Dunstan Playhouse. 4 Apr 2013
They number only six, but they possess the musical and vocal authority of two, three, even four times that number and they sing with the clarity and articulation of a single exemplary voice.
Formed in 1984, The Song Company is led by internationally acclaimed Artistic Director, Roland Peelman, and is Australia’s leading full-time professional vocal ensemble. They have an enviable and deserved international reputation and their concert program takes them around Australia (but not enough to Adelaide) and to prestigious events overseas. Their repertoire is extensive and diverse. They are as happy with Gregorian chants as they are with contemporary compositions, and they embrace collaboration with the musical traditions of other cultures to create important contributions to ‘serious’ world music. They are truly remarkable.
For their current tour, The Song Company have joined forces with oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros to produce a remarkable musical work based on Kahlil Gibran’s much published and loved book The Prophet. Tawadros was born in Cairo and immigrated to Australia in 1986 with his family when he was only three. 2004 was an eventful year for Tawadros; he performed at the Adelaide WOMAD festival; he toured Cairo and Alexandria as part of the first cultural exchange between the Egyptian and Australian governments; and he released his first CD which was nominated for an ARIA award. He has now released a total of nine albums, and has performed with the likes of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Grigoryan brothers. He is a musical force to be reckoned with, and his virtuosity on the oud is quite stunning.
Tawadros’ compositions for The Prophet are a mix of lilting melodies, soulful quasi-improvisations and musical incantations that invoke the best of the minimalist style of progressively changing tonalities and rhythmic structures. The songs present the singers with enticing challenges as they fuse the richness of the music with the unpretentious and stark beauty of Gibran’s poetry.
The result is deeply satisfying, but it has you on the edge of your seat. It is not possible to simply let it wash over you. It engages and challenges you. You marvel, almost gasp, at the extraordinary and almost gymnastic vocal talent of the singers, and the dizzying speed of Tawadros’ fingers as they dance over the fingerboard of the fretless Arabian lute that is the oud.
In addition to Tawadros’ own music, and the writings of Gibran, the narrative of the program also includes an extended piece by Hildegard von Bingen from the 1100s and Russian liturgical music from the 1500s.
Anna Fraser has a beautiful soprano voice and exquisite diction. Her musical line is unwaveringly clear, whether she be singing ‘piano’ or ‘forte’. Clive Birch is the most warm, satisfying and velvety of basses – never gravelly. Mark Donnelly not only has a warm and generous baritone singing voice but his spoken recitations are also mellifluous and gently dramatic. The same applies to Baritone Simon Masterton, whose Scottish heritage could occasionally be heard and which added to his appeal. Richard Black, formerly of Adelaide, is a very appealing tenor with a relaxed vibrato, and Susannah Lawergren has a beautiful lightness and dexterity to her soprano voice that easily handles challenging vocal embellishments and ornaments.
And at the front but slightly to one side sits Peelman on a low seat. With gentle, subtle, but always precise gestures he expertly conducts the company while beating accompanying rhythms on a hand drum that evokes a sense of the Middle East as well as ages long gone.
The whole show seemed to capture the zeitgeist of many ages and many cultures and imbue them with an unexpected coherency.
This was a noteworthy concert.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
