Illuminate Adelaide. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 18 Jul 2024
Pianist Joep Beving’s unique music has attracted an immense following over the last ten years, clearly filling a gap in musical literature and performance. His music can be as simple as a few repeated chords in the left hand and a few notes in the right hand to establish a melodic line, but it is entrancing — "accessible music for complex emotions" as he describes it.
Staged as part of Illuminate Adelaide, Beving’s solo piano recital involves subtly changing lighting by Boris Acket, which is manually operated, and the performance becomes a duet of sound and light. Lights slowly sweep the stage, seemingly in tune with the music. The lighting is moody like the music, mostly illuminating the piano but occasionally brightening.
Beving’s exquisite music draws the audience into a meditative state, and combined with the lighting, creates a dreamy, sensory, ultimately spiritual experience. His music is subtle, exquisitely beautiful and tends to be sombre, slow and rather mournful.
Sitting with his back to the audience, tall, long-haired, bearded and casually dressed, Beving is like a friend who has called in, offering a warm embrace. His music triggers our innermost thoughts and feelings, as he takes us on a personal journey through his own musical and emotional sensibility, a journey to which we can all relate. There was no program for the concert, and in his occasional addresses to the audience, Beving named only a few pieces he played, perhaps to emphasise the informal character of the performance.
Beving uses an upright piano with the front panel removed, with a thin layer of felt placed between the hammers and strings to give a warmer sound, a sound that would not be reproducible on a conventional concert grand piano. The piano is tuned very slightly lower than normal — the A is tuned to 432 hertz instead of 440 hertz, and the difference would not be noticeable for most people. This tuning stems from the idea that the human body responds to certain frequences or vibrations — in an interview, he suggested that the 440 frequency seems more connected to the head while 432 is more connected to the heart.
Beving learnt piano in his youth, but repetition injury interrupted his training, and it was years later before he returned to piano performance, releasing his first album in 2015 in his late thirties. Evidently, his return was precipitated by a moment of turmoil in his life, and perhaps his music was initially a way of approaching self-understanding.
Beving’s music has flavours of ambient, minimalist and popular styles, and he does not see his music as classical or as part of the classical lineage. His compositions seem to evolve from improvisations, rather than using any kind of system or formula. He cites as influences Philip Glass and jazz pianists Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, and there are flavours of the music of Erik Satie, Chopin and Glass that can be heard. Perhaps these influences were absorbed in his youth when learning the piano. One is also reminded of many other pianists, such as Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Debussy and Shostakovich, who search their souls while sitting at the keyboard and produce music that seems like a soliloquy.
His Australian tour is entitled Hermetism, after the name of his 2022 album, and the title refers to Hermeticism, a spiritual philosophy derived from writings attributed to the legendary Greek author Hermes Trismegistus which identify seven universal laws of nature: attraction or vibration, polarity, rhythm, relativity, cause and effect, gender and perpetual transmutation of energy. The album is recorded with microphones very close to the piano, creating a sound that envelops the listener, creating a similar feeling to the live performance.
Joep Beving’s magical concert at Her Majesty’s Theatre was a profound and delightful experience.
Chris Reid
When: 18 July 2024
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Baroque Hall. 13 Jul 2024
Award-winning and very popular Adelaide pianist Mekhla Kumar returned to her home city to deliver an absorbing recital at Baroque Hall on 13 July. She is currently teaching and undertaking doctoral studies at the renowned Jacobs School of Music at the University of Indiana, and her rare visits here are greatly appreciated.
Her program comprised works by Domenico Scarlatti, Sergei Rachmaninov, Claude Debussy and Philip Glass — four very distinct musical voices emerging from different countries and cultures over a span approaching 300 years — providing the audience with a brief but illuminating overview of the evolution of composition for the keyboard.
Kumar opened with three of Domenico Scarlatti’s many sonatas. The first, his Sonata in C, Hn 395 has a happily dreamy feel. The Sonata in C, K 159 is joyously sprightly and the Sonata in A, K208 is sweetly poignant. These short works are rich in character, and, delivered with crystal clear articulation, they did more than whet the taste buds.
Sharply contrasting the Scarlatti, Kumar then followed with a selection of three of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Moments Musicaux Op. 16. The No 1 in B flat, Andantino, comprises a theme and variations — it’s hauntingly romantic and rather meditative, though she did not overplay the emotional content but found just the right balance.
Next was the sonorous No 3 in B minor, Andante cantabile, a sombre piece that suggests a funeral march which, following a mournful opening, shifts alternately between elegiac meditation and a slow marching rhythm.
