Keys for all

The percussion section is so often little considered although they are not just like jazz drums, playing rhythm as important as that is, but they also play pitch with keyboard substitutes on vibes and marimba and pedals on timpani or tubular bells as well as the complexity on seemingly simple instruments like the triangle.  They have to count, too!  But this was Claire Edwardes of Ensemble Offspring fame and she played a solo gig so no sitting counting, but two keyed instruments, vibes and marimba, and the seemingly simple temple blocks, just 5 loud wooden blocks with the most complex of polyrhythms played.  The concert was another eye opener and musically joyous and virtuosic.  The melodies and harmonies and developments were immensely inviting and relatable to the most piano or other instruments, while the tone is relatively sharp and short, sometimes damped, otherwise ringing quietly.   I am thinking vibes and metallics more than marimba with its wood.  Claire played a quieter tune on vibes on coral bleaching called When it's gone by Julia Potter.  Thanks to Claire's inviting presence, we heard of the stages of bleaching from lovely blue to forbidding white.  Then Ross Edwards, those temple blocks, one from Amsterdam, a Brenda Gifford solo excerpt called Clan from Wadhu, and more Amsterdam contacts with Joyful melodies, a co-composition by Claire with Kate Moore.  Just a joyous and virtuosic outing on solo percussion.  Lovely!

Claire Edwardes (vibraphone, marimba, temple blocks, electronics) performed at Verity Lane for the Canberra International Music Festival.

Some visiting delights of Amsterdam

It's a little different with mates.  I was recording so nabbed the front of house spot to turn on and off the recorder and get some good pics so I was right under the eyes of the Dudok Quartet.  Marie-Louise viola is staying with us and we are driving the group frequently so I would be watched.  Suffice to say it was so easy with Dudok Quartet Amsterdam.  They were such a huge pleasure from the start, both musically and as entertainment.  This was casual with chatty and informative introductions and a group ethic that the audience is part of the performance.  Then they started on Mozart and it was alive, mobile, energetic from the start.  Judith spoke of her playing this as an early piece with David ~age 18 and how their teacher had wondered at their choice, given it's demanding and so exposed.  They soon won a competition playing it.  Whatever, I was stunned by the performance form the first bars.  But they play all manner of styles and welcome the modern.  The second piece was a recent original by composer Holly Harrison who was in the audience. That was another competition winner.  All pizz bass-like lines (with all manner of cello pizz techniques to all four fingers), loud dissonance that verged on noise, modern sounds of pop and jazz, seeming to verge on delirium at times.  Then a composer I didn't recognise, Grażyna Bacewicz, with her post-WW2 String Quartet no.4.  I found it worthy and attractive.  It didn't catch me quite like the other two, but I must listen again.  As a short encore, they played their arrangement of Tchaikovsky Piano prelude no.17 with the most delicate and lovely violin from Judith.  Joyful and a delight but also a concert of considerable intent and superb performance, both as individuals and stunningly as a group.  They talk of spending most days together when not performing, in their home studio.  It shows.  Just delightful and superbly capable.

The Dudok String Quartet Amsterdam performed at the Albert Hall for the Canberra International Music Festival.  Dudok are Judith Van Driel and Marleen Wester (violins), Marie-Louise de Jong (viola) and David Faber (cello).  Holly Harrison composed the recent commission, Balderdash,  BTW the quartet is named for Willem Marinus Dudok (1884-1974), Dutch modernist architect born in Amsterdam.

Crisp probabilistics

This was guitar of a magical beauty.  I did see John Williams once but in a massive hall; being close is something different.  Clear, crisp, deeply felt playing, complex fingered chords, surprising limited obvious right hand finger movements, occasional lightning scalar runs.  These are strings well played, trebly with little obvious sustain, from quick playing or broad movements.  Just sometimes a lingering tone. Just lovely and best up close like this.  He played four pieces, by jazz guitarist Ant Law, five preludes by Villa-Lobos, an original by Pavel and some Bach to finish on.  The original fascinated me.  It was called Wave 1 and was his first work performance at a recital.  The inspiration was the famed double-slit experiment that passes waves and particles and forms various interference patterns displaying ambiguity and probablistics (see Wikipaedia ...).  I was fascinated that you could hear the interference patterns in poly...s and changing times.   Pavel played this without introductions or applause between tunes, citing music listened as on a CD, without written music and with a malleable sense of time and a lovely sharpness that cuts to the bone.  Just revelatory.

