Radiant performance

We expected a rush but NCO finished early enough and we relaxed.  Nice, because the next outing was something particularly special.  Guitarist Harley Coleman was staying with us while rehearsing and touring with Luminescence Chamber Singers.  Now, these are a seriously professional group; what they do is worthy of your time.  They had played Andrew Ford Red Dirt Hymns at CIMF and they were touring it through NSW.  We got to see it at The B in Qbn. Luminescence were 6 singers (3 female voices, 3 male) with instrumental accompaniment from Harley on guitar and Freya Schack-Arnott on cello.  Later, a combined children's choir joined for some hymns.  Andrew Ford had written the music, bass line, chords and melody, from the little I've seen.  Roland Peelman worked with the performers to develop presentation and wonderfully rich harmonies while leaving space for improv from the musos.  Roland also conducted the children's choirs on the day.  Andrew Ford was there highlighting the exceptional work on the hymns done by Luminescence.  Suffice to say it was work of the highest artistic achievement to my ears.  I was stunned by the skills and musicality and glorious arrangements; by Harley's understanded chordal interpretation and one pretty rock-dirty solo and Freya's bass lines and atonal plays on sound; by the solo presentations of some songs, then then ensemble performances of others; by the playful drumming on garden pottery, by the reverent singing of the children's choir.  The work comprises 16 shortish songs with lyrics volunteered by invited poets, so a range of themes, but presumably all around issues of Australian relevance.  I caught some lyrics, not all; the richness of performance mostly took my attention on the day.  So I still have a worthy task to read these poems and hopefully a future opportunity to hear a recording or view a video.  Just a stunning performance and a fascinating project.

Luminescence Chamber Singers performed Andrew Ford Red Dirt Hymns at TheB in Queanbeyan.  Luminescence are AJ America, Rachel Mink and Josephine Brereton (sopranos), Dan Walker (tenor), Lucien Fischer (baritone) and Alasdair Stretch (bass-baritone).  Roland Peelman (MD, arranger) arranged and conducted the children's choir from Luminescence Children’s Choir and Music for Canberra.  Accompanists were Harley Coleman (guitar) and Freya Schack-Arnott (cello) and Sammy Hawker (visual artist) provided the backdrop.

Song

I last wrote of this pair at Wesley with great admiration and pleasure, especially for a work telling of a dying soldier's thoughts in WW1.  That concert visited the romantics and the eras before our admittedly very transactional times, to use the current parlance.  This return was equally satisfying for its training and skills in voice and piano but also a return to earlier times.  This was a fascinating investigation into musical takes on Shakespeare's language by Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter and a group of songs by Vaughan Williams.  The program describes their takes as Shakespeare "rich and rhythmic ... in turns, witty, wistful and profound", Finzi "introspective and melancholic", Quilter "light and charming" and finally Vaughan Williams "reverent and human ... moments of serenity and soaring joy" in takes on music of George Herbert "deeply expressive and spiritual ... quiet intensity".  Thus is artsong, I guess: intelligent and reverent, fabulously skilled and beautifully performed and quite distant from our times to my ears.  Not that we couldn't do with some alternatives just at the moment.

Alasdair Stretch (baritone) was accompanied by Callum Tolhurst-Close (piano) at Wesley.

Trad'n'on

Voice can be so touching, so true to humanity, so close to emotions and telling in a way only words can do.  That's particularly how I felt about the first song, a trad. song from USA dated around WW1 telling the thoughts of a dying soldier as he speaks to his brother and passes messages to wife and family.  Deeply touching and very apt to be sung by a baritone, strong and male as it is.  Almost tear-jerking, thinking of tunnels and trenches and huge losses.  The baritone was Alasdair Stretch, of Luminesence and more, accompanied by Callum Tolhurst-Close on piano.  Both deeply emotional, sometime behind the beat, always precise in note formation and pitch and apt timing.  Highly trained and serious in using that training.  The concert proceeded to German artsong (R Schumann and R Strauss) then to English (Howells and Vaughan Williams) to a finale using the final word Adieu (Faure).  The artsong is more complex with stories and lyrics that place the music distinctly in another era, not C20th and way from C21st.  I find it a hard style to warm to, even if I hugely respect the performers and performances which I certainly did here.  But that's my bad.  This was a wonderfully intimate and musically precise concert and I enjoyed it immensely for that.

Alasdair Stretch (baritone) was accompanied by Callum Tolhurst-Close (piano) at Wesley.

Clarity

Five concerts in the Christmas series and we got to two.  This was a much smaller concert than the first but what was lost in complexity was gained from the familiarity of the performers and the clarity of the performance.  This was just the core 6 singers who make up Luminescence and who presumably, frequently, sing and practice together.  We could hear that heightened awareness between performers.   We could hear each individual voice, given just 6 singers together in great clarity and the space did its bit too, with its gentle presence.  So the sometimes raucous songs of Spain's golden era and Alfonso's cantigas was a dream.  Despite foot stomps and tambourine percussion.  This is music from later C13th and late C16th, sometimes simple melodies, sometimes embellished or harmonised by the group, sometimes boisterous and festive, sometimes sole voices with perhaps a single tonic note accompaniment.  What I loved was the clarity of a small, comfortable, practised group and the clarity and uniqueness of each voice.  Interestingly, choir was ordered with sopranos at each end, low bass and baritone in the centre and mezzo soprano and tenor between.  One performer spoke of two trios, whether the male lower and female higher, or the right baritone-tenor-soprano or left bass-mezzo-soprano, I'm not sure.  Whatever, this was a memorable display and one fully worthy of Tim's complex recording (hint: love to hear it...).  Just a stunner.

Luminescence Chamber Singers were led by Roland Peelman (conductor, percussion).  LCS comprises AJ America (mezzo soprano), Lucien Fischer (baritone), Veronica Milroy and Rachel Mink (sopranos), Alasdair Stretch (bass) and Dan Walker (tenor).

Vox+

This was a gloriously beautiful concert but that could be expected.  It was called B.A.C.H. with reference to the Bach motif; it was sung by Luminescence Chamber Singers so those glorious voices and harmonies; it included violinist-cum-vocalist Anna Freer as guest while one member was off the US; it included a rendition of Bach Violin Partita no.2 Dmin with its 5 movements ingeniously interspersed with Bach chorales; it started and ended with some lively early music, amusingly for me (given I did a midi take complete with whistles on Hope / The Pots) including the crab canon over palindrome Guillaume de Marchaut Ma fin est mon commencement.  I loved the violin partita and wondered over the accompanied fifth movement and admired the partita played touchingly and searchingly from memory, but what did it for me were the voices.  I consider the voice the most perfect, most complex and satisfying instrument, not surprising given it is of us  rather than an invention however impressive, and Luminescence do it so well.  Not quite perfectly, but bloody close to.  And Anna fitted wonderfully as a sit-in soprano.  Those voices and harmonies were a thing of immense beauty and exploration of harmony and rich vocalisation.  This was a concert to treasure.  Good to see that our local ArtSound recording engineer, Tim, was there experimenting with multiple mic pairings.  He does an excellent job, too.

Luminescence performed Bach and more at Drill Hall Gallery.  Anna Freer (violin, soprano) joined choir members AJ America (mezzo soprano), Veronica Milroy (soprano), Dan Walker (tenor), Lucien Fisher (baritone) and Alasdair Stretch (bass).  Tim Lamble recorded for the performers and ArtSound.