Three further paces

Jack Hobbs and Kimberley Steele returned for the second in their trio series, called Three’s a crowd, this time with flautist Rachel Howie. At the first concert, I noted the historical development. The developments continued so that here they arrived at early C20th. The music was still tonal but the melodies were distinctly different, anticipating or hangi, playing with rhythm, moving away for 4x4 structures and simple calls and responses and with more play on intervals. This was adventurous without dissonance, although a little of that also snuck in. Weber Trio in G minor was from an earlier romantic, but the rest dated about 1900. Poulenc’s flute sonata displayed this modern melodic sensibility, unexpected phrasing and anticipated pauses. Then two Czech composers. Janacek A tale which started fiery and passionate and later settled, and featured some unusual, extended cello pizzicato. Then what is apparently a standard repertoire piece for this combination, Martinu Trio. It was introduced as three movement, folks and Czech cultural influences, some light-heartedness. I could appreciate the humour but I also found it quite disjointed. I’ll have to revisit my recording, but I think Janacek was my preference. I was more impressed with the trio, though. It’s a good venue with clear sound and a decent piano and no interruptions, and maybe this was a motivation, but this trio was very satisfying. Grand and voluminous flute, sometimes delicate but lively and precise cello, and a constant certainty in piano. They are going their own ways, now, for further study and life. A shame but that’s how things go. This music was tonal but inventive and the playing was certain and sensitive. Very nicely done. Rachel Howie (flute), Kimberley Steele (piano) and Jack Hobbs (cello) performed at Wesley Music Centre for the second Three’s a crowd concert in the C100 series.

Three paces in history

The order was skew-whiff but the development was pretty obvious. Estelita Rae, Kimberley Steele and Jock Hobbs played Schubert, Brahms and Mendelssohn in the foyer of the National Library for another C100 concert. I’d heard all these players before although not in this format. I spoke to Jack after the gig about the development of this music. They played the Brahms first, although he’s the latest of the three. I heard this as solid, rich in interplay and more turgid. It was the first movement of his B major Piano trio. I checked the key – yes, B major, about the worst key for any jazz player despite its appearance in Giant steps. The Schubert followed. This is actually the earliest of the three (1828).
Jack called it the “most classical” and it was lighter, fresher, more immediately attractive, with more straightforward instrumental roles and less interplay and development. More chamber- and song-like than the symphonic styles of Brahms and Mendelssohn. This was Schubert’s Eb Piano trio op.100 second movement. Apparently said of it “see the sun setting”. That fits. Then the major work of the night, all four movements of Mendelssohn’s first Piano trio in D minor. This is the intermediate work between the other two. The movements vary, of course, with the piano evidently presenting a larger conception. The first movement was Russian passionate, with sequences, echoing lines and interplay, wide dynamics and emotional richness. Then a slower, questing second movement and a bouncy third in 3/4 time. Then a final smoother movement where I was taken by some massive ascending and descending passages on piano that were mirrored by violin and cello. I felt the Trio played the best here. Jack told me the Brahms had its first outing and was not so settled. The Schubert was lovely but the Mendelssohn made demands. Certainly by the Mendelssohn they were playing with attachment and gusto. The piano could have done with a tuner’s visit and the noisy sliding foyer doors were an interruption, but the live acoustic and the small audience was a pleasure. This was a lovely visit to some significant names but also an opportunity to view changes in styles over the time. Nice.

Estelita Rae (violin), Kimberley Steele (piano) and Jack Hobbs (cello) performed in the foyer of the National Library of Australia for the first Three’s a crowd concert in the C100 series.