Pavel Ralev (guitar) performed for the CIMF at Verity Lane.

Lush gardens

These were the gardens of Spain, as interpreted by Saralouise Owens and Natalia Tkachenko at Wesley.  The program had that title and interestingly, flowers and pines and various growing greenery appeared frequently in the lyrics, but this was more of love, mostly lost or rejected, amongst florid words and literary circumventions and Spanish rhythm and dance.  Saralouise played the parts wonderfully, more operatic in presence than classical mezzo.  I loved that presence and not unexpected from her.  Natalia is back for a visit after leaving Canberra a few years back for greater Washington DC but  she is expected back.  What a wonderful pianist, the most glorious care and affection in her hands and awareness in her accompaniment.  The music was several series of songs by de Fall, Lorca, Toldra and a few others by Valverde and Trad.  Trad was a humourous song once sung by Anna Bishop.  Saralouise is writing a theatre work on AB, once a well travelled singer, a scandalous woman who eloped with her lover, travelled far and wide through goldfields, including several visits to Australia, singing for several royalties, making and losing fortunes.  Looking forward to Opera's Bad Girl when it's released but in the meantime, the earthy, emotive and clever Spanish songs did a treat.

Saralouise Owens (mezzo-soprano) and Natalia Tkachenko (piano) performed Spanish songs at Wesley. 

Something new, borrowed

It's with considerable awe that I've come away from a few concerts recently.  The latest was the first concert of CIMF2024 at Verity Lane, a solo voice and electrics/electronics outing by Lotte Betts-Dean. She's a mezzo-soprano, but more.  This was a combination of classical singer's chops and compositional awareness with recordings of voices, loops, various electronic marvels.  I'd half expected something improvised given the concert title Vocal Electrics, but no these were compositions, formal works, composed by a series of composers, mostly fairly recent, but going back to the era of Dada.  There was one commissioned work by Nicole Smede with Canberra and aboriginal relevance.  Suffice to say I was stunned.  Ten tracks, little separated although obviously quite diverse in character.  I hadn't collected a program and initially guessed they were movements of one work, mostly "devoid of semantic language".  Lines like "The place as it were / new born baby" and "I am ... I am" may have sat together but the rap was distinctly something different.  Lotte had grown up in Berlin amongst European languages and the birth of electronica of various styles and listening to Portishead and her father was composer Brett Dean and he was experimenting with electronic music at the time.  So it was a family outing.  To me, it was something of awe and wonder and newness.  Just fabulous and expansive and inclusive of styles and so well performed, too. 

Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano, electronics) performed for the Canberra International Music Festival at Verity Lane.  She performed works including a commission by Nicole Smede.

For the faint-of-heart, Not

I was chatting with trumpet Tom after the gig and I commented on how complex and difficult was this music and he suggested it had taken them 3 years to master it.  That floored me.  The recording makes it seem demanding but fairly relaxed.  The tour and this gig just opened the complexity and difficulty for all to see.  So it was not music for the faint-hearted in the audience let alone in the band but the skills and chops and cleverness and commitment were skyhigh and that was evident.  I think the compositions are by pianist and leader Wilbur, presumably with input over those years from the others.  Certainly, he talked on the ABCRN Music Show of tunes that had welcomed a floating intro and that would have been in the development stage.  I sat in awe at every one of the players as they performed this complex, busy or airy, ever intellectual and demanding music.  This was not an easy outing for band or audience.  Early on, I tried to follow, count, investigate, understand but it was best and most satisfying when I just closed eyes and took it in.  It was all complex in a musical sense, but evident enough in an emotional sense.  Every instrument was virtuosic, often surprisingly generous and responsive to others, perhaps the alto and trumpets in synch or in competition or the piano defining the changes with that phat Moog bass or that immense sharpness from the kit or those lovely talkative interactions again between horns.  And always the odd times, the dissonant and jumpy melodies.  But also always the sharp and correct playing on something not at all easy.   Not for the faint-hearted.    Listen to the album and go to the gig and try to dissect it first up, perhaps, or just close your eyes and partake.  Just don't expect an easy ride!

Wildfire played Smiths on their self-titled album-launch tour.  Wildfire are Wilbur Whitta (piano, synth bass), Tom Avgenicos (trumpet), Jack Stoneham (alto), Alex Inman-Hislop (drums).

