Musica Viva. The Adelaide Town Hall. 25 Aug 2022
The comprehensive, informative and readable program notes provided by Musica Viva tell us that Z.E.N is an acronym formed with an initial from each artist of the trio, and a philosophical statement about their performance style. Zhang Zuo on piano, Esther Yoo on violin, and Narek Hakhnazaryan on cello are three young artists – all on the right side of 35 years of age – who are clearly at the top of their game. They play with passion, technical virtuosity, and crucially a shared understanding of the music. Individually they are accomplished; together they are much greater than the sum of their parts.
At the half way point of the concert, they played young Australian composer Matthew Laing’s new composition Little Cataclysms, the performances of which are world premières on this particular Musica Viva tour. Laing himself was present at tonight’s performance and offered some introductory comments about his music. His words essentially alerted the audience to the fact that what they were about to hear would be entirely different to the style of compositions that bookended it on the program, namely Brahms’ Piano Trio No.1 in B major, Op. 9 (Revised version, 1889), and Babajanian’s Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in F-sharp Minor (1952), and he was right.
Little Cataclysms comprises five short non-related pieces that are strident and unsettling. The instruments in the trio are asked to frequently produce sounds that are at their limits and otherwise seldomly heard. It begins with Zhang Zuo attacking the piano as if it is a mainstream percussion instrument, and Esther Yoo and Narek Hakhnazaryan produce shimmering tonal undercurrents that can barely be heard above the boisterousness of the piano. There is a monotonously repeated note on the piano, and the strings nervously dance about it. Complexity is added. There are teasing suggestions of melody, but these are not developed and give way to other material that is ominous. Each piece seems to be over before it really begins, but this is deliberate. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for the fractured times in which we live, with the need to be agile and able to adapt to rapid change?
To what extent does Z.E.N. capture Laing’s intentions? Do Zuo, Yoo, and Hakhnazaryan really ‘know’? Is it just a matter of reading what’s on the page, or, in the true spirit of Zen practise, do they eschew the egotism of ‘learned’ knowledge and instead favour direct understanding developed through individual performance? To this reviewer, the latter seems more likely, with the five ‘little cataclysms’ each comprising three disparate voices that retreat into and exist unto themselves, and together create a chaos that is just in control.
Laing’s Little Cataclysms is followed by Babajanian’s Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in F-sharp Minor (1952). Arno Babajanian was an Armenian composer who died in 1983 in Yerevan – the capital and largest city of Armenia – some five years before Narek Hakhnazaryan was born in Yerevan. Babajanian’s Trio is infrequently played today, which is a great shame. It is majestic, has wonderfully evocative melodies and an astonishingly beautiful middle slow movement, and it has a robust and stirring allegro vivace final movement. Hakhnazaryan noted in his introductory remarks how honoured he is to bring his countryman’s composition to our attention, and he played it with deep conviction. He is a joy to watch.
The concert began with a spirited performance of Brahms’ Piano Trio No.1 in B major, Op. 9 (Revised version, 1889). Z.E.N. immediately captured the joy and lyricism of the first movement. Zhang Zuo‘s use of the sustaining pedal is dramatic and theatrical, with her radically high-heeled shoes all but punishing the pedal into submission. Yoo provides the tonal backbone throughout, and Hakhnazaryan fleshes it out with expansive and lavish tones.
The Z.E.N. Trio is an exciting outfit, and the enthusiastic audience demanded an encore which they got: a feisty performance of a transcription for trio of Sabre Dance by Armenian composer Aram Ilyich Khachaturian.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide symphony orchestra. Symphony Series 6. Adelaide Town Hall. 12 Aug 2022
The sixth concert in the ASO’s current Symphony Series is titled Tragedy to Triumph, which perfectly describes the program in a nutshell. The program is heavy with gravitas, but it ultimately gives way to noble exhilaration. It includes a world première performance (Paul Dean’s Concerto for Horn and Orchestra) with masterful horn playing by Andrew Bain, and astonishing musicality from guest conductor Alpesh Chauhan.
As is now the norm, the ASO begins the concert with a performance of Pudnanthi Padninthi (The Coming and the Going) composed by Jack Buckskin and Jamie Goldsmith arranged by Mark Simeon Ferguson. It is performed as a musical Acknowledgement of Country, and this particular reading by Chauhan and the ASO was special in the way the piece’s innate and complex songfulness was completely revealed.
Lili Boulangers D’un soir triste (Of a Sad Evening) received its first performance by the ASO. The piece is dark – something in common with the rest of the program – and the inner strings (violas and cellos) feature prominently as they draw out a lamenting melody that finally surrenders to an immersive tranquillity announced on harp. Principal violist Justin Julian’s performance is especially evocative. Chauhan delivers an affecting reading that prepares us for the grim subject of the horn concerto.
