Music Monday August 2

 WASO is pulling out Mahler (again!) this time with Principal Conductor Paul Daniel (Fri 24 & Sat 25th Aug)  conducting Mahler Symphony No 5 plus a nice little feature of  WASO's concertmaster Guilio Plotino and principal viola Giovanni Pasini in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra. The following weekend (Fri 31st and Sat 1st Sept) guest conductor Robert Spano takes on an exotic Arabian Nights themed program with Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Saint Saens' Piano Concerto no 5 with Steven Hough as soloist. For something completely different vocal ensemble Rajaton will feature with WASO in an ABBA tribute on Friday 7^th and Saturday 8th.

Voyces promise more vocal bliss on Sunday 25th with an all-Australian program celebrating our cultural and natural landscape. On Wednesday 29 Aug WAAPA launch their Percussion Purity Festival with an opening concert which will include George Crumb's Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III), Berio's Linea and others.

And audiences continue to pack out St Georges' Cathedral, this time on Thursday Aug 30th to hear international concert organist Dr John Scott (New York) performing the annual Francis Burt Memorial organ recital.

Decibel ensemble are keeping busy this year with another gig this time paying tribute to Australian new music legend Jon Rose with a program called Music on a String.

The two highlights for me though are the WA season  of Deborah Cheetham's Pecan Summer - Australia's first indigenous opera, opening September 6th. Also Margaret Blades (WASO associate concert master) will lead Swan Virtuosi in their second gig. Watch this space for more info on this dream ensemble which also includes Sally Boud and Louise McKay.

new music is back at WASO!

CONCERT
WASO @ Astor Theatre

This review copyright The West Australian 2012

Judging by the sell-out crowd at the inaugural Latitude series I’m not the only one who thinks the return of the WA Symphony Orchestra’s new music concerts is long overdue. Artistic planning team Evan Kennea and principal conductor Paul Daniel masterminded a winning combination of art house venue and edgy program for the opening concert. The retro Astor Theatre provided a relaxed vibe with clean acoustics and just enough space to squeeze the eighty-piece orchestra dressed in jeans and black shirts.

The two musical centrepieces were written in memory of the dead. British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Kai put the spotlight on associate principal cellist Louise McKay. The twenty-five year old is one of an increasing number of young players bringing zing to the orchestra. McKay’s assured playing wandered easily from sweet anguish to dark aggression and swinging jazz. The accompanying ensemble made smooth work of Turnage’s swinging atonality (references to Charles Mingus) and darkly elegiac moments.

John Lennon and Anton Webern were the subjects of James Ledger’s Two Memorials. Pithy Webern-esque stabs of sound progressed into a flute duet recognisable as the opening riff from the Strawberry Fields. Lennon quotes were dissected against a pre-recording (played in reverse) of the Webern section in a tribute to the Beatle’s pioneering work in the studio. With light-hearted moments and vivid dramatic impact Two Memorials is one of Ledger’s most engaging works.

Two of electric guitarist Frank Zappa’s orchestral works filled out the program with complexity (The Perfect Stranger) and a flashback to eighties psychedelic rock (G-Spot Tornado) while Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Helix was an intense concert opener. All the works on the program were Australian premieres except for Two Memorials which won the Arts Music best performance award when premiered by WASO last year.

In each piece the orchestra was impressive, nailing tricky rhythmic subdivisions, secure in pitch extremes and injecting atmosphere into every moment. Kennea’s witty introductions and Daniel’s coherent conducting meant the meaty program really didn’t feel like hard work. Provocative, fun and world class, this was an exciting addition to Perth’s new music scene.

Latitude festival concludes 8pm Saturday Astor Theatre.

Paul Kelly: pub singer and chamber musician?

Interesting.
Another cross-genre collaboration.
This time WA composer James Ledger and singer-songerwriter Paul Kelly.

I find it hard to imagine Kelly - an iconic Aussie pub singer - as the soloist in a song cycle. But that is what James Ledger is doing, wrapping a web of strings and ghostly recorder sounds around Kelly's steely voice.

