Portraits

Between the two short sets of Lyrebird brass was a performance in the ARC Cinema of music of Fiona Hill, CIMF2026 composer-in-residence.  Why portraits?  Because the music accompanied visuals including a stunning dance work featuring ~14 performers from the Sydney Dance Company PPY (Pre-Professional Year), a sweeping drone footage of cliffs, seas, beaches, nature, and a final (live?) visual work with solo sax accompaniment.  Musicians included several of the several visiting featured groups and some local musicians making up the rank, in smaller and larger ensembles and that solo sax, as I remember all pitches, baritone, tenor, alto, soprano.

Music of Fiona Hill was performed by Ensemble Contrechamps and Australian String Quartet with Joshua Hyde (solo sax), Tim Wickham (violin), Samuel Payne (cello), Kyle Ramsey-Daniel (bass), Eugene Ughetti (percussion) and Fausto Brusamolino (artist).  The performed works were Circumstance, Sunyata and UnderOnBelow.  They performed in the ARC Cinema at NFSA for MOSSO during CIMF2026.

Eight seasons

It cost me a gig but it was a worthy substitute.  This was the strings from the Canberra Symphony Orchestra directed by concertmaster (sic) Kristen Williams playing the famous Vivaldi Four Seasons interleaved with Piazzolla's response.  We all know various of the themes from Vivaldi and if I heard right, the Piazzolla was a direct response to Vivaldi and anyway we know the popular tango-styled Piazzolla tunes out of Buenos Aires.  It was a popular program and obviously considered apt for lots of young ones, although the ones near us didn't seem particularly interested, but so be it.  It's good to get them along and they were old enough just to fidget rather than cry.  I was surprised that each Vivaldi season had 3 movements.  I should have known, but I wasn't the only one, with the first movement of each season getting a good applause. It was usually the feature movement anyway.  The playing was lovely, rich and full and unusually big.  This was the strings of the CSO so I guess there were more players who would normally play this piece, certainly more than baroque groups usually sport, like AHE or ACO.  I counted 8xvln1, 6xvln2, 5xvla, 4xclo, 2xbs, plus the director-cum-soloist on violin, so it was a big sound and it neatly filled Llewellyn, which can be cavernous for smaller groups.  I enjoyed the playing and was convinced by the take the Piazzolla.  CSO is doing plenty of varied programs now.  I guess this is the first strings section that I know of.  BTW, two basses on stage even if only one in the program, Kyle and Emma.

The Canberra Symphony Orchestra strings played Four seasons by Vivaldi and Piazzolla at Llewellyn under Kristen Williams (violin solo, director).  Low enders were Kyle Ramsey-Daniel and Emma Meixner (basses).

Ridiculous, sublime, whatever

So, my second musical outing after Japan and following SoundOut was Canberra Bach Ensemble.  How can you not love Bach?  He's so much a great love of our era and his cantatas are big choral works which inevitably thrill and his counterpoint is sublime.  This was CBE's triumphant return concert after performing in Leipzig, Bach's most famous home, for this year's Leipzig Bach Festival.  It must have been thrilling for those who attended.  I know they picked up bass and keys there and maybe others.  These are not instruments to easily travel with.  But then this is the home of Bach and also apparently the oldest orchestra, from the Gewandhaus, and plenty of players who play Bach cantatas regularly, so no particular problem.  This concert was back to Canberra brick rather than German stone but the thrill was still there.  Four cantatas over two hours of performance.  I can enjoy the interludes, the recitatives and arias, the singers with solo or small accompaniments, but nothing does it for me like the choruses, with blaring period trumpets and blurting oboes da caccia and driving gut bass playing with oddly grouped lines that double up unexpectedly and carry on releantlessly.  Thrilling and exultant.  Loved this one as all!

Canberra Bach Ensemble performed BWV119,148,192,137 and an encore of a wedding cantata BWV195 at St Christopher's, Manuka, under Andrew Koll (director).  Singers were Greta Claringbould (soprano), Maartje Sevenster (alto), Timothy Reynolds (tenor) and Andrew Fysh (bass).  Stephen Freeman (violin) led the orchestra and Kyle Ramsey-Daniel (bass) performed on Dave's gut 5-stringer.

Christmas in July

Chrissy in July is not a thing for me but Handel Messiah is usually something we hear at Christmas but this was winter, unseasonably cold outside.  Canberra Symphony Orchestra put on Messiah with its Messiah Chorus auditioned and convened by Tobias Cole.  The numbers were not huge, ~35 instrumentalists and ~40 chorus and four soloists.  The program didn't say, but the solo singers were Chloe Lankshear and Andrew Goodwin and Adrian Tamburini along with Tobias.  The basses were old mates Kyle and David and Hayley but only Kyle and Hayley on the night.  Kyle played most as solo when the front lines played.  The work is a dream, of course, and well known and loved and it's deserved.  Quite a few fugues (I love a fugue) and plenty of rich choral passages and those soloists with harpsichord or organ or solo violin or often a smaller ensemble, but the extravagance and delirium of the choral passages and full orchestras are what really does it for me and most.  We duly stood for the Hallelujah chorus, but we had to be goaded / invited.  I was not the only one who'd forgotten that rite of passage.  And the choir was good.  First up I thought the women were good, but the lower voices are always less appreciated or obvious but they showed their colours and impressed.  So impressive all round.  The trumpet passage (aptly in The trumpet shall sound) was lovely; the solo violin was satisfying, the parts were convincing.  I felt just a little discomfort in timing or perhaps some rushing in the tricky bits early on but that settled.  As for the bass, I was surprised by some tricky parts and look forward to printing the part for a gander. Anthony Hunt from State Opera of SA was upfront and led comfortably.  And that lovely scalar semiquaver stuff by voice (paralleled by instruments, too, of course), is demanding and tricky and a real test.  I was surprised how capably the chorus carried this out.  We expect it from the soloists, but it seems more difficult for massed voices who are perhaps less trained.  So we all left with joy and excitement and satisfaction after 2 hours and interval for a pretty long night of music.  Just such a pleasure: nicely done and such joyous music.

Canberra Symphony Orchestra with the CSO Messiah Choir under Anthony Hunt (conductor) with soloists Chloe Lankshear (soprano), Tobias Cole (countertenor), Andrew Goodwin (tenor) and Adrian Tamburini (bass).  Kyle Ramsey-Daniel and Hayley Manning (bass) played the low end.