The final of the three Rachmaninov pieces was the No 4 in E minor, marked Presto. It has been likened to Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude, and her performance of it was spinetingling, leaving the capacity audience quite overwhelmed. These Rachmaninov pieces have the feel of profound stories being told in music.
Mekhla Kumar’s fluent playing and control of dynamics and tempi were superb, and she brought out the characteristically Russian flavour of Rachmaninov’s music in these three works. She seems very much at home with Rachmaninov, and it would be wonderful to hear her perform all six in the set.
She then gave us three of the four movements of Claude Debussy’s Suite bergamasque (L 75). In contrast to the Rachmaninov, Debussy’s music is impressionistic, creating an idiosyncratic musical flavour, with the Prelude marked tempo rubato, and her rendering was firmly expressive while retaining its poetic nature. Her lilting Claire de Lune (Andante très expressif) was enchanting, and her Passepied (a dance) was a jaunty delight.
The recital concluded with three etudes by Philip Glass — Nos 2, 9 and 6 — from Book 1 of a set of 20 he devised to enable him to perfect his own piano technique. Glass rejects the minimalist label attributed to him, and his music is complex and ever-evolving. Though they might be seen as exercises, these etudes are magical pieces of music and characterise his unique musical voice in the era of late modernism. The gently flowing, motoric character of Etude No 2 is mesmerising.
Glass’s Etude No 6 is characterised by repeated phrases and an incessant, driving rhythm, with passages of contrasting dynamics and surges of power, and it ends abruptly, without any resolution as if the composer simply stopped writing, offering a somewhat ironic conclusion to this memorable recital.
In the intimate space of Baroque Hall, with its excellent acoustics, Mekhla Kumar’s performance was outstanding, and she should be heard at every opportunity.
Chris Reid
When: 13 Jul
Where: Baroque Hall
Bookings: Closed
MUD at Ern Malley Bar. 6 Jul 2024
The Ern Malley Bar in Stepney, which has become a vitally important venue for poetry readings and music and a meeting place for all kinds of creatives, hosted composer-performer Joseph Franklin’s residency in July.
In preparation for the 6 July performance to conclude his residency, Franklin, together with collaborator cellist David Moran, conducted a workshop on 4 July, in which they spoke about their approach to composition and performance. Franklin also indicated that he is from a working-class background and is concerned with the wealth disparity that affects the ability of budding musicians and composers to access training and resources and thus to progress their careers.
Franklin’s residency was conducted under the auspices of the MUD Collective which has been running performance events at Ancient World and Queen’s Theatre over the last three years. MUD Collective’s homepage indicates that:
“MUD: Improvisation and Extended Domains is an arts and culture collective supporting trans-disciplinary communities of artistic practice across conventional and unconventional domains.
“MUD exists to empower individuals and communities to improvise and experiment together, and in doing so, produce research, orchestrate events, make work and braid networks of care and support.”
Franklin and Moran’s 6 July performance involvedadditional collaborators — instrumentalist Gabriella Smart of Soundstream New Music, vocalist Tina Stefanou and poet Tadhg Porter-Cameron — in a loosely structured event. And what an event it was!
In introducing the first half of the event, David Moran indicated he was using a cello with the E string tuned to E flat and that around half the composition was notated and the rest improvised.
Initially performing solo, Moran explored all the possible sonic properties the cello possesses and played with the back of the bow and with fingers, palms and various objects. He treats the cello with great reverence, working with it as a partner rather than a tool, and at times the action borders on the erotic. In the absence of the kind of thematic development typical of classical music and jazz, one listens to every tiny sound, and every gesture becomes important. You relearn to listen.
Franklin then joined in on his six-string semi-acoustic electric bass guitar, using a variety of objects including a vibrator, inserting pieces of carboard between the strings, and using capos to create a range of tunings and sonic effects.
There is an art to such improvisation in framing microtonal and chromatic motives and phrases, using extended playing techniques, shifting tempos and arhythmic passages to create novel effects, and working all these into a coherent and expressive musical language. Franklin and Moran bounce off each other to weave an absorbing sonic tapestry.
After playing for around twenty minutes, this duo was joined by Tina Stefanou, whose vocalisations transformed their performance and created a remarkable sound world. In her webpage she refers to her vocal work as ‘embodied’ and as ‘voice in the expanded field.’
Responding to Moran and Franklin’s sound palette, Tina Stefanou’s improvised contribution included everything from hissing, growling and humming to passages of operatic mezzo soprano singing, recalling such vocalists as Cathy Berberian and Meredith Monk. (The legend of Cabaret Voltaire and the vocal work of Dadaists Hugo Ball and Kurt Schwitters also leap to mind.)