200 days and counting

The Canberra 100 Musical Offering has reached 200 days and over 300 musical events. It’s a huge success. To celebrate, die-hards attended a short concert at the Ainslie Arts Centre. And what wonderful quality this was! These were top local professionals, presumably gathered by Louise Page, active as she is in these matters. And it was a intriguingly mixed program. Firstly, Louise Page singing a castrato role from Massenet’s Manon with Meriel Owen accompanying on piano.
Louise asked us to imagine. Then He was beautiful, Stanley Myer’s popular tune. It’s a vocalisation of Cavatina, the guitar theme to the film, the Deer Hunter, so it was appropriate that Campbell Diamond followed on classical guitar, playing music of José and Scarlatti. This was sharp and beautifully enunciated and a serious presentation after Louise’s pretense. Barbara Jane Gilby and Meriel Owen followed with an Adagio movement from Bruch, all reminiscence and pure, metal-rich violin tone. Then a much softer sound as Meriel moved to solo harp to play Fauré’s Impromptu. Meriel introduced it as a standard repertoire piece at conservatoria that requires all manner of harp techniques. I enjoyed the lyre-like gentleness of it all. Then a duo of Alys and Emma Rayner (presumably sisters), Alys on violin and Emma on cello, with three duets from Gliere. The first two, Cradle song and Canzonetta, featured ostinato-like cello accompaniment; the final Scherzo granted the cello a more forward part against bouncing violin bowing and some pensive cello melody towards the end. Louise returned with Meriel and Barbara Jane to finish the program. Firstly, with Mozart’s L’amero. Louise implored us to imagine her into another part, this time of a 20-year old in Paris back a few centuries. Then a final gypsy waltz by Stolz. I especially noticed lyrics that raced to rest on a long note that stood against a rapid rising fill from violin. Ah, what pastoral romantic passion is this? A joyous, tempestuous end to a lovely little concert.

This is a great series and it will continue to the end of the year as a gift of very many musicians (5,000 congratulatory stickers are being printed, one for each performer). I know a fair bir about music in this town, but I’m continually surprised by the range and quality of music-making, and there are branches of music I don’t even touch upon. Thanks to these performers, and worthy praise to Don Aitkin and Helen Moore for bringing the Musical Offering together.

Don Aitkin and Helen Moore lead the Canberra 100 Musical Offering project. The performers at this 200th-day anniversary were Louise Page (soprano), Meriel Own (piano, harp), Campbell Diamond (guitar), Barbara Jane Gilby (violin), Alys Rayner (violin) and Emma Rayner (cello).

Not just nobility

The Trumpet Club had me thinking of fanfares. Everyone loves a fanfare. I can’t help but think of Errol Flynn and Robin Hood and jousts when I think of massed brass. It’s such a wonderfully majestic and noble sound: big and brassy and celebratory and with such pure tonality. When I process recordings of brass, I notice a clear, simple image of the sound which must indicate a relatively simple sine curve and uncomplicated harmonic structure. Remember the long, straight trumpets of the mediaeval sagas?

The Trumpet Club are just that - trumpets - although they use modern, bent, piston models. They’ve got sick of waiting and counting at rehearsals and performances, so they’ve formed a trumpet-only group to play classical, jazz, blues, originals, whatever. Members are from the CSO and jazz school and local teachers and experienced students. These are capable players and they speak with billowy low notes and clear high notes and sharp harmonies. Trumpets can be luscious with good chops behind them, and especially with a good acoustic. They were. TC started at the top of the High Court ramp, as have several other performers, with the most fanfarish piece of the repertoire, by American Eric Ewazen, but then arranged themselves downstairs to play a lively Telemann and a heart-on-sleve Percy Grainger Bonnie Doone. Then two modern pieces. Firstly, Mike D’Ambrosio’s Ice Town, all spikey and dissonant, telling the story of a town caught in a severe ice storm. Then Suite for six trumpets by Dennis Horton. This is a work in three movements with a nicely modern vibrancy: firstly news themish, then soft and golden with rich harmonies forming from moving lines, then film action or thriller. These two pieces were my favourites. The music was mostly scored, but Cam did solo on the following piece, Bourbon Street breakdown, with bass-like ostinato and chordal accompaniment from the others. Then, to finish, a bit of chop-challenging corn, Rakes of mallow, all cute melody and unrelenting accellerando. I’m not sure why, but it always seems to me that brass players have a good sense of humour, although maybe more in the classical scene. There’s a certain desperation in counting bars.

This was their first concert and they were building their chops (no sitting back here). It was wonderfully well received and surprisingly more quiet than I’d expected. There were some noble sounds, but also just plain vibrant. I think the Club can be bigger, but on the day Trumpet Club were Zach Raffan, Cameron Smith, Corey Booth, Kevin Knapp, Louisa Batts, Kate Walker and Greg Stenning (trumpets)

