Crossovers

I last saw Helen Svoboda at SoundOut 2024 and this year she appeared at CIMF with Timo-Veikko 'Tipi' Valve, principal cellist at the Australian Chamber Orchestra.  SoundOut and ACO?  It's an unexpected pairing but thus is CIMF and thus is one of its strengths.  The concert was inspiring.  Helen and Tipi had just met an hour before the concert so this was more a sharing of personal performances, seemingly with time allocations for the unscripted improvs, but it worked a treat.  Helen on double bass, all spacey bowing and harmonics then a lovely voice improvising over the established context.  Tipi blended in with a few JS Bach cello concerto movements which are inevitably known and always loved, and a few written pieces which more matched Helen's improvised offers, one by Kate Moore and another by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti.  Then an interval and a virtuosic piece by the Finn who must be played, Sibelius Variations for cello.  I loved Helen's improvs but especially her lovely voice, unexpectedly appearing over the bass.  I sat just feet from Tipi and learnt a ton from his bowing and fingering and interpretations, and could do no less than be stunned by his commitment made evident  by his breathing.  What you see up close is dazzling and revealing and so much more intense than the experience in a hall.  This is no work-a-day outing.  A final, stunning concert from CIMF and such a pleasure and honour to be able to record 5 of the concerts.

Timo-Veikko Valve (cello) and Helen Svoboda (bass, vocals) performed form CIMF at the ACCC Chapel.