiar man by any stretch of the imagination, had gained a reputation with pieces that alluded to ancient Greek dances in temple rituals: Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes. The root gnossi derives from the Greek verb ‘to know’ referring to deep knowledge, wisdom. The word Gymnopédie is more ambiguous still, a combination of ‘young boy’ in a gymnasium. The slow rhythmic ostinati of these pieces resemble the poetic patterns of Greek poetry and the melodies often have a modal bend. They avoid climax or development and finish as abruptly as they start.

Socrate was instigated by the American Princess Edmond de Polignac with the specification that only female voices should be used. Originally the idea was for Satie to write incidental music to a performance where the Princess and/or some of her (female) friends would read aloud texts of the ancient Greek philosophers. But Satie was not in favour of romantic melodrama (cf. Enoch Arden) and that idea was abandoned for a sung type of oratorio. The first private performances took place with the composer at the piano and the vocal parts sung by the Princess’s friend Jane Bathori. Various public performances took place subsequently with none less than André Gide, James Joyce and Paul Valéry in the audience. The piece soon gained notoriety as a shining white example of ‘objectivity’ in music.

Satie’s sardonic, satiric and pared-down works for piano had long paved the way for a music drama such as this, a drama without drama.

When the first performance of the orchestral version took place in 1920, the public thought it was hearing a new musical joke by Satie, and laughed. Satie felt very misunderstood.

Whilst working on Socrate, he reportedly ate only white foods to get himself in the mood

to write a setting of texts from Plato about Socrates.. The music for this work is arguably more extreme than anything else he wrote. No moody melodies, no circus razzmatazz , no sly references, no tongue-in-cheek twists and turns of the pen, no obvious eye-catching contrasts, nothing to distract from the simple words as written by Plato, put in the mouth of Alcibiades, Phaedrus, Phaedo and Socrates himself, in the old translation of Victor Cousin. The sound is drifting, almost featureless, perhaps mystical, hinting at a deeper truth behind the reality surrounding us.

In 1945, the aged Princess de Polignac wrote: “I asked Jeanne Bathori to bring him to dinner one evening. He was then a man of about 52, neither tall nor short, very thin, with a short beard. He invariably wore a pince-nez, through which one saw his kindly but rather mischievous pale blue eyes, always ready to twinkle as some humourous thought crossed his mind.

At the time (…) I had been learning a little Greek (…) . He was equally enthusiastic and decided to write music for the Death of Socrates (…) We spent many evenings talking it over, but in the end Satie decided to have no scenery at all and he wrote an oratorio for a woman’s voice and a small orchestra. There is no doubt that this is his masterpiece (…) When he had finished it he sent me the score which is now in Paris in my collection. “ Reading Greek was an unusual occupation for a woman in this period. Given the Princess’s own sexuality (scandal was never far away) and the work’s deliberate choice to have women singing men’s parts, many scholars have identified Socrate as an act of sexual defiance: an opportunity for her to express her sexuality within the safe confines of her salon. It ought to be pointed out though that both Satie and his commissioner took extreme care to eliminate any reference to sex from Plato’s text, particularly as 85

the Symposium is very sexually explicit. The Princess was guarded and knew her survival in Parisian society depended on restraint, whereas Satie always was a deeply private individual living on the fringe of the establishment. The de-sexualisation of the characters in Socrate could easily be interpreted as a political act, but Satie’s motives were probably aesthetic and philosophical: to undercut any temptation

to express overt emotion, and suppress our instinct for melodrama when it comes to death.

He probably thought of antiquity and death as a perfect state of whiteness. In other words: to eat white.

PS. Satie died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1925. The manuscript the Princess was referring to is now lost.

Roland Peelman

Komitas Vardapet 1869-1935: Six Dances (1906)

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orn in Kütahya, Anatolia in the Ottoman Empire, and orphaned from young age, Soghomon Soghomonian was taken to Etchmiadzin by the age of 12 and enrolled in the Seminary because of his singing talent.

Here he learnt Armenian, the Armenian music notation system (khaz) and commenced the systematic notation of the Armenian folk songs, which earned him the nick-name of “note-taking

Armenian music which he believed to predate the Christian era. Upon his return to Armenia, he became the driving force behind the Armenian choir movement and continued collecting songs and publishing them on a regular basis. In order to give his work wider exposure he moved to Constantinople, not only the capital of the Ottoman Empire but also the centre of a large Armenian community. On 24 April 1914, the day of the Armenian genocide, Komitas was arrested and deported. This event seemed to have been the catalyst for total mental collapse. Although he was returned to Constantinople the following year, he never recovered. Komitas Vardapet, known as the ‘Saviour of Armenian music’, spent the final years of his life in psychiatric institutions around Paris, where he died in 1935, leaving behind a substantial body of songs, choral pieces and piano pieces.

Komitas Vardapet

The Six Dances were written in Paris in 1906. All six are based on original Armenian dance styles.

‘Yerangi’ refers to the elegance of a woman’s dance. In ‘Unabi’ he interlaces two melodic fragments. In ‘Marali’ and ‘Shushiki’ we can hear the sound of folk instruments: the dap, a type of tambourine and the tar, a pucked string instrument. ‘Het u Aray’ is men’s round dance imitating the sound of the shvi, a shepherd’s reed pipe and the ‘dhol’, a hand-held percussion instrument. The suite finishes with a heroic men’s dance called ‘Shoror’.

priest”. In 1894 Soghomon was ordained monk and given the name of Catholicos Komitas after a 7th century Armernian hymn writer. The year after he was ordained vardapet (celibate priest) and became herewith known as Komitas Vardapet. After spending some time in Tiflis, Komitas had the opportunity to continue his studies in Berlin, where he studied composition and joined a number of leading specialists in folk music (‘ethnic music’) at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. Here he taught the fundamentals of

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Roland Peelman

Sunday 6 May

concert 23

FESTIVAL FINALE: serenade

Salvatore Sciarrino b. 1947: Como vengono prodotti gli incantesimi? for bass flute (1985) Mary Finsterer b. 1962: In Praise of Darkness (AP) Vicis I Stellae Candeo Prism Vicis II

Fitters' Workshop 6.30pm | 90 mins

Ned McGowan flute Tim Fain violin solo Alice Giles harp solo

– INTERVAL –

Festival Sinfonia dir. Roland Peelman

Claude Debussy 1867-1918: Danses sacrée et profane L 103 nos. 1 & 2 Leonard Bernstein 1918-1990: Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) (1954) Phaedrus: Pausanias (lento – allegro) Aristophanes (allegretto) Eryximachus, the doctor (presto) Agathon (adagio) Socrates: Alcibiades (molto tenuto – allegro molto vivace)

This concert is supported by Michael and Marlena Jeffery

AP - Australian premiere 87

Magic spells on new instruments In 1897, the French instrument maker Pleyel patented the chromatic harp and commissioned Debussy to write a new piece for it. Rather than fall under the spell of its sudden chromatic possibilities (one string for each chromatic note, a nice principle that soon proved to be utterly impractical), Debussy wrote a diatonic, modal piece, not unlike the simple Satie pieces he was fond of (Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, some of which he had orchestrated). Rather than a showcase for Pleyel’s new chromatic harp, the Danse sacrée et danse profane reflect the harp’s roots in ancient Greco-Roman culture, an imaginary temple dance, both spiritual and seductive, the double face of rite and ritual.

The satyr Marsyas would cast his spell by playing the flute. Here is another instrument that harks back to the beginnings of ceremonial worship and courting traditions. Whether as a recorder Mary Finsterer: In Praise of Darkness (AP) rgentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, often hailed as the greatest 20th century writer never to have won the Nobel Prize, was completely blind by the age of 55. Never having learnt Braille, he lost the ability to read which did not prevent him from becoming the Director the National Public Library in Buenos Aires.

In Praise of Darkness was inspired by Borges’ eponymous book from 1969 and his response to his condition: 'No one should read self-pity or reproach into this statement of the majesty of God; who with such splendid irony granted me books and blindness at one touch.’

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Borges chose to interpret his predicament as an alternative journey, a different way of accessing his creative powers. In his essay Blindness, he writes that the 'world of the blind is not the night that people imagine. The blind live in a world that is inconvenient, an undefined world from which certain colours emerge.' For Borges the colours yellow, blue, green and grey would still appear.

Red, white and black had completely vanished.

Borges' reference to single colours re-appearing provided me with the initial idea for a piece characterised by recurring gestures. The writer 88

(vertical pipe of wood) or as flute (horizontal pipe in wood, later metal), its magic power remains part of the instrument’s mythology, prompting operas no less. In post-war modernist circles a new wave of flute pieces emerged, intricate and often exploring new registers both high and low. Sciarrino’s 1985 solo work stands out not only because of its intriguing title: Come vengono prodotti gli incantesimi? How are spells produced? Where does the magic come from? By asking the question, it challenges the very notion of ‘spell’ and prods at the deeper subconscious layers of mystery. Played tonight on the flute’s deepest cousin, the contrabass flute, the work pushes the tonguing physicality of the player to the edge, as if banging at the door of the ordinary and summoning the ancient oracles to releases their deadly potions.

Roland Peelman

discusses how blindness has a way of channeling the memory, and keeping the essence of that recurring thought intact. This made me reflect and explore my own recollections of music I heard at different times in my life and loved.

The notion of memory in composing In Praise of Darkness is expressed not in the way of quoting the work of other composers, but more from the aspect of how I have chosen to experience and then remember that music in my mind's eye.

The orchestra aims to evoke a transparency in texture, giving way to the idea of memory as a fluid series of thoughts held together by slowly unfolding melodies that collide. Particular roles are given to Celesta and Harp, whose continuous presence echoes the idea of calling back fragments of life and time, creating a structural reference for the work.

I dedicate this piece to the bravery of Borges and those who strive to find a way of overcoming adversity with dignity and creative spirit.

The work won the Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize in 2009 and was premiered earlier that year in Amsterdam by the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble.

Mary Finsterer

Leonard Bernstein: Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) The raw energy of New York in the 1950s still drips off those black and white images that have pervaded our history books and lounge rooms.

Manhattan: the home of baseball, as much as John Cage, Merce Cunningham or Andy Warhol; skyscrapers rising and business booming by day, the coolest jazz competing with a fair dose of lethal gang warfare by night. Young Leonard Bernstein was virtually unstoppable in pursuit of both the loftiest goals and seediest habits.

Before immortalising his street cred in West Side Story, he conceived a violin concerto in the form of a five movement Serenade around a subject that couldn’t be further removed from Brooklyn, to wit: Plato’s Symposium, written ca. 385/6 BC but recounting a historical gathering in Athens from the year 416 BC. In Bernstein’s words, the Serenade “resulted from a re‑reading of Plato’s charming dialogue. The music, like the dialogue, is a series of related statements in praise of love .” Bernstein had married in 1951, and from all accounts, there was no absence of love in the marriage; but the reality remained that Leonard was gay and enjoyed liaisons with attractive young men. The ambivalence of love and its artistic expression found a beautifully disguised voice in the five movements of this work. Neither a work of philosophy nor an example of musical portraiture, the work turns one of the pillars of Western literary dialogue into a concerto, whilst saluting the romantic tradition of nighttime serenades, designed to woo, seduce and entertain a real or imagined lover. Where on the surface the solo violin might appear to embody each of the seven characters, the unbridled lyricism of the musical protagonist rather suggests Bernstein’s own choices and yearnings.

drives the allegretto allocated to the comedy playwright Aristophanes. In the original symposium, Aristophanes’s speech is one of the most original achievements, particularly in regard to the origins of the three sexes, male, female and androgynous, once powerful and god-like but thwarted by the Gods out of sheer envy. Eryximachus, the doctor in the house, is given a mere 90 seconds of whirlwind scherzo writing featuring the percussion. Agathon, the symposium’s host, is next with a heartfelt adagio, a romantic reflection on the idea that the object of love is beauty itself and that beauty finds its embodiment in youth. For the ancient Greeks, these aesthetic categories stood for virtue, courage, justice and wisdom.