Such performance demands focussed listening by the audience, and one feels as much as hears the sound, as the resonances are so important. The lack of developmental order in the music means that you cannot predict what will come next — motivic material appears and disappears or evolves into something else. You experience sound differently and you also experience the physicality of the performers.
After the interval, this trio was joined firstly by Gabriella Smart, using her electric crystal, which comprises a set of closely microphoned, microtonally-tuned glass rods that she rubs with moistened fingers to produce singing, humming and droning sounds. As this performance unfolded, it became much more complex sonically and structurally.
The four were then joined by poet Tadhg Porter-Cameron, known for his passionately stentorian denunciations of capitalism, the class structure, Adelaide’s conservatism, war and every other undesirable manifestation of human society. His darkly comic recitation included such memorable lines as “The dole is a state of mind — double the dole and double my mind”, and “There is no god in Edwardstown!”, with the audience joining in.
The most riveting element of this forty-minute performance was the to-and-fro interplay between Porter-Cameron’s declamation of the ills of society and Stefanou’s mesmerising vocalisation that deconstructed the very idea of intelligible speech in an intensely performative, intuitive and experimentally musical way. As the performance became more theatrical and more political, it became quite overwhelming.
Franklin’s resultant ‘composition’ thus involves not only the development and realisation of a musical score, but also the orchestration of an event involving the interaction of several performers that evolves out of that score, working with collaborators to allow their musical and theatrical voices to become part of the composition.
Joseph Franklin’s concert was immensely successful and signals a significant development in composition and performance.
Chris Reid
When: 6 July 2024
Where: Ern Malley Bar
Bookings: Closed
Selby & Friends. Elder Hall. 7 Jul 2024
Selby & Friends begin their current national tour in Adelaide with a program of chamber masterworks for violin, piano and clarinet entitled Jewels in the Crown, and what jewels they are! Joining Kathryn Selby AM are violinist Natalie Chee and clarinettist Lloyd Van’t Hoff, and they are all at the top of their game.
The “jewels in the crown” include Clarinet Sonata No.2 in E flat major, Op.120 by Johannes Brahms, Dances for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (arranged by Andrew Howes) by Béla Bartók, Contrasts for Piano, Violin and Clarinet, Sz.111 also by Bartók, and Sonata for Violin & Piano No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 "Kreutzer" by Ludwig van Beethoven.
In addition to being a first-rate concert pianist and ensemble player, Kathryn Selby AM is an educator, and an enjoyable feature of her concerts is the musicians congenially addressing the audience from the stage to outline interesting facts about what is to be heard. For this concert, it was fascinating to learn reasons why Brahms and Bartók were encouraged to pen their compositions. Brahms had basically retired as a composer and heard a particular clarinettist in concert. He was so struck by what he heard that he felt compelled to write for the clarinet, and it resulted in some of the most iconic works for clarinet ever written. Bartók was experiencing financial hardship and was helped out by Benny Goodman who commissioned Contrasts for Piano, Violin and Clarinet, at the encouragement of Joseph Szigeti who was a significant virtuoso concert violinist of the day and who championed new music. An interesting fun-fact is that, when Contrasts was premièred, the program also included Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, as it is today in Jewels in the Crown!
Lloyd Van’t Hoff is an engaging clarinettist to watch. His beaming face smiles throughout his performance as he acknowledges his collaborators, and the audience. From an audience perspective, it feels that he is playing just for you. His body is animated, and he rises and falls with the music’s arc. The tender opening of the Brahms hears Van’t Hoff produce beautifully rounded tones, and it only gets better in the allegro appassionato second movement in which Van’t Hoff and Selby are sharp as a razor with the good-humoured conversation between the two instruments, especially in the gorgeous trio section. The final movement fells as if it is jazz inflected, and it seems Brahms and Beethoven may well have both been jazz vanguards at the ends of their careers.
Violinist Natalie Chee then joined Selby and Van’t Hoff and they give a spirited performance of Bartók’s Six Romanian Dances. Originally, they were written for solo piano, which Bartok later orchestrated for small ensemble. Today we heard an arrangement for clarinet, violin and piano by Australia composer Andrew Howes, and the arrangements are superb, particularly because of Van’t Hoff’s acuity and intonation. He and Chee faced each other head on and the interplay was mesmerising. Selby’s impressive cross-hand action at the very start ensured we were put on alert from the outset, and the middle eastern sounds evoked in the Pe loc third dance were particularly haunting.