Tallis and continuity

The Musical Offering keeps on giving, this time with Igitur nos singing in the National Library foyer. It was only a short concert, but pure in the way of the Iggies (not a term I concocted). They sang from the books of Thomas Tallis, Eric Whittaker, Edward Bairstow and Maurice durufle.
These are religious songs, mostly dating from far before Canberra’s establishment but a few from after, mediaeval in impression if not always in date. I noticed blooming vocal attacks from these singers and I imagine this allows them to neaten their tone and intonation. This is gentle music, softly portrayed, even if complex in form and movement. I noticed some harshness on high soprano notes while listening from the ground floor in the marble space, but this dissipated from the balcony above. Up there, the tone was more pure and the parts nicely balanced and the counterpoint so evident: the basses rich and supportive and the tenors and altos moving under the soprano melodies. The audience was entranced, even if unsuspecting: happening on a choral performance when coming to study or emerging from bookshop or café. It’s a life-affirming experience to happen on a choir like this, and so apt in an institution of learning and memory that is a library. Not that a library is all so pure: for some it’s a place of work with all its workplace tiffs and managerial organisation and social happenings and the rest. Megan and I worked here many years back. Matthew Stuckings, Igitur nos’ musical director, currently works here as a mansucripts librarian. You can forget its importance when it’s a daily visit, but a concert like this is a reminder. A choir singing Tallis, with all its resonances of history and continuity, just confirms the noble role of the Library. Igitur nos is always a joy as is this institution, and, for that matter, the Musical Offering.

Igitur nos performed in the foyer of the National Library of Australia for the C100 Musical Offering. Matthew Stuckings conducted.

Echoes of last year

It was almost exactly the first anniversary of Echo Voices Choir when I saw them the other day. It was also Canada day, which has relevance given some members are Canadians. They were signing for the C100 Musical Offering. This was not a long concert, but it was not without its challenges. I took away that they are a plucky outfit. It’s a community choir so I didn’t expect too many challenges, but this performance had a world premiere of a new work written by assistant director Crystal Muller, another arrangement by Crystal and one of Scarborough Fair by another of the members, Belinda Weiss. They may be un-auditioned, but there are several trained or training performers here, so they must enjoy the challenge. Crystal studies composition at UCAN, Director Leonard is an ANU student who I see regularly leading various ensembles and his sister Belinda is in a Music prep program for ANU. I think this was a totally new program. Crystal’s original surprised me with some very challenging male counterpoint of long, contorted intervals: a considerable challenge for the choir and an interesting composition. Scarborough Fair is well known and Belinda’s arrangement was smoother so easier on the choir, and a lovely, unexpected treatment. The others were a Canadian traditional song, Farewell to Nova Scotia, arranged by Crystal, an English traditional song, The oak and the ash, Blake’s Walking in the air and Jenkin’s Adiemus. My favourite from these was probably The oak and the ash which the choir performed with comfort. Short but sweet and with some original creations. Congratulations.

Echo Voices Community Choir is led by Leonard Wiess (conductor, director) with Crystal Muller (assistant conductor, director). Members are: Karen Dahl, Jenny Grierson, Linda Jeer and Angela Lunau (sopranos), Ada Goldsmith, Clare Smith and Belinda Weiss (altos), John Curmi and Crystal Muller (tenors) and Mark Evans, Phil Malcolm and Stephen Shott (basses).

Striking tones

It has a unique sound and it’s one of only two in Australia. It’s the Carillon. The National Carillon was a gift of the British Government to the people of Australia to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Canberra. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 26 April 1970 (still our common monarch). This year is the 100th anniversary of Canberra, so a concert was appropriate although they are frequent in this town. Lyn Fuller played a set of tunes for Good Friday. It was a beautiful day, sunny with just a little crispness in the air. There were kids and bicycle riders and every second person seemed to have a dog.

A carillon is a keyboard percussion instrument, played with fists and feet. It must have at least 23 bells (2 octaves – these are chromatic instruments). This one has 4.5 octaves and 55 bells. Lyn told me there’s an overlap between foot and hand keyboards. I was lucky enough to visit the performer’s room. It seems there are two full claviers, presumably allowing four handed performances. There are also a few small rooms with electric and acoustic pianos and computers and printers. It’s quite a little neat workplace up there. What we see as audience below is a 50 metre tower and an idyllic island garden. I also noticed that Lyn was playing a handwritten chart and that fits the frequent annotations of arr. Lyn Fuller or arr. otherwise in the program. This is not a common instrument (probably less than 1,000 in the whole world) and it also uses uncommon techniques. I expect carillionists learn early on how to arrange their favourite tunes. I loved the high bells ringing in fast passages and I reckon a carillon would handle dissonance well in a slurry of high notes. The slower and lower tones felt different. Bells are carefully cast and tuned for tone and pitch, but I still felt a little uncomfortable with some pitches and some undampened chords. I’ve been reading up since, and I’m not surprised. Bell making is a complex art and the sound is a complex mix of overtones that decay at different rates. There’s a low enduring hum note (octave below strike tone), a tonic (strike tone), minor third, fifth, octave, major third, fifth, etc, with various decays. All very complex, but this mix of minor and major make for an interesting tonal structure. Read about it under “Strike tone” at Wikipedia.