Bernstein always called Agathon’s oration “the most moving speech of the dialog.”

Phaedrus’ opening ambit about Eros as the oldest God, the God of Love, becomes a slow fugato leading to a classic sonata-allegro for Pausanias, who distinguishes between base and noble forms of love (the latter being homosexuality as a lifestyle honouring intelligence and wisdom). Musical ambivalence

In this most unlikely violin concerto, Leonard Bernstein gave us a rich and timely statement on love, as well as a beautiful send-off into the night.

Thank you, Mr Bernstein, and congratulations on turning 100!

The finale brings to the fore Socrates the philosopher and Alcibiades, the army general and politician, who as usual arrives both late and drunk. Socrates’ definition of love, as explained by Diotima, is “the perpetual possession of what is good”, what we now understand as ‘platonic’ love.

The much younger and by his own account handsome Alcibiades describes his admiration and love for the older man in no uncertain terms, giving a tragic twist to the gathering. Socrates was eventually condemned to death on the charge of polluting the minds of young people.

Alcibiades, one year later, was banished from Athens and joined their arch-enemy Sparta.

Bernstein’s music captures the tragedy and turmoil that underlies the two final characters of the Symposium, counterbalancing the first movement with a very muscular block of music that brings all the threads together.

Roland Peelman

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Festival Artists Artistic Director Roland Peelman An acclaimed musician of great versatility, Roland Peelman

for his creativity in commissioning new artistic projects

was born in Flanders Belgium and has been active in Australia

including Kalkadunga Yurdu with didgeridoo artist and

over 25 years as a conductor, pianist, artistic director, and

composer William Barton. His overview and understanding

mentor to composers, singers and musicians alike. Peelman

of the music canon is unique. With a repertoire that includes

has received numerous accolades for his commitment

the major classical works from Bach to Gershwin as well as

to the creative arts in Australia and specifically for his 20-

a vast oeuvre of early music from Lassus, Monteverdi and

year directorship of The Song Company during which the

Schütz to Purcell Peelman is Australia’s most innovative

ensemble grew into one of Australia’s most outstanding and

and versatile musical director. His passion for new music

innovative ensembles. Peelman is widely recognised as one

has been crucial to an ever-growing repertoire of concert

of Australia’s finest musicians receiving the NSW Award for

music as well as music theatre. Over the years Peelman has

“the most outstanding contribution to Australian Music by an

directed numerous recordings and premiere seasons of

individual” and named “musician of the year” by the Sydney

new operas such as Black River, Fahrenheit 451, The Burrow,

Morning Herald’s music critic in 2006. In 2009 Sydney

The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and Gauguin to name

Morning Herald reviewer Peter McCallum named Peelman

just a few. He has worked with most orchestras in Australia

“The Innovator” praising him as the mastermind behind

and continues to develop new projects that aim to change

two of Sydney’s “best moments” in music referring to the

and re-invigorate the nature of concerts both in form

Tenebrae III dance collaboration to music by Gesualdo and

and content. In 2015 Roland was appointed to succeed

the Festival Licht featuring music by the composer Karlheinz

Christopher Latham as Artistic Director of the Canberra

Stockhausen. Peelman has also been widely recognised

International Music Festival.

Composers Mary Finsterer – Composer in residence Mary Finsterer is recognised as one of Australia’s finest

double–disc compilation entitled Catch, on the ABC

composers. Recognised internationally for her music in

Classics|Universal label. Also composing music for feature

Europe, Britain, USA and Canada, she has also represented

film, in 2011 Mary’s score for Shirley Barrett’s feature South

Australia in five International Society for Contemporary

Solitary was a finalist in the Film Critics Circle Awards and

Music Festivals.

Mary has been the recipient of many

has been released on ABC Classics|Universal. Mary's most

prestigious awards including the Churchill Fellowship,

recent work, her new opera Biographica, was premiered

Australia Council Composer Fellowship, Royal Netherlands

by Sydney Chamber Opera and Ensemble Offspring at the

Government

Orchestra

Sydney Festival in January 2017 with exceptional success.

composer-in-residence, Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize and

Award,

Sydney

Symphony

Having enjoyed a sold-out season, it was enthusiastically

numerous APRA Amcos ART Music Awards throughout

received by critics and audiences alike and described as 'an

her career.

She has been the featured composer in the

outstanding new opera that deserves a permanent place in

ABC Classic FM Pedestal Programme and the Sydney

the repertory’. Mary is currently the Chair of Composition at

Opera House. The first collection of her award–winning

the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University.

work spanning more than 10 years can be heard on the

Sharon Calcraft Sharon Calcraft was born in Jamaica in 1955 and moved to

Swanton, Elizabeth Campbell, James Morrison, Nigel

Australia with her family at age fourteen.In the late 1970’s

Westlake, Stephanie McCallum and Michael Askill. The

she began writing music for film which continued unabated

birth of her twin sons in 1993 effected a natural hiatus in

until 1990 when her eldest child was born. During this period

compositional activity, although there was a period of time

she was fortunate enough to work more or less continuously

in which she was a guest lecturer on the Classic Hollywood

with exceptional musicians such as Chris Abrahams, Lloyd

film Score at the AFTRS. In 2002 she began to compose

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again, but this time for concert performance. She has

piece for Stephanie McCallum and Erin Helyard as well as the

written works for Alice Giles, Halcyon, Synergy Percussion,

choristers of St Andrew’s Cathedral.

the Seven Harp Ensemble, Ole Bohn, Alison Mitchell and a

Ben Drury Benjamin Drury is a Canberra based composer, improviser

standard performance venues and site-specific installations

and sound artist. He has had works played by Eighth

including his pieces: For Car Tunnel and Hexagonal Vents,

Blackbird, Ensemble Offspring and Lisa Moore among other

Modified Furniture and Lontananza. His debut album

ensembles. He has presented works at the festivals: You Are

Sentence Fragment: Consider Revising was released in

Here, Art Not Apart, SoundOut, Tilde~ and the Canberra

February 2017. Benjamin would like to thank Arn Sprogis and

International Music festival. Through his compositions he

Margot Woods for commissioning his work Stained Glass for

explores acoustics, noise and time. He is interested in non-

the 2018 Canberra International Music Festival.

Brenda Gifford Brenda Gifford is a Yuin woman, originally from Wreck

the album sleeve notes for the reissued The Loner album

Bay, south coast NSW. She has twenty years' extensive

by Uncle Vic Simms. One outcome from the program was

experience as a musician and is a composer and classically

Brenda was commissioned to write a composition called

trained saxophonist, pianist and teacher. Brenda has toured

Gambambarawaraga, meaning 'seasons' in Dhurgha

extensively around Australia and Internationally to Native

language, for the Canberra International music Festival. She

American communities and the Pacific Islands. She worked

has given over one hundred interviews and oral histories

with Kev Carmody, on his album Eulogy (For a Black Person)

with Aboriginal musicians and has curated notes and blogs.

playing saxophone on the track 'Blood Red Rose'. She wrote

Brenda is currently studying composition at ANU.

Holly Harrison Holly Harrison is a young Australian composer from Western

(UK) 2014 Call for Scores. She has recently completed a

Sydney. Holly’s music is driven by the nonsense literature

piece for shakuhachi legend Riley Lee and Enigma Quartet,

of Lewis Carroll, embracing stylistic juxtapositions, the

as part of their Five Elements Project. Her works have been

visceral energy of rock, and whimsical humour. Holly was

performed at festivals including Gaudeamus Muziekweek

the inaugural winner of the 2017 Sue W Chamber Music

2014/2016 (NL), November Music (NL), Cabrillo Festival

Composition Prize, awarded to an Australian female

of Contemporary Music (USA), Perth International Arts

composer, for her work Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup, which

Festival, Adelaide Festival, Australian Music Day, Limelight

featured on Eighth Blackbird’s (USA) Australian tour as part

Australian Composition Seminar, Creativity Unlimited,

of Musica Viva’s 2017 International Concert Season.. She was

Asian Composers’ League Festival (TWN), and Now Hear

awarded first place at the 2014 Young Composers Meeting in

This Festival (CAN). Holly’s music has been performed in

Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, for Cabbages and Kings, and

Australia, Asia, Europe, and the USA by ensembles and

in 2013 was the winner of the inaugural Pyeongchon Arts Hall

artists including Orkest de Ereprijs, Alarm Will Sound,

International Chamber Music Composition Competition

Ensemble Offspring, Sydney Symphony Fellows, Michael

(South Korea) with Red Queen, White Queen, Alice and

Kieran Harvey and Timothy Phillips, Caroline Cartens,

All. Holly was a resident composer at the 2014 Mizzou

Sydney Youth Orchestras, The Riot Ensemble, and the

International Composers Festival (USA) with Alarm Will

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Sound, and was one of two winners of The Riot Ensemble's

Larry Sitsky Larry Sitsky is possibly the most commissioned Australian

repertoire and has deliberately concentrated on performing

composer, and has consciously tried to work in as many

Australian music. His books have become standard texts

genres as possible, including opera, theatre, orchestral

in areas such as Ferruccio Busoni, Anton Rubinstein, Alkan,

music,

music,

Classical Reproducing Piano Rolls, music of the twentieth

transcriptions. He has been the recipient of many honours

century avant-garde, music of the repressed Russian

including Order of Australia, Centenary Medal, Advance

avant-garde, 20th-century Australian piano music. Sitsky

Australia award, and cultural ambassadorships to China,

has worked with every orchestra in Australia and lectured at

Russia, USA. As a pianist he has constantly explored the

every tertiary institution. With an extensive list of CDs to his

chamber

music,

solo

music,

vocal

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name, his areas of speciality include Roy Agnew, Rosemary

member of the School of Music, ANU since 1966.

Brown, mysticism, mythology. He has been a Foundation

Roger Smalley (1943-2015) Born near Manchester in 1943, Roger Smalley is part of a

of Music, Smalley re-discovered the 19th century which

remarkable group of British late 20th century composers

prompted a series of tautly constructed and vividly imagined

who had their feet firmly planted in European structuralism

concert works. His work as a composer won multiple awards

and developed a soundworld reflecting the terse anti-

and received critical appraisal before becoming the subject

romantic agenda of serialism. Many gave way eventually

of various books. His presence at the University in Perh over

to mellower harmonic idioms that allowed a new level of

several decades is fondly remembered. Smalley would have

freedom. After settling in Western Australia as Professor

turned 75 this year.