The highlight of the concert was the next piece, also by Bartók. His Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano were eye-opening! Not only did we see both Chee and Van’t Hoff change instruments several times – him between A and B-flat clarinets, and her between standard and scordatura violins. Van’t Hoff’s cadenza in the first movement was sublime, and Chee and Selby combined beautifully to capitalise on the changing moods in the second movement, with Selby remarkably producing delicate tones reminiscent of a celeste. The racy and incredibly difficult final third movement allowed all three musicians to show us their chops, and they didn’t disappoint. This one movement alone was worth the price of admission!
After the interval, Chee and Selby combine to give what turned out to be a relatively tame reading of Beethoven’s ever-popular Kreutzer sonata. Before they started, Selby outlined a little of the history of how the sonata was dedicated, and it is a fascinating story that is worth the reader spending some time looking up. Suffice to say, Beethoven held grudges for a long time, and as well as being a musical genius, he was also a flawed human being like us all! The piece has become a bit of a war horse, but the audience never tires of hearing it. The pace set in the first movement by Chee and Selby was gentle and measured, which allowed Chee to carefully draw out the hauntingly exquisite melodies. The first movement develops from a slow introduction into a vigorous presto. The free flowing and highly melodic second movement gives way to an energetic final movement which is passionate and commands your attention. It demands to be played with attack, especially by the violin, but Chee opted for something less demonstrative. With the final almost discordant note, the audience erupted into applause and wolf whistles could be heard.
As enjoyable as the Brahms and the Beethoven were, the other ‘B’ won the day, and the jewel in the crown was Bartok’s Contrasts!
Kym Clayton
When: 7 Jul 2024
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Illuminate Adelaide. Nexus Arts. 6 Jul 2024
Finland-born, Melbourne-based vocalist, double bassist and composer, Helen Svoboda, is a unique and highly accomplished performer with a compelling stage presence, and her fabulous solo concert at Nexus Arts was keenly anticipated and hugely appreciated.
Svoboda has worked with a variety of ensembles, performing jazz and experimental music, and the distinctive character of her voice and her playing adds a dimension to every ensemble with whom she works.
As a soloist, she performs her own compositions, drawing on a magical blend of musical genres and her own fertile imagination to create a sound world unlike any other.
She opened by singing unaccompanied a slow, delightfully melodic tune that created the character of the cool northern Finnish landscape, the tune commencing in the alto register before suddenly leaping up an octave and then back again. She then began bowing the bass in a rather discordant, agitated manner to contrast starkly with her melismatic vocal line. At times, the bass and voice follow the same melodic line, in the same register and with the same timbre, creating a seductive duet. Towards the end, she recapitulates the first theme in the voice.
Her bowing explores the harmonics and overtones in the bass, with atonal or microtonal passages, and it combines with her voice to create a dense weave of sound, peppered with abrupt shifts in register, dynamics and texture. All kinds of motivic material emerges and can as easily disappear or return transformed.
She later tells the audience that the first song was actually about a beetroot. Evidently, vegetables are a recurring theme in her music.
As well as bowing the bass and playing pizzicato, she uses a range of extended techniques to explore the sonic potential of the bass, including tapping the body or the bridge, bowing while plucking, wrapping a section of string with aluminium foil to create a mildly buzzing effect and even catching the handle of the bow against the string as she bows to create a rhythmically percussive effect. Bass solos punctuate her performance, her bowing ranges from the gentlest of touches to vigorous scrubbing, and her use of all these techniques is virtuosic.
Her second song involved continually repeating the line ‘when it rains, it pours’, accompanied by the widest variety of sonic effects in the voice and the bass. Another song involves passages in which she repeats the Finnish word ‘kuu’ (moon) in a dreamily high soprano, interspersed with passages of a growling ‘hey’, emphasising the contrast in the character of the voice to create a dialogue in vocal sound, and complementing this with complex bass patterns.
Svoboda cites singers Meredith Monk and Björk as influences and her performance also recalls Luciano Berio’s writing for voice insofar as she explores what can be achieved vocally.
She is concerned with the environment and attunes herself to its sounds and physicality, as if she is transcribing her perceptions of the environment into sound — the effect is quite hypnotic as well as being highly musical. Her performance often seems improvised, as if it is a response to some inner rumination, and each performance of a piece will be different as she allows herself to react to her own sound as it evolves.
This was a magnificent concert. Helen Svoboda’s visits to Adelaide are all too rare but catch her if you can.
Chris Reid
When: 6 Jul 2024
Where: Nexus Arts
Bookings: Closed