Perhaps my first concert with Musica da Camera featured Bach Brandenburg Concerto no.3. Now that's a fabulous piece and a challenge but also very mainstream and established. Sally Greenaway led MdCC for its latest concert and it was anything but BBB. Sally is a capable and renowned Australian/Canberran composer and she obviously knows the composer community so we got a fabulous collection of Australian and Canberra-based compositions to play. Now these were not unapproachable or experimental as new works are something thought to be. These were attractive, lyrical, expressive, rhythmic, providing pictures of footprints or trees or animals or more. Sally's was the fascinating response to post-WW1 poplar tree plantings around country towns. Plus Lachlan Skipworth with a fanfare called Fanfara; Leanne Bear with a pastorale and a (purple possum) dance; Marian Budos with three of seven gifts, a religious dedication; Brenda Gifford with Bardju (footprints), a jazzy groove with an offbeat fills; Tristan Coehlo with Rustic dances, all nature in varied feels and some really challenging timings; Ann Carr-Boyd with an arrangement of a popular tune by Peter Sculthorpe, his Left Bank waltz. As you can imagine, this was a varied collection and a demanding learning process, some pieces not even being available for a listen. We were lucky to have five of the composers at the concert and a decent audience who clearly enjoyed the new music, attractive and expressive as it was. It was a pleasure to play our contemporary Australian music and hopefully a pleasure for the composers to hear our takes on it.
Sally Greenaway (musical director) selected and conducted Musica da Camera in Australian music by Skipworth, Bear, Budos, Gifford, Greenaway, Coehlo and Sculthorpe arr. Carr-Boyd. Featured soloists were Gabriel Fromyhr (cello), Shane Campbell (guitar), Jodie Petrov (flute) and Elizabeth Alford (harp).
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