Martin Wesley-Smith Martin Wesley-Smith is an eclectic composer at home in a

Royal National Park. In 1986 Boojum! was produced at the

diverse range of resources and idioms. Two main themes

Adelaide Festival of Arts before the Queen of England!

dominate his music: the life, work and ideas of Lewis

Later that year he established, at the Central Conservatory

Carroll and the plight of the people of East Timor. One of

of Music in Beijing, China's first computer music studio. In

his pieces - For Marimba & Tape - is the most-performed

1988 he was the Rayson Huang Fellow at the University of

piece of Australian so-called "serious art-music". He

Hong Kong where he subsequently lectured. In 1997 he was

was born in Adelaide and studied at the Universities of

awarded the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Composition Award for

Adelaide and York (England) before taking up a position

Quito, which has been performed widely internationally. Tall

lecturing in composition and electronic music at the Sydney

Poppies Records won the Best Recording of an Australian

Conservatorium of Music. In 1988 he was the Australia

Composition award in the 1997 ABC-FM Recording of

Council's Don Banks Fellow; in 1997 and 1998 he held an

the Year Awards and nominated for a Prix Italia and a

Australia Council Fellowship. In the late 70s and early 80s

Grawemeyer Award. In 1998 it earnt Wesley-Smith a Special

he was Musical Director for a now-legendary series of multi-

Award for Music in the 1998 Michele Turner Writing Awards.

media events produced at Wattamolla Beach in Sydney's

Ensembles Bach Akademie Australia Bach Akademie Australia is Australia's newest dedicated

direct access to the world's leading Bach exponents, Bach

Bach ensemble. It is the brainchild of world renowned Bach

Akademie Australia aims to give Australian audiences the

expert Madeleine Easton. Bach Akademie Australia’s raison

very best experience of J'S Bach's music and put Australia

d’etre is to create a natural extension of her work over the last

on the map as a place of international repute in the

17 years in Europe. It will combine cutting edge scholarship,

performance of J.S Bach.

imaginative musicianship and playing of dazzling virtuosity.

Bach Akademie Australia launched in April 2017 with a sold

The ensemble's focus on mastery of performance,

out performance in Sydney at the historic Garrison Church,

authenticity and originality of interpretation is bringing the

followed by two sold out performances for the Canberra

music of J.S Bach to life for Australian audiences.

International Music Festival to rave reviews in Limelight

Bach Akademie is forming close links with academic

Magazine and Canberra City News, and another sold out

institutions around Australia to establish an atmosphere

performance at Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney to mark

of learning and education around the ensemble. With

the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

I Bassifondi Simone Vallerotonda direzione, Gabriele Miracle percussioni, Federico Toffano colascione & chitarra battente Most 17th-18th-century music for lute, guitar, theorbo and

Kapsberger, Corbetta, Piccinini, de Visée, Granata, Weiss

archlute was devised and written down to be played in

and others either composed their solo pieces with an added

consort with different instruments. Such composers as

continuo accompaniment or arranged them from the

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original tablatures into regular multi-part scores. In some

founded and hand-picked by Simone Vallerotonda, aims

instances they wrote directly for a consort of lutes, or for lute

at rediscovering and offering the audience that repertoire

and sundry instruments. Guitarists were typically expected to

in chamber format. Their debut album Alfabeto falso was

be accompanied by theorboes, colasciones, lutes – and vice

nominated in the ICMA 2018 (International Classical Music

versa. Relying on written testimonies as well as on musical

Award) among the best baroque instrumental records.

and iconographic sources, the ensemble "I Bassifondi",

Dapper's Delight Dapper’s Delight was founded as an informal duo in

Music Hall. The duo has found friends and admirers from

2009, primarily to play music on the streets. Following

both the folk and early-music worlds. Dapper’s Delight has

highly positive reactions from listeners, they expanded

performed in the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany,

this concept into a programme for the concert hall. Their

Austria, Portugal and Canada, and has recorded three CDs.

repertoire focuses on the rich repertoire of 17th and 18th

The name “Dapper’s Delight” is a reference to the Dutch

century English tune books and broadside ballads, which

humanist and armchair explorer Olfert Dapper (ca. 1635 –

form a bridge between ‘art’ and ‘folk’ music – music that

1689) who despite never having travelled outside Holland

could have been performed in domestic settings, on the

published several geographical tomes, amongst which

street, in the tavern, carnivals and pantomime etc. and that

Description of Africa (1668) is still a key text for Africanists. A

appears in both high and low cultural sources. Recently, they

famous Amsterdam street market is named after him and it

have widened their focus to include the logical descendants

was here that the duo first performed in 2009.

of the broadside tradition, namely songs from the British

Susanna Borsch recorders, English concertina and voice Susanna is one of the few instrumentalists able to interpret

the band Hexnut; ELECTRA (all-female modern music

both contemporary and early music with complete ease.

ensemble); BRISK Recorder Quartet. Dapper’s Delight

She studied at the Amsterdam Conservatorium with Walter

provides Susanna with the space to explore improvisation,

van Hauwe. Her solo CDs “off-limits” (2006) and “Susie, tell

and a freer approach to performing, in a repertoire full of

me a Story!” (2014) feature many new works for recorder

beautiful melodies and invigorating dances. Since April 2014

and live-electronics written especially for her. Her other

she has been teaching at the Trossingen University of Music

ensembles include Mezzaluna (Renaissance polyphony);

in Germany.

Adrian Brown anglo concertinas and voice A musical instrument maker by calling, Adrian Brown has

his teenage years and teaches the instrument both privately

conducted extensive research into the history of the

and at the annual German Concertina Meeting. He has

recorder, measuring many original instruments and making

developed a very personal style on the instrument and his

reconstructions, and has written several organological

playing has been widely admired both for its originality and

studies. In parallel, he has played the anglo concertina since

technical competence.

Canberra Wind Symphony Geoff Grey CSM artistic director and chief conductor The formation of the Canberra Wind Symphony in 2015 is the

ensemble players to bring the best 20th and 21st Century

most significant impact on the large ensemble landscape

Australian and international wind literature to the stage.

in this region since Ernest Llewellyn took over the reins of

With a level of clarity and musicianship that is rare, the

the CSO 50 years ago. This wind orchestra, the freshest

Canberra Wind Symphony delights in presenting concerts

contributor to the international wind music conversation,

of contemporary wind ensemble works from fascinating

brings together up to 40 of the Capital Region’s finest wind

composers with intriguing rhythms, textures and colours.

Coro Canberra Coro is a semi-professional Canberra-based not-for-

and performance. The group is committed to presenting

profit chamber music ensemble founded by conductor

interesting and diverse performances around Canberra,

and composer David Mackay and singer Paul Eldon which

accessible to all ages, backgrounds and incomes. Coro is a

follows the European festival chorus tradition of rehearsals

platform for collaboration with other musicians whether as 93

soloists, conductors or part of the broader ensemble. Since

singer and conductor Peter Tregear; Joseph Nolan, Organist

their first sold-out concert in March 2012 at the Wesley

and Master of the Choristers at St George's Cathedral, Perth;

Music Centre, notable collaborations include countertenor

and Beijing-based British conductor Nicholas Smith OBE.

Tobias Cole; composer and keyboardist Calvin Bowman;

Kompactus Youth Choir Kompactus is a youth chamber choir, aimed at developing

from many time periods and styles stretching as far back as

the skills of talented singers between the ages of eighteen

the late medieval through to modern contemporary music.

and thirty. Their diverse and versatile repertoire is drawn

Luminescence Chamber Singers Luminescence Chamber Singers is a virtuosic chamber

Wales with acclaimed guest conductor and composer

music ensemble comprised of eight young vocalists. Since

Gordon Hamilton, performed with sopranos Louise Page

the ensemble’s earliest iteration in 2013, Luminescence

and Louise Keast, and worked extensively with Swedish

has quickly gained a reputation for presenting exciting and

musicologist and conductor Bengt-Olov Palmqvist. In

excellent singing. The ensemble is under the collaborative

addition to their own concert seasons, Luminescence

artistic direction of its singers and performs a wide range

performs regularly in local concert series in venues such as

of repertoire from the Renaissance to the 21st century. In

the High Court, Parliament House and Wesley Music Centre,

2014, Luminescence recorded a number of tracks for Sally

and delivers a variety of workshops to school and community

Greenaway’s album Aubade & Nocturne, and in 2015 they

choirs and is frequently engaged for collaborative projects

performed with ARIA Award-Winning pianist and composer

and recordings.

Sally Whitwell. In 2016, Luminescence toured New South

Orava Quartet Daniel Kowalik violin, David Dalseno violin, Thomas Chawner viola, Karol Kowalik cello Founded in 2007, the Orava Quartet has been invited to

they are Quartet-in-Residence, the Quartet has performed

perform in Canada, the United States, United Arab Emirates,

at major festivals including the Australian Festival of Chamber

China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines, as well as for

Music and Huntington Estate Music Festival; the BBC Proms

Queen Sofia of Spain and Pope Benedict XVI. As graduate

Melbourne; Queensland Music Festival, Melbourne Festival ,

Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado (USA),

the Musica Viva Festival, and Brisbane Baroque. Orava

they had the privilege of working closely with the world-

Quartet is grateful for the support of private sponsors and

renowned Takács Quartet from 2012-2014. During this time

the University of Colorado, the Australia Council for the Arts,

the Quartet were selected to be part of the Juilliard String

Australian Music Foundation, Musica Viva, Ian Potter Cultural

Quartet Seminar in New York City. At the 2013 Asia Pacific

Trust, Dame Joan Sutherland Fund, PPCA Performers’

Chamber Music Competition in Melbourne the Quartet

Trust Foundation, Ernest Llewellyn Scholarship and Ars

won the Musica Viva Australia Tony Berg Award for Most

Musica. Daniel, David and Thomas play on instruments by

Outstanding Australian Ensemble. Alongside performances

contemporary American luthiers David Gusset and Ryan

for Camerata – Queensland's Chamber Orchestra, where

Soltis, and Karol on a French 19th century cello.

Pietra Quartet Anna Da Silva Chen violin, Benjamin Tjoa violin, Justin Julian viola, Miles Mullin-Chivers cello The Pietra Quartet was formed in mid-2016 by four Sydney

Quartet has also appeared in masterclasses for Edward

Conservatorium students. The quartet has worked under

Dusinberre, Sebastian Casleanu and Janis Laurs. In 2017,

the tutelage of Associate Professor Alice Waten and the

they won first prize in the inaugural Sydney Conservatorium

Goldner Quartet’s Julian Smiles while studying at the

Association Chamber Music Competition. The quartet is

Conservatorium and performing frequently. In 2017,

also the grateful recipient of the 2017 Westheimer String

the group participated in the annual Estivo Summer

Quartet Fellowship and a 2018 Ernest V. Llewellyn Memorial

Chamber Music Festival, where they received tuition and

Fund scholarship.

masterclasses from Eberhard Feltz, Johannes Meissl, Niklas Schmidt and Goetz Richter in Verona, Italy. The Pietra 94

Seven Harp Ensemble SHE was founded by Artistic Director Alice Giles, world-

highly prestigious Spring Festival Global Gala, one of the

renowned performer, teacher and advocate for the harp.

most viewed television events in China. SHE performances

The other members of SHE comprise some of the best

include: the Canberra International Music Festival (2009);

young talent from around Australia, with several members

ABC Classic FM Sunday Live; ANU School of Music; Wesley

currently studying and working internationally. Having

Music Centre; Canberra Museum for the Multicultural

previously represented Australia at the American Harp

Festival and National Galley of Australia). SHE has recorded

Society’s annual conference in 2006, SHE was honoured to

a CD of their Australian commissions for the Tall Poppies

be invited to tour to China in January this year, performing

label, titled ‘Bolmimerie’. Included on the album are works

at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing. The

by Ross Edwards, Martin Wesley-Smith, Andrew Schultz and

group was also the guest of Beijing Television as part of its

Sharon Calcraft.

Alice Giles director Alice Giles is celebrated as one of the world’s leading harpists.

Arts Fellowship she performed at Mawson Station in 2011

First Prize winner of the Eighth Israel International Harp

to commemorate the Centenary of the First Australasian

Contest, she has performed extensively as soloist word-

Antarctic Expedition. Alice is Director of the Seven Harp

wide. Regarded by Luciano Berio as the foremost interpreter

Ensemble, was Chair and Artistic Director of the World Harp

of his Sequenza II, recital highlights include London’s

Congress, Sydney July 2014, and is founding and Artistic

Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd Street 'Y' and Merkin Hall and

Director of the non-profit company Harp Centre Australia.