But what of the program? I found it relaxed, spacious, obviously bell-like. Lyn played various classical and folk themes. A sparse Benedictine plainsong called Adore devote. An arrangement of Sibelius’ Finlandia. A Sonata da chiesa. Traditional tunes like Just a closer walk with thee and Amazing grace and Picardy. A carillon can play dynamics but it’s limited. I found variation more in a rubato feeling of relaxed time and no rush between tunes. It’s a big instrument; it moves like it is. It has lugubrious, billowing pitches, but also joyous, high bells that sing with the wind. It’s one of the joys of Canberra that we walk the Lake and hear these reverberent tones on the wind. And on a day like this, it’s a particular and, at least in Australia, a rare pleasure.

Lyn Fuller performed on the National Carillon at Aspen Island for Good Friday for the C100 Musical Offering. See link below to take a virtual tour of the Carillon and play it.

Carillon tour

Play the Carillon!

Stirke tone from Wilipedia

Contacting the pre-modern

The pre-modern era remains with us. The turnout for the Pocket Score Company at the High Court just confirms it. Not that it means we really understand it. We see the beautiful and aged buildings in Europe; we hear the glorious music and associate it with cathedrals. It’s a trivial example of our lack of understanding, but I remember the disappointment when Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling was restored as vivid colours.
It was similar with some of the music the PSC sang. We think of towering cathedrals and monks singing religious themes, but at least one equally beautiful song was downright bawdy and there was a love song from Abelard to Heloise. There was a song that depicted Parisian street with three parts that spoke over and above each other while musically entwined. Another song comprised lurid hints of debauchery with the male, a fine oarsman, singing his exploits and the female fretting about the size of the barge. But they were sung in various languages in various olde forms, so we could just ignore the words and luxuriate in the male voices. Which is what I mostly did: enjoying Ian’s deep bass with David’s countertenor and Paul and other David’s two tenors. Maybe it was just in some songs, but I loved it when the two tenors ranged high, so we had three males up high which just accentuated the pure and deep bass below. Otherwise, I couldn’t help but relish the intertwining lines of melody. They sometimes echoed between voices like in a round; other times they were sung like layered harmony with matching phrasing. For one tune, Ian accompanied with a gentle and billowing hand drum. And they presented well. They had started by walking the ramps into the performance area for Abelard’s chant, then the French street scene had singers moving from backstage to congregate at centre. Nice informative introductions, too. These are confident blokes singing olde music and it’s popular. I like it that we have this touch of mediaeval / renaissance Europe here in Canberra and it even fits the modern, concrete brutalist cathedral which is the High Court. Pocket Score Company are David Yardley (countertenor), David Mackay (tenor), Paul Eldon (tenor) and Ian Blake (bass). They performed at the High Court for the Canberra 100 Musical Offering.

From the mouths of youth

David Yardley is going overseas for work so this is the last time he’s conducting Kompactus Choir for a while. Kompactus were performing at the High Court for the C100 Musical Offering. They are a youth choir formed out of the Canberra Youth Music Chamber Choir and SCUNA in 2008/9 when they enlisted David Yardley as musical director. This concert was called Best of Kompactus and covered a range of musics from Monteverdi through Vaughan Williams to recent Canberra visitors, the Finnish choir, Rajaton. They sang quietly, sometime almost lost behind the airconditioning, but their dynamics were generous and they’d then swell to a nice firm volume, although never very loud. I lost the male voices a little, being outnumbered at 5 to 7 females, but the interplay was clean and the harmonies were accurate and there were some lovely lines of polyphony that moved between parts, and some lovely voices htat worled together with admirable care and sense of unity. Perhaps some high notes were strained, but this was neat and capable and satisfying. They sang a varied program of quite short songs, starting back around 1450s, then through Linden Lea by Vaughan Williams that reminisces on English countryside and mourns the coming of the industrialisation. Then Monteverdi, a spiritual, Lauridsen’s C20th take on O magnum mysteriosum and a David Yardley arrangement of a song from C15th. Then a lamentation and Abide by me, and oddly, a song of daffodils, flowers that growing beautiful, flourish and die as a metaphor for life, and a song of a butterfly, sandwiching another Monteverdi, Crudel perche me fuggi. This was a lovely concert of delicacy and contemplation and I look forward to another.