The premiere is October in Sydney and Melbourne with rumours of a Perth tour. Here is a preview:

Music Monday - August

It is Monday again and time to celebrate another fortnight of classical music in Perth. August is another busy month. Here are the gigs for the next two weeks.

On Thursday 9th Club Zho is hosting Perth's young composers and the same night WAAPA's student orchestra and chorus perform Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah. Classic Brit Award-winner Tasmin Little is in town for the weekend to perform Bruch's Violin Concerto with WASO, Brahms' Fourth Symphony is also on the program. More Brahms on Sunday with the St George's Cathedral Consort singing the Liebeslieder Waltzes at Government House Ballroom.

 WASO are stretching their reach with their inagural new music festival Latitude. On Wednesday 15th they will take over Astor Cinema and perform works by James Ledfger, Essa-Pekka Salonen, Turnage and Frank Zappa. On Saturday local DJ Zeke will join them for Concerto for Turntables by Gabriel Prokofiev. Very cool.

If you'd rather stick with traditional then head to the concert hall on Wednesday 15th for the ACO's Beethoven Nine with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge. Or St George's Cathedral are doing a period instrument performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Bach's Magnificat on Friday 17th.

WAAPA students feature again on Thursday 16th - this time the percussion ensemble performing Symphonic Dances by Rachmaninov and Bernstein.

It has been awhile since the outrageous Geoffrey Lancaster has visited and he is giving a piano recital on Sunday 19th as part of the Keyed Up series at UWA.

It's a good mix of concerts this fortnight, hope you manage to enjoy a couple of them.

Naya Chorale Debut

Perth is the place for entrepreneurs and if these guys can keep momentum going this will be an awesome contribution to Perth's choral scene.

CONCERT

Naya Chorale
Curtin Theatre, John Curtin Senior High School
July 2012

Adam Brockway and Jeremy De Vries-Turnell are young, ambitious and have talent to burn. The Perth Modern School graduates are the conductor and business manager respectively behind new a capella ensemble Naya Chorale. They have thrown savvy marketing skills, sharp conducting technique and experience in award-wining a capella groups into the formation of the ensemble which they hope will blast fresh air into the Perth choral scene.

Naya’s debut concert attracted an audience of 700 plus. After an extended support act from female a capella group Iris, who delivered an ambitious set of percussion and vocal pieces with varying success, the 38-strong Naya to took to the stage with repertoire ranging from classical to pop and everything in between.

The opening Kayama by Karl Jenkins was sung robustly and accompanied by a full light show and choreography. Laura Sippola’s Poison Tree and Scarborough Fair revealed an impressive blended sound while the intense harmonies of Imogen Heap’s pop ballade Hide and Seek were delivered with polished sheen.

The singers - many fresh from high school choirs – had a powerful energy but didn’t over sing; vocal projection was unforced and the tone pearly. If you combined cathedral crispness with barbershop blending and gospel dynamism then you would come near to what this group is about.

Compositions from local composers were included: the introverted I Carry Your Heart With Me by group member Alex Turley and the theatrical From A Song of Rain by choral conductor Anne Celia Christmass. Christmass’s piece was the standout on the program with use of vocal fragments and scrunched paper to vividly evoke rain drops. The diction in Bill Whelan’s Shivna was a little too crisp and didn’t quite capture the lilting huskiness of Old Irish. But there was little else to fault in a program of choral gems that had the audience enthralled. Lighting and choreography effectively complemented the music, completing a package that has set the benchmark high.

Classical music has a future

Alex Ross (www.therestisnoise.com) would have been proud. The famous New Yorker music critic chastises those in the classical music world to drag ourselves into the 21st century.  I think he would've approved of the Australian Chamber Orchestra's recent concert where didgeridoo improvisations, Bach and heavy metal formed the sound track to a surf documentary.


(The review below is copyright the West Australian 2012.)