Winds of romance

I have great respect for woodwinds.  They don't play so often, unlike the consistent, unrelenting playing of the strings, but when they do, the lines are essential statements of melody or at least of colour and contrast and those lines can be very difficult.  The bass is clumsy and slow if defining, but woodwinds are fast and fleet also definitional in their different way.  So I recorded the Aeolus Wind Trio at Wesley.  They were doing a program with the theme of love.  It appeared in four parts: first attraction; happy in love; lost love; enduring love.  The music was often modern, so Gershwin, Fats Waller, Nino Rota, Lennon and McCartney appeared, although some little Tchaiks and Bach were there too.  But given the tunes, much was arranged by the trio, so there were handwritten scores.  Clarinet Lis was given the task of determining the program because she's a prolific author of romantic and romantic suspense novels under the pseudonym Elisabeth Rose.  Apparently 29 novels to date!  More than an acquaintance, Sally Thorne, another Canberran, who is on 3.  Either way, I am in awe.  The music was pleasant and nicely framed and sometimes complex to spell harmonic colours, very well introduced by David and well played, as expected from this NCO trio.  But this is not music for Llewellyn, but for Goodwin and great as it is.  Very much a wonderful classico-pop crossover outing and I love a decent pop melody.

The Aeolus Wind Trio performed at Wesley.  They comprise Jodie Petrov (flute), Lis Hoorweg (clarinet) and David Whitbread (bassoon).

Valé Niels

It was with sadness but also a great deal of musical admiration and fond memories that we farewelled Niels Rosenhdahl.   There were many people present, musicians, friends and family, and plenty of the performers were on stage through a string of combinations.  Probably most had played with Niels.  Michael and Eric from Straight Up; Leigh, Aron and Sam and The Lethals; a string of duets; finally, a big band assembled by Sally Greenaway playing a song from a UNT mate, a tune by Sally, and two burners written by Niels.  The band was fabulous, tight and sharp and exciting, true to Niels' memory.  So a sad but respectful outing all round.  Valé Niels, you will be in our memories.  And CJ's thoughts for family,  John, Teresa, Holly and Matilda.

The Niels Rosendahl Memorial Concert was held in the Tim Murray theatre at Canberra Grammar School.

Small world

 

This was M17 ArtSpace for an exhibition by a photographer friend, Brian Jones.  The title was Life in the Old Dog, Yet and the theme was seniors in facial portraits and in activity to display their vibrant and often athletic lives.  I was amused to see relatively unusual athletic pursuits, eg, discus and butterfly, but especially to find a string of faces I recognised, not just Brian and Jill. Not that I knew all the names.  But muso Nitya I do know and he was there and we chatted and also with Jenny, a regular at the U3A Jazz Appreciation Society who also paints surrealism and otherwise mused over the other portrait faces.  We viewed an amusing video called Everlasting happiness by Deborah White and I chatted the work of lawyers with a guy viewing the Daylight Moon exhibition in another room and we explored a quilt-like exhibition of coloured paper squares by Helen Heslop concerning abusive relationships.  Add a few wines and general jollity (ignoring the abuse for a while) and this was a lovely outing, both social and purposeful.  But let's face it, Canberra is awash with purposeful events and there's only so much time but I enjoyed this one immensely.

Brian Jones (photographer) and others presented exhibitions at M17 ArtSpace.

Live or listened

I've got into recording over the years and most recently into multitrack mixing and mastering, mainly of gigs at Smiths.  I find it fascinating and even, in some ways, better or more revealing than being in attendance.  Less fun, perhaps, and less personal, but revealing.  So I can solo the bass or sax of other and follow the thinking, the improvs, in detail and with repeats.  Fascinating.  Those gigs don't get written up here but here is one.  Alex asked me for a few words on a particularly intriguing and adventurous outing, his Fauna & Flora.  The band is Fauna and the guest was Flora (Carbo).  I was entranced.  Here are my considered and touched words on this concert that I know only from my spare room home studio.

Hearing Fauna and Flora for the first time was a revelation direct from Miles and memory.  Jazz lovers have heard these mutating, intriguing, explorative instrumentations but probably not in the flesh.  Realising that is a stunner.  The emotive melodies, the searching harmonies, the richly fluid accompaniment, the floats and grooves and improvisations melt into the consciousness.  The tunes merge, originals or known standards, to one, whole; one generous, exploratory set, then another.  Tunes with time to live in, explored and imbibed as your mind wanders with wonder.  How am I so surprised? So intrigued?  How is this so fresh, because it is so fresh.  And as for the band's name, I'm still chuckling over that one.  I didn't see Fauna and Flora but I did hear them, intrigued and deeply touched as I mixed and mastered after the event.  If at all possible, see them!