Frankfurt Alte Oper. As recipient of an Australian Antarctic

She now teaches at the University of Sydney.

Turner Trebles The Turner Trebles is an unauditioned choir of boys and

highlights include Carols in the Members Hall of Parliament

girls from Turner Public School directed by Tobias Cole,

House, The Chocolate Factory (Canberra International

which provides the opportunity for children to explore their

Music Festival), Double Trouble with The Song Company and

full vocal capacity, in particular, their high voices, and aims

Canberra Choral Society at The Street Theatre and Carmina

to instill a passion for choral singing. Recent performance

Burana in Llewellyn Hall with National Capital Orchestra.

Vocal Fry Vocal Fry is a fun and energised group of Canberra high

2013 to over thirty singers. Recent performance highlights

school students who love quality ensemble singing and

include The Chocolate Factory in the Fitters Workshop

are keen to develop their musical and performance

(CIMF), Transcendence in the High Court (ANU Open School

skills. Created by Tobias Cole as part of the ANU Music

of Music), and excerpts from Pergolesi's Stabat Mater in the

Development Program, it has grown from five singers in

Hungarian Embassy (Friends of the ANU School of Music).

Singers Richard Butler tenor A 2013 Gramophone award-winning artist as principal soloist

Bach's St Matthew Passion at Elder Hall, Adelaide. Last year

for the Gabrieli Consort ( A New Venetian Coronation, 1595),

Richard sang Messiah for Trinity College, Melbourne at MRC,

English tenor Richard Butler now lives in Sydney. Richard

Handel's Judas Maccabaeus at St George's Cathedral, Perth,

made his debut with WASO, MSO and ASO in 2014 singing

St John Passion arias for WASO, and St Matthew Passion for

Handel's Messiah. Richard was also soloist for the ABO's 25th

TSO, Hobart (Evangelist and arias). Recent projects have

anniversary series, performed in the Canberra International

included further performances of Bach St John Passion,

Festival singing Bach cantatas and was evangelist and aria

Bach cantatas with the newly launched Bach Akademie

soloist in Bach's St John Passion at St James', Sydney with

Australia and a concert series with the Song Company. Most

the Australian Haydn Ensemble. At UWA, Richard was the

recently, Richard sang the title role in Britten St Nicolas for

tenor soloist in Britten's War Requiem. He also sang the role

Sydney Chamber Choir and Brett Weymark. Richard is also

of Pilate in Pärt's Passio for the Adelaide Chamber Singers

principal lay-clerk at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.

as well as for Song Company in Sydney and was evangelist in 95

Tobias Cole countertenor Tobias Cole is an award winning singer, choral conductor

October presented The Vow, an adaptation by Tobias of

and artistic director who is driven by a passion to create

Handel’s Jephtha at the Canberra Playhouse. In 2017 Tobias’

engaging experiences for performers and audiences. In

engagements included Alana Valentine’s Cold Light with The

2016, with support from ArtsACT, the Australia Council

Street Theatre Company, a return to the Song Company and

and Creative Partnerships Australia, he established his

the Canberra International Music Festival, and a production

own opera company, Handel In The Theatre, which in

of Handel's Esther for Handel In The Theatre.

Andrew Fysh oam bass Originally from Hobart, where he began his singing career

concert hall received Soundscapes magazine’s Editor's

over forty years ago as a treble at St David’s Cathedral,

Choice award. Solo engagements have included Bach St

Andrew Fysh has considerable experience as both chorister

John Passion (St Mary’s Cathedral and St James’ Church,

and soloist throughout Australia. His particular interest

Sydney), Mozart Requiem (Festival of Voices, Hobart, and

lies in early music, nurtured through fourteen years as a

St James’ Church, Sydney), Berlioz L’enfance du Christ

permanent member of Melbourne’s acclaimed Ensemble

(Llewellyn Choir, Canberra) and Canberra Choral Society's

Gombert under John O’Donnell. He has joined the Ensemble

performances of Messiah in 2015 and Bach St Matthew

for its four overseas concert tours, most recently to Europe

Passion in 2018. Andrew was bass soloist for the Canberra

in 2015. Andrew has appeared as a guest artist with the The

Bach Ensemble’s cantata concert series in 2016–17,

Song Company on multiple occasions in both concert and

culminating in two performances of the solo cantata Ich

recording. The 1996 world- premiere recording of Schütz

habe genug (Cantata No.82).

Der Schwanengesang recorded in the Sydney Opera House

Kate Howden mezzo-soprano Kate Howden studied at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Royal

Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel, Opera Holloway; Isolier Le Comte

Academy of Music, and National Opera Studio, London

Ory and Dorothée Cendrillon, Blackheath Halls Opera;

and now studies with Susan Roberts. She has won many

Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro, Harrow Opera; and Annio La

singing awards, including the Jean Meikle Prize for a Duo with

clemenza di Tito, Hampstead Garden Opera. Her concert

pianist Sachika Taniyama at the 2015 Wigmore Hall / Kohn

repertoire includes Haydn Nelson Mass, Mozart Requiem and

Foundation International Song Competition; the art song

C Minor Mass; Berlioz Les Nuits d’Eté and Duruflé Requiem.

prize at the 2015 Mozart Singing Competition, the Isabel Jay

Recent engagements include Il Ritorno with Australian

Prize (RAM) and the Roy Pleasance Singing Award (TCM).

contemporary circus group Circa; Mort de Socrate (Satie),

Kate’s opera engagements include Cendrillon (Massenet),

King's Place; and Solomon, Musique Cordiale Festival/

Bianca The Rape of Lucretia, La Ciesca Gianni Schicchi and

Graham Ross.

La Suora zelatrice Suor Angelica, Royal Academy Opera;

Wynton Johnstone treble 12-year-old Wynton Johnstone is a member of the

Jane Gilby and is preparing for his grade 6 AMEB violin exam.

Luminescence Children’s Choir and the Ainslie All Saints

In his spare time Wynton enjoys reading, cooking, playing

Choristers, and has participated twice in Gondwana

mandolin, piano and video games. He is thrilled to be singing

Summer Choral School. Wynton studies violin with Barbara

the role of ‘Amore’ in Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria.

Chloe Lankshear soprano Chloe

Lankshear

Conservatorium

is of

a

vocal

Music

student

under

the

of Sydney direction

months, she has performed with The Song Company

of

in various projects, sung with St James’ Church choir,

Rowena Cowley. She has been a member of Luminescence

and participated in 2017’s Yvonne Kenny Masterclass in

Chamber Singers since 2013 and directed various choirs

Canberra. Chloe is currently completing her Bachelor of

and music workshops around Canberra. In the past twelve

Performance specialising in Early and Baroque music.

Susannah Lawergren soprano Susannah holds an Adv.Dip.Opera from the Sydney

Relations) with Distinction from UNSW. After starting her

Conservatorium and a BA (Politics and International

professional career with a season at Opera Australia’s NSW

96

Schools Company, she joined The Song Company in 2011.

2017, she premiered Andrew Howes’ one-woman opera The

Since winning second prize in the 2010 National Aria Award,

Mermaid in the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House with

Susannah has performed regularly in Canberra, both in The

the Kasba Trio and in 2018 performed in Brett Dean’s highly

Song Company’s Subscription Series and for CIMF. She was

acclaimed opera Hamlet at the Adelaide Festival. For the

the soprano soloist in the CCS and NCO's 2016 Carmina

Bach Akademie, she has recorded and performed a number

Burana and is a 2018 recitalist with Art Song Canberra. In

of cantatas in their concert series and fundraisers.

Andrew O'Connor bass Andrew O’Connor was born in Perth, and graduated from

Australian vocal work by Alice Chance, and Handel's Ode

the University of Western Australia (BMus). He relocated

for Queen Anne at the Canberra International Music Festival.

to Sydney in 2015 to join The Song Company, Australia's

Other recent highlights include world premieres of two

leading vocal ensemble. Andrew also appears regularly with

Australian song cycles at the Sydney Opera House with

Sydney’s leading early and contemporary music ensembles

Hourglass Ensemble, and Monteverdi L'Orfeo for ANU.

including Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera, Bach Akademie

He is a passionate advocate for contemporary Australian

Australia, Cantillation, St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Choir of

music and music education. In his current role with Song

St James, Sydney Antiphony, and Hourglass Ensemble. In

Company and tours with The Australian Voices Six he has

2017 his solo engagements included Fauré Requiem with

premiered over fifty new works around the globe. Andrew is

the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Arvo Pärt Passio with

highly involved in music education via the Song Company’s

The Song Company, Monteverdi 1610 Vespers with The

education program, the Moorambilla Voices program, and

Song Company and Orchestra of the Antipodes, Bach John

the Perth Choral Institute.

Passion in City Recital Hall with Choir of St James, a new

Dan Walker tenor Composer, conductor and performer Dan Walker is one of

performer with The Song Company and was a founding

Australia’s most in-demand choral specialists. He has had

member of early music ensemble ‘The Parsons Affayre’. He

works commissioned by the Sydney Symphony, Australian

is a keenly sought-after conductor, appearing as chorus-

Chamber Orchestra, Gondwana Choirs and Halcyon. As

master for the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Choruses,

a performer, Dan is a member of the professional vocal

and is Artistic Director of Choristry and Habeas Chorus, the

ensemble ‘The Consort of Melbourne’, Sydney-based

choir for the Melbourne legal community.

Cantillation, and Pinchgut Opera. He has been a guest

Instrumentalists Stephanie Arnold cello The work of Melbourne based cellist Stephanie Arnold

based asylum seekers. Her current project These Tender

combines music performance with oral histories and

Threads is Stephanie’s re-working of Christina Vantzou's

storytelling. Since completing a Master of Music from

ambient improvisatory tracks, combined with family oral

Musikhochschule Lübeck Germany in 2014, Stephanie has

histories exploring the subject of remembering and forgetting.

spent the last few years developing works using her edited

Performances of these projects include Oral History Victoria’s

interview material in live musical performance. Her work

2016 inaugural showcase, History Council of Victoria’s

Across the Water, a collaboration with composer Robert

‘Making Public Histories’ seminar series, the Australian Oral

Davidson, was awarded the Oral History Victoria 2017

History Conference and Melbourne Recital Centre's ‘A

innovation award. The work for cello and digital track

Thousand Sounds series’.

was made using oral history interviews with Melbourne

Veronica Bailey percussion Veronica has a Bachelor of Music from the Australian National

she studied at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University

University, which she completed in 2007 and a Masters degree

where her teachers were John Tafoya (former timpanist with

focusing on Percussion Pedagogy completed in 2013. In 2007

the National Symphony) and Kevin Bobo. While there she was 97

awarded the place of timpanist in the school's Symphony

Percussion to play at the Seoul Drum Festival in 2011. In April

Orchestra and was invited to play with the Columbus, Indiana

of 2014, Veronica performed Ewazen Marimba concerto

Philharmonic. Veronica regularly performs as Principal and

with the National Capital Orchestra. Veronica has been the

Tutti percussionist with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.

classical percussion teacher for the ANU Open School of

Performance highlights include being Principal Timpanist

Music since 2010.

with AYO in 2011 and travelling to South Korea with Synergy

William Barton didgeridoo William Barton has been playing didgeridoo for over 20

internationally since the age of 15. He has been involved with

years. He first started to learn the instrument in Mount Isa,

community engagement with audiences from an early age.

far north western Queensland. Working with traditional

William is a 2012 ARIA award winner for best classical album

dance groups and fusion/rock jazz bands, orchestras, string

Kalkadungu.

quartets and mixed ensembles, William has been touring

Nicola Bell oboe Nicola Bell is an Australian oboist who has been living and

Orchestra. In Australia she has performed as guest Principal

working in Europe since 2010. After studies in Sydney,

Oboe with the Opera Australia Orchestra and Western

Gothenburg and Lyon, she completed her Masters with

Australia Symphony Orchestra. Nicola performed with the

Francois Leleux in Munich and went on to hold the position

New Theatre Ensemble in Tallinn from 2015-2016 as part of

of Principal Oboe with the Estonian National Symphony

the Tallinn Chamber Music Festival and the Estonian Concert

Orchestra. She has appeared as guest principal with many

Elite Series, as well as with the Munich Winds from 2014-

orchestras including Finnish National Opera, Finnish Radio

2015. She performed as a soloist in Bach’s Double Concerto

Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales,

for Violin and Oboe with Orchestra 143 Sydney in 2010.

Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Munich Symphony

Cecilia Bernardini classical violin Dutch–Italian Cecilia Bernardini is widely considered to

Kristian Bezuidenhout, pianist Alexandre Tharaud and

be one of the most versatile violinists of her generation,

cellist Colin Carr. In 2012 Cecilia was appointed leader of

performing on both the modern and the baroque violin.

the Dunedin Consort, based in Scotland, with whom she has

With her great passion for chamber music, Cecilia is a

recorded Bach's St. John Passion and a best-selling disc of

member of the Serafino String Trio, joining violist Giles

the Brandenburg Concertos, which has been nominated for

Francis and cellist Timora Rosler. She has a duo with

a Gramophone award at the same time as Mozart’s Requiem

fortepianist Keiko Shichijo (with whom she did an extensive

by the same group. Future releases with the Dunedin Consort

tour at the Utrecht Oude Muziek Festival) and regularly

include Bach's Violin Concertos, his Christmas Oratorio and

performs with her father, baroque oboist Alfredo Bernardini.

his Magnificat. Cecilia plays on a 1743 Camillus Camilli violin

Past Chamber music partners include baroque violinist

kindly loaned by the Jumpstart Foundation.

Stanley Ritchie, double-bass player Rick Stotijn, fortepianist

Fletcher Cox trumpet Fletcher Cox completed his Bachelor’s degree at the

He has worked professionally with many orchestras and

University of the Western Australia, studying under Brent

ensembles, including the Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmanian

Grapes and Evan Cromie. Since moving to Melbourne in

and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, the latter two of

2016, he has been studying under Dave Elton and Tristram

which he has appeared as Guest Principal Trumpet. Fletcher

Williams at the Australian National Academy of Music, where

is also enthusiastic about solo and chamber music, teaching

he is currently in his final year. As a performer, Fletcher has

and music advocacy.

appeared onstage in numerous settings across the country.

Peter Clark violin Widely considered one of the most dynamic young

of his leadership. His first performance in Carnegie Hall

musicians in Australia today, Peter is known for the energy he

was with the Australian Chamber Orchestra when he was

brings to his directing and the refreshingly dynamic nature

still too young to legally drink wine afterwards. Since then,

98

highlights have included Peter performing chamber music

Orchestra. For the last three years, Peter has created and

at Denmark’s Thy International Chamber Music Festival

developed a widely acclaimed interdisciplinary concert

with Máté Szűcs, principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic.

experience entitled ‘Local Heroes’, with the Australian

2016 brought him to Ireland where he was principal second

Chamber Orchestra. Together with violinist Pekka Kuusisto,

violin of the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, Dublin. During 2017,

Peter has delivered ‘Local Heroes’ to thousands of young

he was in residence at Lincoln Center, New York. In 2018,

people all across Australia.

Peter appeared as concertmaster of the Darwin Symphony

Nigel Crocker trombone The early part of Nigel’s career was spent knocking around

Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Nigel has a keen interest in

in rock and funk bands in his home town of Perth. In ’81 he

the sackbut and often works with Australian Brandenburg

moved to Melbourne where he played with iconic rock

Orchestra, Pinchgut Opera, Australian Baroque Brass, and

band Hunters and Collectors before joining the Channel 9

Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra. Nigel was a

Band working on The Tonight Show With Don Lane. In ’83

foundation member of the Sydney Alpha Ensemble and has

Nigel was appointed Principal Trombone to the Tasmanian

appeared as guest with other contemporary music groups,

Symphony orchestra and occupied that position for 6 years

notably Elision, Seymour Group and Ensemble Offspring.

before moving to Sydney to freelance where he appears

This year marks Nigel’s seventh appearance at CIMF.

regularly with Opera Australia Orchestra, SSO, ACO and

Jacqueline Dossor double bass Originally from Sydney, Jacqueline moved to the UK in 2004

Opera, and English National Ballet. Jacqueline commutes

when she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal

regularly between the UK and Australia throughout the year,

Academy of Music in London. Since graduating, Jacqueline

as the principal double bass player for the Australian Haydn

has continued to work regularly with a variety of UK orchestras

Ensemble, and occasionally performing as guest principal

and ensembles such as the English Chamber Orchestra, the

with Australia’s other top period orchestras: Pinchgut Opera/

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, BBC National

Orchestra of the Antipodes and the Australian Brandenburg

Orchestra of Wales, Welsh National Opera, English Touring

Orchestra.

Claire Edwardes percussion Claire Edwardes’ award-winning performances combine

the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Radio Chamber Orchestra,

a

original

Liverpool Philharmonic and Brabants Orkest and worked

interpretations bringing to life the varied array of music she

regularly with new music ensembles. She presented

performs. In 1999 Claire won the coveted ABC Symphony

regular solo recitals throughout Europe at venues such as

Australia Young Performers Award and in 2005 she was

the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) and Queen Elizabeth

awarded the MCA/Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music.

Hall (London) and featured in major contemporary music

In 2016, 2012 and 2007 she won the AMC/APRA Art Music

festivals. She collaborated closely with highly regarded

Award for Excellence through her commitment to Australian

composers such as Steve Reich, Harrison Birtwistle

music. In 2014 she was the recipient of a prestigious two year

and James McMillan.Returning to Sydney in 2006 Claire

Australia Council Music Fellowship. In 1997 Claire graduated

became the Artistic Director of the music group she was a

from the Sydney Conservatorium; she was the recipient

founding member of in 1996, Ensemble Offspring. Recent

of the NUFFIC Huygens Dutch Government Scholarship

performance highlights include concertos with Australia’s

and later the Queen Elizabeth Trust Award, which funded

leading symphony orchestras, solo appearances at several

her studies abroad. During a successful period based

festivals, and collaborations with an array of artists from

in Europe (1999-2006), she undertook a Masters of

Mike Patton to the Australian String Quartet. Claire teaches

Music at the Rotterdam Conservatory and then at the

composition and percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium

Amsterdam Conservatory. Claire performed as soloist with

as well as Australian National Academy of Music.

theatrical

energy

with

charismatic

and

Tim Fain violin Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning violinist Tim Fain was

Slave, and Black Swan, where he also appeared on screen.

heard on the soundtracks to the films Moonlight, 12 Years a

Recipient of the Young Concert Artists International award, 99

he has appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh and Baltimore

which introduced its 360 stereoscopic VR capability for

(Marin Alsop) Symphonies, American Composers Orchestra

YouTube, and was recently shown at The Sundance Film

(Carnegie Hall), Orchestra of St. Luke's, The Hague and

Festival. His discography includes "Arches," "River of

Buffalo Philharmonics, Mostly Mozart and National

Light,” “Fain plays Glass,” and “First Loves.” His solo multi-

Orchestra of Spain, among others. His recitals have taken

media evening "Portals" premiered to sold-out houses and

him to world's major music capitals, he has toured with

features collaborations with Benjamin Millepied, Leonard

Musicians from Marlboro, the Chamber Music Society of

Cohen, Nicholas Britell, film maker Kate Hackett, and radio

Lincoln Center, and around the globe in a duo-recital program

personality Fred Child and a new work written for him by

with Philip Glass. He recently collaborated with Google on a

Philip Glass.

Virtual Reality music video for his composition, Resonance,

Ben Hoadley bassoon Ben is a prominent bassoon player from New Zealand,

and several orchestras and ensembles in Australia. In

currently lecturer at the University of Auckland. He has

recent times he has released various CDs of contemporary

studied historical bassoon and is dedicated to contemporary

bassoon music, including Arapātiki, works written for him

music. He has formed a special connection with the Hartford

by Dame Gillian Whitehead. Last year he premiered a new

Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra

concerto by Alex Taylor.

Magdalenna Krstevska clarinet A graduate of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Musics,

Festival, and performed in the Musica Viva International

Magdalenna recently completed her studies at the Australian

Chamber Music Festival as part of the Australian Youth

National Academy of Music (ANAM), under David Thomas.

Orchestra (AYO) Chamber Players program. Magdalenna

Her accolades include the Australian National Young

has performed with professional and top youth orchestras

Virtuoso of the Year Award. In 2017, she was selected as a

all over the country. Most notable experiences include

finalist in the ANAM Concerto Competition, performing the

performances with the Melbourne, Sydney and Tasmanian

Nielsen Clarinet Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony

Symphony Orchestras, the Australian World Orchestra and

Orchestra. Magdalenna has previously appeared as a

multiple international tours with the AYO, with whom she has

Featured Young Artist at the Canberra International Music

held the position of Principal Clarinet.

Ned McGowan flute, contrabass flute Ned McGowan is a composer, teacher, flutist, improviser,

Teapot, the orchestra is spatialized around the public, which

curator and researcher. Known for rhythmical vitality and

also participates in creating sounds. McGowan composed

technical virtuosity, his music has won awards and been

the world's first Concerto for iPad and orchestra, which saw

performed at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw and

its premiere with soloist Keiko Shichijo and the Rotterdam

other halls and festivals around the world. Orchestras who

Sinfonia. Ned’s specialty is the contrabass flute. In 2008

have performed his works include American Composers

he composed the first concerto for contrabass flute

Orchestra, Valdosta Symphony Orchestra (USA), Orquestra

and orchestra. In 2016, he released his album The Art of

do Teatro Nacional Claudio Santoro (Brazil) and the Dutch

the Contrabass Flute, an album dedicated solely to this

orchestras Radio Kamer Filharmonie, Radio Filharmonisch

amazing instrument. He has composed often for flute and

Orkest, Gelders Orkest, Rotterdam Sinfonia and Ricciotti;

also for recorder in solo and chamber ensembles. Ned is

ensembles include Eighth Blackbird, Klang, Nederlands

a professor at the Utrecht Conservatory in composition,

Blazers Ensemble, Spinifex and Zephyr String Quartet.

ensembles and the rhythmic training program he has

Soloists he has worked with include Susanna Borsch, Keiko

developed, called Advanced Rhythm and Pulse. He holds

Shichijo, Guy Livingston, Reiko Manabe, Mysore Manjunath,

degrees in composition from the Royal Conservatory The

Derek Bermel, Sarah Jeffrey, Egbert Jan Louwerse and Eric

Hague and in flute from the Cleveland Institute of Music and

Vloeimans. Many of his works utilize unusual instrumentations,

the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

extended techniques or theatrical setups. For Tempest in a

Neal Peres Da Costa continuo A graduate of the University of Sydney, the Guildhall School of

the University of Leeds (UK), Neal Peres Da Costa is a world-

Music and Drama (London), the City University (London) and

renowned performing scholar and educator. He is Professor

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of Historical Performance within the Historical Performance

Festival (UK) and Pegasus Music (US). He is involved in on-

Division (which he founded) and Program Leader of

going projects with the Australia Haydn Ensemble including,

Postgraduate Research at the Sydney Conservatorium of

in 2017, performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no.