Kompactus was directed by David Yardley with Rachel Cowley, Briana Hillman, Freya Howarth, Hannah Richardson and Veronica Milroy (sopranos), Alexandra Morris, Elizabeth Morris, Katy Pullen and Olivia Smith (altos), Cody Christopher, Michael Gill and Thomas Liu (tenors) and Christopher Bentley, Robin Dalton, Cameron Gill, Israel Marsh and Richard Pywell (basses).

Memorable

I’ll sneak in another of my gigs, this time for our instrumental quartet, the Jazz Republic. There were many ways that this gig will be memorable. Firstly, Miroslav Bukovsky sat in for our wounded saxist, Richard (nothing terminal). How wonderful to play with a musician of such skills and long experience. It was a surprise when Miro told me after the gig that he’d taught Richard at the Sydney Con years before. How small is this jazz world. We were also playing this gig for the Canberra 100 Musical Offering, which is coordinated by Don Aitkin and Helen Moore. Helen wasn’t there, but Don and Bev, his wife, were. It turns out that Don plays a mean Brubeck piano by ear, having played professionally way back before his days in academia. We also had a mate of Mike’s in attendance, APRA and double-EMMY award winning composer and musician, Art Phillips, originally from LA and now resident in Sydney. If I’d realised he’d written songs for Minnie Ripperton, and played guitar for Barry Manilow and directed music for the likes of Demis Roussos, Dory Previn and John Rowles, I might have been more nervous. But nerves serve little purpose. Enough just to play, even if only one set of a few standards, latins and one of Mike’s original ballads. Good fun and thanks especially to Miro for sitting in. The band appeared as the Jazz Republic with Mike Dooley (piano), Miroslav Bukovsky (trumpet, flugelhorn), Eric Pozza (bass) and Brenton Holmes (drums).

Canberra 100 Musical Offering

Art Phillips Music Design

Don Aitkin's blog

We all procrastinate

They couldn’t decide on a name, so this collective of procrastinators decided on the obvious: The Procrastinators. But their performance spoke nothing of this. This was a capella, gospel and pop, sung by a dozen or so out of the hotbed of the Strange Weather Gospel Choir. That’s good. They were missing some memebrs, and this was a very short concert, but it was lively and demonstrative and nicely sung. On the day, they were 11 singers: 3 altos; 2 each of bass and tenor; 4 sopranos. From the top you could feel the joy and energy. They moved! It’s done in gospel choirs, but forgotten by others. They featured voices: several tunes with male calls or solo female melodies. They grooved with boop-sha accompaniments. They smiled and made little indicative hand movements, pointing or waving or rocking. Interestingly, they all wore black with a crimson feature: some obvious, like ties or braces or flowers or necklaces, or more suggestively, like headscarves or even crimson lipstick. I liked that. It’s not surprising that the guys wore the ties and the forthright and dramatic altos wore the lipstick. They were fun. But that’s not all, they sounded great. Various gospel tunes, slave-hollers and field responses; pop songs like Under the boardwalk and Hallelujah and a joyful favourite of mine, Walking on sunshine. A suite of African/South African songs from Soweto and the apartheid era. It’s here the audience joined in with claps and some piercing ullulation. Then to end, a tune that worked as art and drama but didn’t appeal to me for its theological individualist self-flagellation, Nobody’s fault but mine, and that cutesy Goodnight sweetheart to finish. This was a lovely little concert and I was chuckling during it and broadly smiling by the end. At least until I found my recording had failed after I’d brought a camera without an SD card. So, just a nasty phone pic. All that’s left is a lively gospel-tinged memory. The Procrastinators are an SATB a capella choir conducted as an autonomous collective (True! They confirmed it. Really…) and introduced by Liz Keirs.

