07 April 2025

Tchaiks does hooks

My first up concert for the weekend. Busy.  This was Musica da Camera under Brad Tham, who returned after playing with us a year before.  He's quiet and respectful and a talented musician and recent ANU graduate.  His choice started with a relatively straightforward Brook green suite which was written for a schoolgirls' orchestra.  It's shortish despite its three movements and not difficult despite some tricky, malleable counting and some speed in the last dance movement.  Then Lonely Angel by Peteris Vasks, another modern meditation featuring Brad on violin out front.  Slow but can be difficult to manage without a conductor, given offbeat changes and lines.  But the feature was Tchaikovsky Serenade for strings.  Lovely and inviting and challenging enough.  Again it has speed and occasional tricky lines, a delightful waltz as movement 2, a stirring elegie as movement 3, and some fairly straightforward if fast lines and scales in movement 3.  But it's something everyone knows and is immediately pleasurable.  How well does Tchaikovsky do melody, often with the simplest of lines.  Nicely played by our MdCC led by our quietly talented Brad.

Musica da Camera Canberra played Holst, Vasks and Tchaikovsky at Cook under Brad Tham (MD, violin) with Tanya Jenkin (concertmaster).

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