Music. His monograph Off the Record: Performing Practices

5, and a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos nos. 1

in Romantic Piano Playing (New York: Oxford University

and 3 to be released in 2017. Winner of the 2008 Fine Arts

Press, 2012) is hailed as a book that ‘no serious pianist should

ARIA for Best Classical Recording for Bach’s Sonatas for

be without’ (Limelight, 2012) and was the subject of a five-

violin and obbligato harpsichord (ABC Classics, 2007) with

part series broadcast by ABC Classic FM. During 2015-16

Richard Tognetti and Daniel Yeadon, Neal’s discography

Neal was a chief editor (with Clive Brown and Kate Bennett

includes: Bach’s Complete Sonatas for Viola Da Gamba and

Wadsworth) for the new Bärenreiter Urtext performing

Harpsichord with Daniel Yeadon (ABC Classics, 2009), The

edition of the complete Brahms chamber works for one solo

Baroque Trombone with Christian Lindberg and the ACO

instrument and piano which has received critical acclaim.

(BIS, 2009); The Galant Bassoon with Matthew Wilke and

Bärenreiter have commissioned Neal (with Clive Brown) to

Kees Boersma (Melba, 2009); Baroque Duets (Vexations

produce editions of the Beethoven and Eberl Sonatas for

840, 2011) which he directed with Fiona Campbell, David

violin and piano. Neal has recently received ARC funding for

Walker and Ironwood; Music for a While with Ironwood and

a three-year Discovery Project (2017-19) for performance

Miriam Allan (2012); 3 with Genevieve Lacey and Daniel

research in 19th-century piano playing. eal regularly performs

Yeadon (ABC Classics, 2012); Mozart: Stolen Beauties with

with Australia’s leading ensembles including the Australian

Anneke Scott and Ironwood (ABC Classics, 2015) and most

Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Pinchgut

recently Brahms: Tones of Romantic Extravagance (ABC

Opera, the Song Company, the Australian Haydn Ensemble

Classics, 2016). He has also recorded extensively on the

and Ironwood. He has performed at the Festival Baroque,

Channel Classics label with Florilegium, the British ensemble

the Peninsula Summer Festival, the Music Viva Festival, the

which he co-founded in 1991. Neal Peres da Costa appears

Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the York Early Music

courtesy of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Christopher Pidcock cello Canberra cellist Christopher Pidcock has performed and

Yo-Yo Ma and Riccardo Muti. On his return Christopher

studied across Australia and internationally. His awards

became a perminant member of the Sydney Symphony

include 2007 Gisborne International Music Competition

Orchestra in 2013, and has toured with them to China and

(New Zealand) 1st prize, a Churchill Fellowship in 2008,

soon South Korea and Eastern Europe. Christopher is a

the 2009 Nelson Meers Foundation Scholarship at the

founding member of the newly established Sydney Piano

Sydney Eisteddfod, and Semi-finalist in the 2010 ABC

Trio and regularly gives recitals across Australia and America.

YPA. In 2012, Pidcock returned from Chicago where he

Christopher is currently studying a Doctor of Musical Arts

completed a Performance Certificate with Hans Jensen at

focussing on 19th century performance techniques in the

Northwestern University, where he was also a member of

chamber works of Brahms and his contemporaries.

the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, giving performances with

Veronique Serret violin Veronique Serret has played with the Australian Chamber

frequently performs with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra,

Orchestra for many years and was recently appointed

and has appeared as guest principal violin with the

Concertmaster of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra. She

Tasmanian Symphony.

Keiko Shichijo piano, fortepiano Keiko Shichijo is a pianist and fortepianist based in

Deeply knowledgeable about the sound, technique and history

Amsterdam. She is active around the world, performing solo

of keyboard instruments, her programs combine the classical

recitals and chamber music, with a focus on both historical

and the new with a personal touch that shows her feeling for the

performance and on music from the 20 and 21 century.

music, the instruments and the story behind them.

th

st

Rachael Shipard piano Brisbane resident Rachael Shipard recently graduated from

cum laude with the University Medal from Queensland

her Bachelor of Music (Advanced Performance) summa

Conservatorium Griffith University and is presently 101

undertaking her Masters of Music Research under the

Variations Foundation Scholarship. She frequently gives

tutelage of Natasha Vlassenko. In 2017, Rachael participated

recitals and has had masterclasses with pianists Peter

in the final Hamamatsu International Piano Academy in

Donohoe, Alexander Strukov, Peter Hill, Roy Howat, Piers

Japan, and was a prize-winner at the Lev Vlassenko Piano

Lane, Vladimir Tropp and Gil Garburg. Rachael is also very

Competition. She won the Queensland Piano Competition

passionate about chamber work, piano duo music, and

and made her concerto debut in 2015. Winner of numerous

sacred music. She hopes to enrich the lives of others with

Conservatorium academic and performance awards,

the music she brings to a wide range of audiences.

Rachael was awarded the prestigious 2017 Theme and

Simon Tedeschi piano Simon Tedeschi first performed a Mozart Piano Concerto

Orchestra under the baton of Richard Bonynge and in 2013

at age 9 in the Sydney Opera House. At age 13, he gave a

recorded Gershwin and Me (Universal/ABC). Charitable

private recital to the iconic Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

performances and commitment to worthwhile causes

He has a string of international prizes and scholarships

have been prominent in Tedeschi’s career. He played for

under his belt. While working with the Melbourne

the Dalai Lama at a fundraising concert in London (2000),

Symphony Orchestra Tedeschi was named the Symphony

for the Karuna Foundation in support of Cambodian

Australia Young Performer of the Year; more recently,

Orphans and at the Sydney Opera House gala concert for

he was awarded a Centenary of Federation Medal by the

the Wayside Chapel. Tedeschi is the Roving Ambassador for

Prime Minister of Australia. He has shared the stage with

The Australian Children’s Music Foundation, Ambassador

numerous acclaimed musicians, including conductor Alan

for Sydney Eisteddfod, and patron of Ryde Eisteddfod,

Gilbert, soprano Yvonne Kenny, jazz luminary James

the Bowraville Cultural Festival and the Blue Mountains

Morrison and Larry Adler, the legendary Harmonica player

Concert Society. Recent seasons include a follow up

who called Tedeschi ‘the greatest pianist he ever heard.’ In

Gershwin album for Universal/ABC entitled Gershwin Take 2.

2004, Tedeschi recorded Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto

He has just released a recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at

and Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Queensland Symphony

an Exhibition for ABC/Universal.

James Wannan viola, violin Violist James Wannan is based in Sydney, having previously

James perform oud in the Sydney Festival with SCO and as

studied viola with Alice Waten in Melbourne and viola

viola d’amore soloist in the Sydney Biennale. As a soloist

d’amore in Vienna with Marianne Rônez. He explores his

James has worked with orchestras including the Melbourne

passion for music from ancient to contemporary on a

Chamber Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra,

number of instruments. In 2015 James performed as violin

and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He has performed

soloist in Elliott Gyger’s opera Fly Away Peter featured at

as a viola d’amore soloist in festivals in Austria and Germany,

the Melbourne Festival, recorded a CD of music by Jack

and has been invited to perform as guest principal viola with

Symonds, collaborated on five Australian premieres and

the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He toured Europe

toured to China with the Sydney Symphony. 2016 saw

as principal viola of the Asia Pacific United Orchestra.

Roger Woodward ac, obe

piano

The Australian pianist Roger Woodward performs both

as soloist with orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus,

traditional and contemporary repertoire although his

five London orchestras, the Los Angeles and New York

musical training is steeped in church music and the romantic

Philharmonic orchestras and the Cleveland orchestra under

repertory. He rose to international prominence in prestigious

such distinguished conductors as Claudio Abbado, Zubin

collaborations with Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Jean

Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur and Erich Leinsdorf. Roger

Barraqué, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Toru Takemitsu,

Woodward’s recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier

Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, Arvo Pärt, Larry Sitsky, Richard

was Editor’s Choice for The Gramophone (Feb. 2010), and

Meale, Anne Boyd, Ross Edwards and Barry Conyngham,

German and UK critics described this release as setting a

and worked with such contemporary German composers as

new standard after Gould and Barenboim. He was awarded

Peter Michael Hamel, Rolf Gehlhaar, Hans Otte and Karlheinz

the prestigious Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for

Stockhausen. Such collaborations launched a major career

his Celestial Harmonies recording of Bach C-minor and

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E-minor Partitas, and is a recipient of the Goethe Prize and

2009, he premiered Of the Sound of Life (a sixty-five-minute

Diapaison d’or by German and French critics for recordings

collection of twelve etudes) by the contemporary German

of works dedicated to him by Morton Feldman. As a chamber

composer Peter Michael Hamel. His recordings of this and

musician he has worked with Ivry Gitlis, Philippe Hirschhorn,

of Hans Otte’s Book of Hours and Rolf Gehlhaar’s Diagonal

the Tokyo and Arditti String Quartets and is the frequent

Flying were greeted enthusiastically by the German critics.

partner of the Alexander String Quartet. At the invitation of

He is recipient of the Polish Order of Merit, Order of the

the late Sviatoslav Richter Roger Woodward performed with

British Empire, Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des

the Arditti String Quartet at La Grange de Meslay, Tours. In

Lettres, and is a Companion of the Order of Australia.

Daniel Yeadon classical cello,cello piccolo, gamba Daniel Yeadon is exceptionally versatile as a cellist and

the period instrument ensembles based in London, including

viola da gambist, performing repertoire ranging from the

the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestra of the Age

Renaissance to contemporary. As a chamber musician he has

of Enlightenment. Daniel has made many award-winning

performed in many major venues and festivals throughout

recordings, including an ARIA winning disc of sonatas by J.S.

the world. He co-founded Ironwood, an Australian ensemble

Bach with Richard Tognetti and Neal Peres Da Costa; the

known for its presentations of the classics alongside new

J.S. Bach sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord with

commissions for early instruments. Daniel is a part-time

Neal Peres Da Costa; J.S. Bach cantatas and Brandenburg

member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, has appeared

concertos with John Eliot Gardiner and English Baroque

as soloist with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and

Soloists, in addition to many critically acclaimed recordings

has performed on several national chamber music tours

with Ironwood, Florilegium and the Fitzwilliam Quartet. Daniel

for Musica Viva Australia. He performs every year with

is in much demand as a teacher. Associated with the Sydney

Pinchgut Opera. Originally from the UK, Daniel read physics

Conservatorium of Music since 2005, he also has a key role in

at Oxford University and studied historical performance at

the education team of the ACO. He is currently undertaking a

the Royal College of Music in London. For many years he was

PhD focusing on the group learning experiences of students

a member of the renowned period instrument ensemble

in tertiary music institutions.

Florilegium and later joined the Fitzwilliam String Quartet.

Daniel

Daniel continues to be guest principal cellist with many of

Conservatorium of Music.

Yeadon

appears

courtesy

of

the

Sydney

And ...

Benjamin Bagby Benjamin Bagby is descended from a Germanic clan which

Europe and North America. He is currently on the faculty

emigrated from Jutland to northern England in ca. 630, from

of the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he teaches in the

where his branch of the family emigrated to the colony of

master’s program for medieval music performance practice.