Here and there

SCUNA called this concert Here, there and back again. Although I had forgotten the name at the time of the concert, I felt this movement. Firstly, the music was mediaeval accompanied by lute and harmonium and recorders. This speaks to me of belief and piety and great cathedrals but add percussion and classic 1 2+ or 1 2+3 rhythms and it’s more bawdy dens and rollicking wenches. Then I noticed a drone and more recent harmony (an understandable challenge to the choir) and touches of English that I recognised, speaking of sleep and love. This was obviously modern but still had resonances of deep choral history. The two feel returned with a dancable gait. Then more from the past and a return to the present singing “break my heart again … trying to pretend” and an end with gospel and blues: Swing low sweet chariot with a classic black male call, a blues lament and an odd but amusing disjunct of barbershop. It was a short concert or twleve short pieces and with no chatter with the audience. I would have liked to hear just what it was we were listening to. It’s common for choirs to have a historical bent, and SCUNA certainly displayed one here. Even the modern tunes had a relationship to the past despite more modern harmonies or lyrics. But it’s obvious the group enjoys its outings, and they are a decent choir singing a range of musics. I particularly enjoyed renewing a love of male voices when one tune featured a passage reminding me of chant. I enjoyed the solo voices and the gospel calls and the mediaeval sound of recorders and drums. I could imagine boisterous swilling and dancing as in one or another Breughel. But barbershop is where it ended, and that’s much more of the present. So, this was a lovely Sunday interlude that happened to celebrate the weekend of Australia day. As I left I thought of identity, a recurring theme on this weekend. Give us something to identify ourselves in the sweep of history, as this concert did. Better a greater understanding, than some nationalist symbol of us and them. SCUNA performed at the High Court for the Musical Offerings series, with Andrew Koll (conductor), Anthony Smith (repetiteur, keyboard) and Steven Weller (percussion).

Sirens or mothers

Cyrenes is a women’s choir. I can’t think of a choir of massed voices that I’ve heard recently that’s not a mixed choir of male and female voices, SATB (Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass) or thereabouts. There was Chorus of Women but they were a quartet. I was wondering if the tone would be strident, thin, too light and high for my ears, but it was nothing like that. In fact, I was surprised by the low voices of several few bass-like lines. I shouldn’t have been. There’s plenty of crossover between the sexes, not just in pitch of voices but we hear it in voices, too: counter-tenors singing with altos; here, women singing higher tenor lines. This wasn’t just sky-high soprano, but forceful and confident groove-setting. So, my first impression was the broad sweep of pitch and effectiveness of the parts. But on the other hand, I was mightily impressed by several pure, airy soprano voices that floated above the ruck. This was not power but beauty. It’s what I initially expected from a female choir but, of course, it’s just part of the mix. And this whole was a comfortable and welcoming mix. I felt the voices and phrasings sat well together. The Cyrenes have been together for 20 years and they sing with a conductor and without charts and this all helps listening and expression. They were comfortable musically and welcoming personally and it shows in their sound.

They sang an interesting mix of modern and world styles. They walked onto stage in subgroups singing Alleluia. They sang Joni Mitchell (Big yellow taxi) and James Taylor (Lonesome road) and Mary Chapin Carpenter (Why walk). Also referencing the ‘60s but very different in style were a musical setting for words from Khalil Gibran (The Prophet) on the role of parents with their children, and Kumbaya (thankfully, from the Soweto Gospel Choir rather than the campfire). These are easy tunes to denigrate, but I enjoyed them, especially the Prophet. Perhaps because I never had it in a poster on the wall, so I never knew the words, or perhaps because I was a child then and it’s really a truth for adults. There was innocent jazz (Blue moon) and a few other songs of folk truth that I hadn’t heard before. But my favourites, as musical presentations, have to be the two African tunes: a traditional Zambian farewell song in call and response format called Thamba and a South African song of sending love called Thuma mina. There’s an earthy emotional resonance in these songs that’s refreshingly different from modern cosmopolitan life.

So I found the sounds and voices lovely and sometimes beauteous and not at all shrill or tiring. But perhaps I’ll take away a memory of women’s business. These songs all said something: sometimes in words; sometimes in the emotional truth of the music. Many of these women would be mothers, and I can see the honesty and guidance and care of mothers and more widely, of women, showing through. And as they dissolved into the audience after the gig, with children in tow or friends and family around, this was just confirmed. Nice music well sung, but also true expression. Not really siren-like at all. Cyrenes performed at the High Court for the Canberra 100 Musical Offering. They were led by Glenda Wadsley with singers Mary Martin, Anne Gardner, Bron King, Lucy Ferguson (sopranos), Judith Cubbage, Charine Bennett, Merilyn Jenkins, Lois Wishart Lindsay, Louise Gell, Angie Corcoran (altos), Jane Hardy, Vicki Bell, Pamela Foster, Kathy Walsh, Karen Cook, Jacquie Reid (tenors and basses).