CONCERT

Australian Chamber Orchestra
Perth Concert Hall
July 2012

A review in London’s Financial Times once described the Australian Chamber Orchestra as having a ‘salty’ sound. But it took director of Tura New Music Tos Mahoney to dream up a surf project combining the ACO’s distinctive sound with footage from the West Australian coastline. The collaborative adventure put ACO concert master and director Richard Tognetti around a campfire at Ningaloo Reef with didgeridoo player Mark Atkins and guitarist Steve Pigram. They were joined by surfers, a photographer and musicians who had in common immense technical skills and a penchant for reckless experimentation.

Tognetti (renowned for his love or surfing) has produced previous surf films with classical music soundtracks but this time the result was a multi-media concert depicting a metaphorical ‘day’ with footage of finless surfers including Taylor Miller, Ryan Burch and Derek Hynde accompanied by genre-defying music samples.

Under Tognetti’s direction the young musicians of the orchestra’s elite training band ACO2 performed Rameau’s 18^th century Les Vents (The Wind) which perfectly matched the images (by photographer Jon Frank) of sparkling wave spray and wind-blown dunes projected on a screen behind them. The cluster harmonies of Ligeti’s Ramifications gave an eerie edge to crusty desert footage littered with dead sheep and old machinery. Two ring-in surfers, barefoot and bearded, sang gutsy Alice In Chains. The orchestra, aided by box drum, thumped out the heavy metal accompaniment complete with electric violin solo by Tognetti and cellist Julian Thompson’s sampling technology on electric cello.

In complete contrast Beethoven’s Cavatina was played with devastating beauty as waves of spectacular power and purity rolled by. Pristine footage of surfers falling in slow motion, underwater reflections and crystalline bubbles were breathtaking.  The images gave nobility to Beethoven’s music; the music gave humanity to the waves.

The centrepiece was Immutable by Iain Grandage (who also arranged and linked the concert soundtrack) which skilfully blended Atkin’s didgeridoo improvisations with interjections from the orchestra.

It was a concert that was at once wild and completely controlled. I hope there are plans for a DVD because this thrilling experience had so many connection points as it celebrated the ancient and ever-new aspects of landscape and music.

Lucia di Lammermoor review

This review is copyright Opera Magazine, London, 2012.

John Copley’s 32 year old production of Lucia di Lammermoor  for OPERA AUSTRALIA has been released in cinemas and become as great a tradition as the La Boheme he created for COVENT GARDEN 38 years ago. The WEST AUSTRALIAN OPERA’S performance (HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE, July 14) showed the benefits and disadvantages of reviving a much-loved museum piece. The castle set was rich with detail but required lengthy set changes, while costumes were lavish but outdated and unflattering. Egardo’s grand entrance was greeted with laughter because of the tubby effect created by his gothic-black tights and puffy velvet jerkin. Red-headed Scots draped in stereotypical tartan crowded the stage as though to convince us that Sir Walter Scott’s historical drama poses no threat to contemporary consciousness.

Fortunately Emma Matthews brought a universal humanity to Lucia as she progressed from girlish coquetry to chilling lunacy. Her precise coloratura singing shimmered with colours and her mad scene swung between wide-eyed purity and icy anguish. It was utterly believable that a woman under such oppression would retreat to the only world she could control: the make-believe of the mind.

The remaining cast were more two-dimensional. James Clayton was a coarse Enrico with convincing aggression but lacking in bel canto legato. Garrett Sorenson sang Edgardo with fervour although high notes were strained. Daniel Sumegi was an imposing Raimondo, Andrew Foote acquitted himself well as Normanno while David Woodward was a foppish Arturo, not helped by the yards of lace dripping from his costume.

The WA Symphony Orchestra under Brad Cohen harnessed the tension between Rossini-esque merriness and Verdian melodrama. Ultimately though the potential for gripping theatre was shrouded by the outdated set.

More review of Lucia di Lammermoor:

au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/.../opera-review-lucia-di-lammermoor

http://www.australianstage.com.au/201207155609/reviews/perth/lucia-di-lammermoor-%7C-west-australian-opera