Virginia almost a millennium later. Following 321 years of

In addition to his work with Beowulf, Mr. Bagby and Sequentia

subsequent family wanderings, he was born on the shores

have produced two CDs of musical reconstructions from

of the Great Lakes, and twelve years later was captivated

the medieval Icelandic Edda, one of which, ‘The Rheingold

by Beowulf. Several years after moving back to Europe in

Curse’, was also staged by Ping Chong. The ensemble's most

1974 he founded – together with the late Barbara Thornton

recent CD, ‘Fragments for the End of Time’, explores early

– the ensemble for medieval music, Sequentia, which was

medieval songs about the Apocalypse. A DVD production of

based in Cologne, Germany, for 25 years. Both Mr. Bagby and

Mr. Bagby’s ‘Beowulf’ performance, filmed by Stellan Olsson

Sequentia are now based in Paris. In addition to his activities

in Sweden, became available in 2007. It contains numerous

as singer, harper and director of Sequentia, Benjamin Bagby

extra features, including interviews with noted Anglo-

writes about performance practice and teaches widely in

Saxonists and the performer.

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John Bell ao, obe John Bell is one of the nation’s most illustrious theatre

Bell Shakespeare have included Hamlet, Shylock, Henry V,

personalities. Award-winning actor, acclaimed director,

Richard III, Macbeth, Malvolio, Berowne, Petruchio, Leontes,

risk-taking impressario and torch-bearing educationalist,

Coriolanus, Prospero, King Lear, Andronicus, and Jaques.

Bell has been a key figure in shaping the nation’s theatrical

Bell also played the title role in two co-productions with

identity as we know it over the past 50 years. After graduating

Queensland Theatre Company, and directed Madame

from Sydney University in 1962, Bell worked for the Old Tote

Butterfly for an Oz Opera national tour. Bell’s unique

Theatre Company, all of Australia’s state theatre companies

contribution to national culture has been recognised by

and was an Associate Artist of Britain’s world-famous Royal

many bodies. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia and

Shakespeare Company. As co-founder of Sydney’s highly

the Order of theBritish Empire; has an Honorary Doctorate

influential Nimrod Theatre Company, Bell presented many

of Letters from the Universities of Sydney, New South Wales

productions of landmark Australian plays, including David

and Newcastle; and was recognised in 1997 by the National

Williamson’s Travelling North, The Club and The Removalists.

Trust of Australia as one of Australia’s Living Treasures. In

In 1990, Bell took on an even greater challenge, founding

2003, the Australia Business Arts Foundation also awarded

The Bell Shakespeare Company. Since then, his productions

Bell the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Cultural Leadership

as director have included Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The

Award. As an actor and director, his many awards include a

Taming Of The Shrew, Richard III, Pericles, Henry IV, Henry V,

Helpmann Award for Best Actor, a Producers and Directors

Julius Caesar, Antony And Cleopatra, The Comedy Of

Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement and the JC Williamson

Errors, Wars Of The Roses, Measure For Measure, Macbeth,

Award (2009) for extraordinary contribution to Australia’s

The Tempest and As You Like It. His roles as an actor for

live entertainment industry.

Paul English Paul English is an actor with a distinguished career in theatre,

programs. He narrated the TV documentary , The Highest

television and film. He is well-known to Australian audiences

Court and recorded many books for Louis Braille Audio, The

for his appearances in such television dramas as Wentworth,

ABC and Bolinda Audio, including Peter Carey’s True History

Gallipoli, Stingers and Blue Heelers, and has appeared on

Of The Kelly Gang and Li Cunxin’s Mao’s Last Dancer which

stage with The Bell Shakespeare Company, the Playbox

won an Audiofile Magazine Earphones Award. He was Vision

and the Melbourne Theatre Company. Paul has worked for

Australia’s Narrator of the Year in 2003 for Robert Dessaix’s

ABC Radio National in over 100 plays, features and poetry

Corfu.

Andrew Ford Andrew Ford is a composer, writer and broadcaster who

Chamber Music. In 2014 he was Poynter Fellow and Visiting

has won awards in each of those capacities, including the

Composer at Yale University and, in 2015, Visiting lecturer

2004 Paul Lowin Prize for his song cycle Learning to Howl,

at the Shanghai Conservatory. A former academic, Ford has

a 2010 Green Room Award for his opera Rembrandt's Wife

written widely on all manner of music and published nine

and the 2012 Albert H Maggs Prize for his large ensemble

books, most recently The Memory of Music (Black Inc., 2017).

piece, Rauha. He has been composer-in-residence for the

He has written, presented and co-produced five radio series

Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian National

and, since 1995, presented The Music Show each weekend

Academy of Music (ANAM) and the Australian Festival of

on ABC Radio National.

Genevieve Jacobs Genevieve Jacobs has been a journalist for 30 years,

She works with a wide range of organisations including the

working in print and radio. She spent over a decade with

Tara Costigan foundation, Gift of Life ACT and ACT Wildlife

ABC Canberra, reporting on everything from politics to

Rescue among others and sits on the ACT’s advisory

human interest, and developing a deep understanding of

committee for historic places. She has an enduring interest

her community. Telling our city's stories is her great passion.

in the arts and in strengthening community engagement.

Mr. Tim Mr Tim is a Performing Arts teacher based in the ACT. His

of Music, Mr Tim also gained experience in childrens’ choirs

unique classroom style and entertaining energetic lessons

as both an accompanist and conductor. After completing

have earned him a reputation as an inspiring teacher and

his music degree, Mr Tim completed a Diploma of Education

performer. Trained as a classical pianist at the ANU School

(Secondary) and was then employed as a Performing Arts

104

Specialist to create and implement a program that catered

to use. Mr Tim set about writing his own songs for children.

to boys’ education. With the resounding success of this, he

His songs quickly gained notice from parents, children

continued on developing the program; composing original

and teachers when they were performed at Mr Tim school

songs and performance items and creating Professional

concerts. Inspired by the success of this, he put together a

Development workshops for teachers. This led to his inspired

nine piece rock band to record an album of sophisticated

Extravaganza Program that takes around 400 children in 4

childrens’ music for kids, parents and teachers to enjoy

days to perform an out-of-this-world concert for the local

entitled Bartimus Fum’s Rock Mission, and has now released

community. Early in his teaching career, he quickly noticed

his second album ‘I Can Fly’.

a lack of engaging song material for the everyday classroom

Leonard Weiss Leonard Weiss is a conductor based in Canberra, Australia,

Louise Page OAM, Susannah Lawergren, countertenor Tobias

where he is the Musical Director/Conductor of the Canberra

Cole, tenor Paul McMahon, baritones Christopher Hillier,

Youth Orchestra, the National Capital Orchestra, the

David Greco and Jeremy Tatchell. Leonard is passionate

Canberra Qwire and the ANU Choral Society. Leonard was

about showcasing contemporary works. He has conducted

the 2016 Young Canberra Citizen of the Year for Youth Arts

World and Australian premieres by Philip Glass, Christopher

and Multimedia, an ACT Finalist for 2016 Young Australian

Gordon and Sally Greenaway, as well as significant Canberra/

of the Year and recently received a Canberra Critics' Circle

regional premieres by Carl Vine AO, Graham Koehne AO, and

Award for Music. Career highlights include conducting jazz

Matthew Hindson AM. On top of his conducting portfolio,

legend James Morrison AM, a cappella icons The Idea of

Leonard is a noted composer, performer, and music reviewer

North, harpist Alice Giles AM, and Grammy Award quadruple-

for The Canberra Times. He is often requested as a harpist

nominee cellist Dave Eggar. Leonard has shared the stage

for government functions including for the Prime Minister,

with some of Australia's most highly acclaimed performers

and has toured as a carillonist by invitation throughout

including pianists Dr. Edward and Dr. Stephanie Neeman,

Belgium, Germany, Denmark and the USA.

guitarist Matt Withers, and vocalists including sopranos

WIN A HARVEST OF RICHES WITH THE 2018 FESTIVAL AUTUMN RAFFLE

TICKETS ARE JUST $20 FOR 3, OR $10 EACH

Tickets available in the Festival marquee or buy online at www.cimf.org.au/raffle

105

Coro Brenda Gill soprano Emma Griffiths soprano Alexandra Hughes soprano Catherine Schmitz soprano Philippa Brant alto Anne-Marie Dalseg alto

Hilary Howes alto Maartje Sevenster alto Paul Eldon tenor Thomas Liu tenor David Mckay tenor Ian Mills tenor

Nick Bulleid bass Andrew Fysh oam bass Andrew Koll bass Daniel Sanderson bass

Kompactus Verónica Fraile del Álamo soprano Aislinn Grimley soprano Sarah Campbell alto

Anita Moser alto Michael Gill tenor Mark Straton tenor

Emlyn Graham bass Joel Wilson bass

Luminescence Chamber Singers Chloe Lankshear soprano Olivia Swift alto Veronica Milroy soprano Cody Christopher tenor AJ America mezzo-soprano David Faraker tenor

Patrick Baker bass-baritone Charles Bogle bass-baritone

Turner Trebles Charlie Archer Ellie Archer Amelia Bell Olive Beudel Asian Biddle Grace Bullen Zac Connor

Malik Mahesa Daniswara Lucy Dunston Sophie Frost Gabriel Galeotti Miani Kirk Mion Kirk Leo Lloyd-Jones

Neve McDonald Annabella McInnes Lucy Quinn Morgan Quinn Mia Thornton David Windeyer Oliver Windeyer

Vocal Fry Asha Aikman Ruth Begbie Ethan Bendeich Kirsten Busby Gabriel Cole Marcel Cole Rory Davison James Gardner Peter Gedeon Zoë Gedeon Eve Hudson

Harry Jones Manuka Krolikowski Ethan Lee Jasmine Leong Jacqueline deBeyer McIntyre Anila McLoughlin Jessica Manclark Saskia Meir Hannah Nolte-Crimp Thomas Nolte-Crimp Elise Palethorpe

Jarrah Palethorpe Noah Palethorpe Christina Pilgrim Holly Saunders Harrison Shaw Julius Stoljar Cassidy Thomson Amos Walker Tessani Wells Isaac Witrzens

Richard Fomison trumpet Stephen Freeman violin Andrew Fysh oam bass Ben Hoadley bassoon Ros Jorgensen trombone Susannah Lawergren soprano Jessica Lee flute Peter Maddigan oboe Mikaela Obert flute Brett Page trombone

Neal Peres da Costa

Bach Akademie Australia Madeleine Easton director and violin

Anton Baba viola da gamba/cello Alexandra Bailliet-Joly flute Richard Butler tenor Meg Cohen violin Tobias Cole alto Nigel Crocker trombone Jacqui Dossor double bass Deidre Dowling viola

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organ/harpsichord

David Rabinovici violin Aaron Reichelt oboe Simon Rickard bassoon Nicole Sherringham flute James Wannan viola Simon Wolnizer trumpet Daniel Yeadon viola da gamba/cello `

The Canberra Wind Symphony Geoff Grey Caroline Christenson bass clarinet artistic director and chief conductor David Whitbread bassoon Sarah Nielsen (Concertmaster) Jordan London bassoon flute Jordan London contra-bassoon Sarah Hewat flute Marijke Welvaert alto saxophone Paul Broomhead piccolo Woody Wang alto saxophone Stephen Hally-Burton Lauren Thurlow tenor saxophone e-flat clarinet Angela Liu french horn Tim Artelaris clarinet Nicole Fung french horn Jenny Popovic clarinet Dianne Tan french horn Stephen Hally-Burton clarinet Iain Hercus french horn Paul Crouch clarinet Mike Purcell trumpet Mami Iwashita clarinet Julie Watson trumpet Molly Campbell clarinet Claire Leske trumpet ANU Students at the Arboretum Rachel Warren Elsa Huber Gemanuelle Magpantay Joshua Robinson Liam Sinclair Caitlin Manning Chloe Sinclair Dominique Smith Emily Coper-Jones Ben Keough The Festival Sinfonia Tobias Aan violin Cecilia Bernadini violin Meg Cohen violin David Dalseno violin Anna Da Silva Chen violin Madeleine Easton violin Stephen Freeman violin Daniel Kowalik violin Helena Popovic violin David Rabinovici violin Benjamin Tjoa violin Thomas Chawner viola Deidre Cohen viola Justin Julian viola James Wannan viola