Fauna was joined by guest Flora Carbo (alto) at Smiths.  Fauna are Alex Raupach (trumpet), Wilbur Whitta (piano), Max Alduca (bass) and Jack Rosenzweig (drums).  And thanks to Alex for the pic.

Tallis to today

Prayers and lamentations was the title of the concert by Oriana Chorale with a range of Biblical and other quotes.  The obvious one and ever popular was Thomas Tallis lamentations of Jeremiah from the a capella first half.  Interestingly the two parts of Tallis sandwiched a modern work by Roxanna Panufnik.   It was a little confusing and I thought Tallis was mightily modern at one stage but it all resolved in the end and I loved both pieces although the Panufnik was my fave.  This is stunningly dissonant complex harmony apparently  minor against major tonalities but I guess all manner of flattened notes.  My admiration to the choir for handling this one!  Fascinating (listening now on Spotify: Deus, Deus Meus from her Westminster Mass).  The second half was Stravinsky and Lili Boulander , both modern.  I've played some Stravinsky and love it but never Boulanger, Lili or Nadia.  I jokingly compared notes with Megan at the end and she was not at all surprised that my choices were Panufnik and Stravinsky.  And how well this was done!  The choir was superbly strong, complex, reliable, and the Stravinsky required serious volume at times.  The accompaniment, just piano, clarinet and violin, was just as impressive and satisfying.  This was no walk in the park.  There was complexity and volume and challenging harmonies and odd time feels to navigate and all was wonderfully present.  The Boulanger also featured a high solo male voice and that worked a treat too.  So a great pleasure but more importantly a stunningly interesting and capable presentation.  Interesting, too were the arrangements: Stravinsky by Stefan Cassomenos; Boulanger by Dan Walker.  Quite an overwhelming outing and nice to be asked to record.

Oriana Chorale performed at All Saints Ainslie under Dan Walker (MD, conductor) with accompaniment by Helena Popovic (violin), Milan Kolundzija (clarinet) and Ronan Apcar (piano).  And a few mates, including Liz from Wesley and Imogene from my recent wedding band.

Crux

Australian Haydn Ensemble called the concert Heavenly Sopranos and sure enough most of the program featured a soprano and mezzo pairing.  AHE doesn't often perform with singers (3/28 posts on CJ).   This program featured several works by Johann Adolf Hasse, a renowned opera composer in his time,, Francesco Durante, a teacher of Pergolesi, and the feature, Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, who, interestingly, died young aged 28.  Stabat Mater has been around this Easter.  There were two other performances before this one.  I missed both but it was a topic of discussion.  Easter usually has a few double-ups, as there are recent historical double ups from Beethoven.  The playing was superb, as expected.  The styles of this era aren't too challenging, but I still was breathtaken by the unity of many lines, especially where all strings double timed with unison fills or where the violins expressed together or partly with viola.  There was a theorbo, too, quiet but often identifiable as a guitar plucked tone, and this bassist was hugely admiring of Pippa's obvious international experience and delicate skills.  I liked the first half but was somewhat perplexed by Stabat Mater.  Yeah, her son was going to save the world but he's still dying on the cross in front of her, so why is the music quite so light?  There are touches of tragedy but not much.  But the crux of it is the baroque and church thinking of the period, I guess.  Nonetheless, a stunning bit of performance.  Loved it.

Singers Celeste Lazarenko (soprano) and Helen Sherman (mezzo soprano) were accompanied by the Australian Haydn Ensemble at Wesley.  On the night, the AHE were Skye McIntosh (director, violin), Matthew Greco (violin), Karina Schmitz (viola), Anton Baba (cello), Pippa Macmillan (bass), Simon Martyn-Ellis (theorbo) and Joanna Butler (chamber organ).