Stephanie Arnold cello Anton Baba cello Karol Kowalik cello Miles Mullin-Chivers cello Federico Toffano cello Danny Yeadon cello Simone Vallerotonda theorbo Jacqui Dossor double bass Peter Maddigan oboe Aaron Reichelt oboe Jessica Lee flute Ned McGowan flute Nicole Sherringham flute Ben Hoadley bassoon Simon Rickard bassoon

Farzana Choudhury trumpet Al Clarke trombone Daniel Duque trombone Felicity Boxall BASS trombone Jo Stephenson euphonium Gabby Mears tuba David Sunderland tuba Elizabeth Charlton double bass Jen Hinton percussion Brandon Reed percussion Alicia Perritt percussion Andrew Brown percussion Annie Eggleton percussion Emily Leong piano Joel Dreezer Sebastian Gordon Yeh Zhao

Richard Fomison trumpet Simon Wolnizer trumpet Nigel Crocker trombone Ros Jorgensen trombone Brett Page trombone Bjorn Pfeiffer tuba Veronica Bailey percussion Claire Edwardes percussion Gabriele Miracle percussion Alice Giles harp Tegan Peemoeller harp Roland Peelman harpsichor/organ Neal Peres da Costa harpsichord

JOIN US FOR NEXT YEAR FOR THE BEST FESTIVAL EVER 3-12 MAY 2019 For more information visit us in the Festival Marquee or head to www.cimf.org.au/25years 107

2017 Festival Team Roland Peelman Artistic Director Gavin Findlay General Manager Hanna-Mari Latham Office and Finance Manager Production Alex Raupach Program Manager Isaac Dugdale Production Coordinator Lillian Hannock Artist and Social Media Coordinator Rachel Gould Fitters’ Workshop Venue Manager Neil Simpson Fitters’ Workshop Technical Manager Steve Crossley Logistics and Fitters’ Workshop Site Manager Victoria Lees Transport Coordinator Jeannette Horne Artist Catering Klara Beresnikoff Accommodation Coordinator Darren Russell Technical Consultant Joshua Robinson, Serena Ford, Tahni Chan, Hayley Manning, Natsuko Yonezawa, Roanne Darling Production Interns Rowan Heffernan, James Snedden, Tanique Honeysett Work Experience Production Assistants Marketing and Public Relations Krista Vincent Marketing Co-ordinator Katie Radojkovic (in partnership with HerCanberra) Graphic Designer Geoff Millar Publications Manager Dan Sloss IT and Ticketing/ Embassy and Guest Liaison Peter Hislop, William Hall and Anthony Browell Photography Jon Holden Videography Ralph Lane OAM Audio Recordings Faye Lawrence Media and marketing Intern Front of house Jenny Harper Box Office and Front of House Manager Liz McKenzie Volunteer Coordinator Margaret Janssens Membership Secretary and Catering Coordinator Helen Moore Front of House Host Andrew Blanckensee Bar Manager

108

Pro Musica Board: Bev Clarke

President

Kent Chambers

Dorothy Danta

Vice-President

James Treloar

Govert Mellink

Vice-President

Catherine Hawkins

Will Laurie

Treasurer

Anna Prosser

David Chessell Genevieve Jacobs

Christina Cook Volunteers: Andreea Ardeleanu, Robyn Boyd, Maureen Boyle, Graham Chalker, Helen Cory, Sally Curlewis, Marianne Davidson, Anne Davis, Colleen Fox, Sally Greenaway, Ros Greenwood, Ian Hawke, Iwona Hawke, Leanne Hillier, Anthony Hogan, Norman Hughes, Saya Ikegawa, Pauline Jennings, Barbara Jesiolowski, Holly Jiang, Gayle Lander, Joanne Rachel Letts, Nicole Logue, Agnieszka Malzacher, Jurek Malzacher, Pamela McKay, Jan O'Connor, Mark Parsons, Clara Pelloquin, Eric Pozza, Anna Prosser, Marlene Radice, Jan Reksten, Richard Rowe, Christina Sainsbury, Gabriela Samcewicz, Kai Scott, Robin Sevenoaks, Julie Shaw, Jackie Simons, Ewa Talent, Jennifer Whipp, Tamara Wilcock, Shar Wyer, Grace Yang Billeters: Jan Adams, Dianne Anderson, Michael and Virginia Banyard, Lynne and Noel Bentley, Klara Beresnikoff and John Marshall, Andrew Blanckensee and Julie Matthews, Dorothy Cameron, Bev Clarke, Mary and Philip Constable, Sally Curlewis, Robert Goodrick, Marlene Hall, Jenny and David Harper, Sue and Geoff Hayes, Peggy Horn, Elspeth and Graham Humphries, Claudia Hyles, Barbara and John Inglis, Margaret and Peter Janssens, Maya and Obada Kayali, Carol and Richard Kenchington, Gerda Lambeck, Mary Martin, Govert and Lilian Mellink, Helen Moore, Ilona and James Nichterlein, Brendan and Helen O'Loghlin, Mark Parsons, Carolyn Philpot, Eric Pozza and Megan Curlewis, Diana Primrose, Anna and Bob Prosser, Lynlea and Clive Rodger, Michael Stenning and Leonie John, John and Jill Studholme, Prue Watters, Peronelle and Jim Windeyer Special Thanks: The Festival staff would like to express heartfelt thanks to the Board of Pro Musica Inc. and our team of dedicated volunteers without whom this Festival would not be possible. Thanks also to those organisations and people who help us keep our office running all year round: TryBooking: Delma Dunoon Ainslie Arts Centre: Justin Watson, Elizabeth Curry , Callie Doyle-Scott WOTLink: Anthony Miller, Regan Harrison Technowand: Rahul Chalwa Blue Arc IT Solutions: Graeme Thornton and team

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Concert Supporters Concert 1 Opening Gala is supported by Bev Aitkin & Don Aitkin AO Concert 2 Dapper's Delight is supported by Lyndall Hatch & Robin Gibson Concert 3 Roger Woodward I is supported by Margaret & John Saboisky Concert 4 Four Seasons is supported by Peronelle & Jim Windeyer Concert 5 Bach on Sunday is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer Concert 6 Enoch Arden is supported by Harriet Elvin & Tony Hedley AM Concert 7 Classic Souvenir is supported by Koula Notaras, Jenny & Emmanuel Notaras Concert 8 From the Letter to the Law is supported by Andrew Blanckensee, in memory of Anne & Alan Blanckensee, music lovers Concert 9 Israel in Egypt is supported by Peronelle & Jim Windeyer Concert 11 Roger Woodward II is supported by Dianne Anderson & Brian Anderson AC Concert 12 Glass Games is supported by Anonymous Concert 14 Orava Quartet is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer Concert 17 A Soldier's Return is supported by Gail Ford Concert 18 I Bassifondi is supported by Margot Woods & Arn Sprogis Concert 19 The Trout is supported by Margaret Frey and Anonymous Concert 20 Beowulf is supported by Susan & David Chessell Concert 21 Peter and the Wolf is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer Concert 22 The Art of Speech is supported by Anonymous Concert 23 Festival Finale is supported by Mrs Marlena Jeffrey &

Major General Michael Jeffery AC AO (Mil) CVO MC (Retd)

Commission supporters Brenda Gifford's commission is supported anonymously Jodie Blackshaw's commission is supported anonymously Ben Drury's commission is supported by Margot Woods & Arn Sprogis Holly Harrison's commission is supported by Penny Le Couteur & Greg Dickson The 2018 Beaver Blaze is supported by Betty Beaver AM Mary Finsterer's commission Ignis is supported by Rae Frances & Bruce Scates Mary Finsterer's commission Four Interludes is supported by the Australia Council of the Arts and the 2018 Commission Fund

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Artist Supporters The Acacia Quartet January 28 presentation was supported by Jane Mathews AO and Diana Carmody Stephanie Arnold is supported by Julian Burnside AO QC Ned McGowan is supported by Vicki Moss James Wannan is supported by Margaret & Peter Janssens Cecilia Bernardini is supported by Catherine Hawkins & David Windsor Orava Quartet is supported by Carolyn Philpot Bach Akademie Australia is supported by Christine Goode Daniel Yeadon is supported by Judith Healy Tobias Cole is supported by Peronelle & Jim Windeyer I Bassifondi is supported by Margot Woods & Arn Sprogis Luminescence Chamber Singers are supported by Pro Musica Members Roland Peelman is supported by Anna & Bob Prosser

2018 Commission Fund Supporters (Matched Giving) Mary Finsterer Four Interludes We would like to thank Margaret & Peter Janssens and Margaret & John Saboisky for so generously providing the matched funding for this commission.

Anonymous (4)

Claudia Hyles

Jennie Cameron

Betty Meehan

Elizabeth Clark

Lillian & Govert Mellink

Bev Clarke & Graham Chalker

Helen Moore

Marie de Lepervanche

Prue Neidorf

Jenny Dobbin

Anna & Bob Prosser

Catherine Hawkins & David Windsor

Ann & Roger Smith

Barry Hindess

Andrew Fysh OAM

Instrument Fund Supporter Margaret Frey

We would like to thank Ralph Lane OAM for so generously providing the time to record the 2018 Canberra International Music Festival

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Thank You Our vision is for the Canberra International Music Festival to be recognised as Australia’s leading art music festival, an event that makes an important contribution to the vibrancy and creativity of our national capital.

On behalf of the Board and staff of Pro Musica I would like to extend our gratitude to all those individuals, local businesses and sponsors, for sharing our vision for the Festival, and so generously supporting us in 2018. The financial, in-kind and volunteer contributions we receive represent a significant proportion of the resources required to present the Festival each year.

The remarkable level of support from our festival community has been instrumental in sustaining the Festival’s growth, from small concerts held in private homes, to what is now an event of national significance. We thank you for being part of our festival family and sharing the journey with us. We are very much looking forward to 2019 and celebrating our 25th anniversary with you all.

We would also like to acknowledge the strong support we receive from the ACT Government, the Australia Council for the Arts, and our business, media and venue partners.

Our Artistic Director, Roland Peelman, has created another exceptional musical experience for 2018 which we hope you enjoy.

Bev Clarke President Pro Musica

Support our Festival by becoming a member You can support the Canberra International Music Festival by becoming a member of Pro Musica Inc, a not-for-profit organisation that delivers 10 days of world class music at its annual festival.

Join now and enjoy members’ exclusive benefits: • Membership until 31 December 2019 • 15% discount on all Shaw Vineyard Estate wines • Members-only newsletters • Voting rights at the Annual General Meeting • Priority booking period for 2019 Festival (available in November 2018) • Concession price on Festival Pass and single tickets for the 2019 Festival • Invitations to special events and discounts on performances throughout the year Membership fees per annum are $50 ($25 per student)

3-12 MAY 2019

Interested?

Visit us at cimf.org.au, click on the Become a Member button and follow the links.

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. 2018 112

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

cultural partners

festival partners

festival supporters

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