Knowing the past

I've just been listening to a recent find, the LA drum/vocals duo Knower, and in some way I wonder if Robert Schmidli's concert is somewhat of the same stunning effect for another era.  Admittedly a very very different era, but Beethoven was a genius and a stunning appearance on the scene and maybe Bach was all encompassing and inventive and Chopin, too, I guess.  Maybe I'm pushing the story too far.  But check out Knower and here's my take on Robert's gig.  The music was Bach, Beethoven and Chopin on solo piano.  Nothing unusual there, but the works were early ones and inventive, Beethoven adding a fourth movement to the piano sonata form and perhaps a romantic aspect to the music, being dedicated to a contessa, and Bach's was perhaps a little old fashioned, as if anything can be bad form from Bach, with various section and fugues and variations and repetitions and changes of tempo and dynamics and more.  And Chopin, who usually misses me, was a pleasure, perhaps political with a Polish uprising against the Russian emperor and a quoted Sleep little Jesus huddled within.  I immensely enjoyed each one for its interest and performance as I don't always enjoy solo piano to this extent.  Strange, because  admire the instrument, being an orchestra in a box, but I can be somewhat overwhelmed given exactly that.  The pieces were Bach Toccata Dmaj BWV912, Beethoven Sonata Eb op.7 no.4 (Grand sonata) and Chopin Scherzo Bmin op.20 no.1.  I enjoyed them all.  Thanks to Robert.

Robert Schmidli played Bach, Beethoven and Chopin at Wesley,

Darkness and light

It's amusing that this was the second gig with Chris Latham as MD where we sat in darkness.  The darkness was for the projected images of modern art that we were accompanying.  OK as long as your batteries on your music stand lights were fresh!  (They were).  Batteries for tuners, too, because the basses had to tune down E>Eb for the final tune.  Otherwise, this was reverent, as Chris' concert are.  We were located at the Chapel at the ACCC (Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture) near the huge cross on the lake.  The space is cement and thus has its own acoustic.  The music was a string of short pieces, from Bach and Rach through a string of lesser-known Europeans and others, Weinberg, Klein, Weiner and Kattenberg as well Simon, Walton, Koicki and Dreyfus and a segment of lovely FS Kelly songs.  I so love the gentle and touching music of FS Kelly, deceased young in WW1.  Chris had gathered and often arranged the tunes. Our singer was Christina Wilson with her soprano of power and obvious invention that showed when she sang a complex but wordless segment.  Fumiyo Yamamoto also featured on one violin solo.  Let it not be thought that short and predominantly slow means easy.  There's difficulty in delicate bowing and in unexpected counts.  It's nothing like fast incessant Beethoven parts with their own difficulties.  So another successful and purposeful performance with Chris Latham.  Thanks again Chris.

Chris Latham (conductor, musical director, arranger. violin) led Musica da Camera in a string of tunes at the Chapel at ACCC.  Christina Wilson (soprano) sang and Fumiyo Yamamoto (violin) and Margaret Kahn (cello) soloed.

A fave outing

It may not be the favourite outing but it is a favourite outing.  That's the RMC Band when it puts on a gig, in concert band format or other.  Today it was the Woodwind group and it was widely varied with all manner of wind instruments and just one guitar.  I like it because it's just so pro.  Sometimes just a little moderate but always decently done, well trained and capable, understanding and varied.  My Mum's in town and she came to this one and asked if they are soldiers first.  No, trained musicians first, although with uniforms and some level of military training and I'm sure a responsibility to pick up arms when the latest enemy invades.  (Don't worry, we usually get there first!)  Whatever.  The music was intriguing and well played, though, and hugely varied in combinations.  Two clarinet solos and one oboe; a Celtic group, a woodwind quartet and clarinet quintet and woodwind trio and sax quartet and the combined Wind group.  Music from those Irish tunes to a modernist clarinet solo using delay with repeats on the beat and mixing octaves.  A Beethoven movement and a Bernstein overture (Candide) and a Richard Strauss Serenade.  And a string of modern pieces otherwise.  Really quite adventurous even if in matching, marching khaki.  My favourite?  Perhaps the Beethoven for the familiarity or the Strauss for the conductor-led richness of the bigger band or the solo clarinet with that effective delay or the solos with notable chops or just the delirious scalar lines that bounced through the ensembles in a few pieces.  In the end, I think the Woodwind trio playing Kaspar Kummer Trio for flute, clarinet and bassoon op.32 was my favourite with the merging of tonalities and the capable playing but it was all a pleasure.  That's how I find a capable, workmanlike, prof gig like this: a huge pleasure, as always and as expected.

The Woodwind Group of the Band of the Royal Military College (Duntroon) performed at Wesley.