Dean’s Horn Concerto is unsettling in its conception: it is a musical response to the horrific and awesome bushfires that ravaged our eastern seaboard in 2019. It’s not something we enjoy being reminded of, but the nobility and purity of the horn represents the dignity and heroic efforts of the firefighters who valiantly toiled against the odds and that is something worth celebrating, if in a perverse kind of way. Dean’s musical narrative is dramatic and is scored in three movements named Against The Current, Alone in the Dark…Waiting for the Fire, and The Bushfire. Against The Current is foreboding and invokes all the menace of Hitchcock films. In the second movement the horn heroically tries to cut through the awesome might of the orchestra, which is in full voice, but it gets lost in the lower register somehow commenting on the insignificance of a lone firefighter faced with the insurmountable odds of a conflagration that is inexorably bearing down. Long and unmodulated tones demonstrate Bain’s pure stamina, musicality and virtuosity on the horn and are a metaphor for the expansive simplicity of the Australian bush, and its ultimate fragility. The Bushfire is dramatic and starts with a virtuosic display on timpani by Andrew Penrose. It is unsettling and gives way to sonorous and shimmering strings that might represent both the pace at which the bushfire takes charge, but eventually is subdued.
The concerto is unashamedly programmatic, and knowing something about its narrative (through the informative printed program notes) greatly assists one’s appreciation, but this of itself doesn’t obviate the need for the music to stand alone as ‘pure’ music, which it does. Having said that, as has been said above, there are times when the concerto instrument – the horn – does get overshadowed by the orchestra.
When it was over, the applause was contemplative – not thunderous – until Brett Dean himself walked purposefully to the stage and offered his heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Bain, Chauhan and indeed to the entire orchestra. COVID did its best to defeat this world première, but all it could do was delay it.
The interval was followed by an emphatic and passionate reading of Shostakovich’s mighty Symphony No.10 in E minor, Op.93. It was during this epic work that maestro Alpesh Chauhan truly hit his straps. The music makes the emphatic statement that life is not necessarily easy and can be a slow and difficult grind. Shostakovich was subject to the tyranny of despotic leaders throughout his life and his retaliation continues to speak loudly and clearly to us as we too navigate treacherous paths in an around the roguery of clerical and civil leaders.
Chauhan is commanding at the podium. During the first movement of the Shostakovich, his baton was mostly confined to his relatively immobile left hand while he directed the forces of the orchestra with sparing movements of his free hand. Occasionally there was nothing, and then suddenly a stabbing gesture and a pointing of a finger, or a flaring of all fingers. Contained, controlled, and so pregnant with meaning. The allegro second movement and allegretto third movement saw the pathos and brooding strife of the first replaced by hope, with emerging decisiveness, and the finale saw the human spirit ultimately triumph in the face of dogged oppression. Chauhan felt it all, and he clearly enjoyed communicating this to the orchestra, which he profusely thanked – almost player by player – and the audience loved it.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre. 5 Aug 2022
Synthony is back for 2022! It is the best of the best global dance tracks performed live by orchestra and a DJ. The August performance at Adelaide’s Entertainment Centre Theatre featured the Southern Cross Symphony Orchestra led by Sarah Grace Williams and was hosted by Mobin Master as MC and DJ spinning the decks.
The main event kicked of just after 9pm, after DJ warm up acts Audioporn and Andy Van got the crowd in the mood. Launching with Synthony - The Beginning the early transition into Fat Boy Slim’s 1998 hit Right Here Right Now is unmistakeable; the words flashed in vibrant text across screens framing the stage.
Armand Van Helden’s, You Don’t Know Me, the lead single from his third studio album in 1999, is up next and singer Greg Gould of early Australia’s Got Talent fame takes to the stage to deliver the well know Duane Harden vocal line. Gould has a powerful voice and command’s the lyric. Thumping base beats then fill the auditorium as the laser light show reaches a new level to Eric Prydz’ Call On Me. The dance floor is really pumping for the first time in the evening as revellers jump and sway to the beat.
Sliding into the progressive house track Levels by Avicii we are treated to vocals from Mobin Master mixed with the sweet sounds of saxophonist Ashley James. James caries the famous vocal line with his saxophone and brings the orchestra to the forefront of this epic house track. Harking back again to 2004, The Shapeshifters’ Lola’s Theme gets the oldies to their feet as we are introduced to Ella Monnery on vocals. “I'm a different person // Yeah // Turn my world around…”, she sings, pitch perfect and record accurate, elevating Southern Cross Symphony’s string section work on the iconic track.
French duo Klingande’s 2013 track Jubel brings Ash James on Sax back to the stage with singer Cassie McIvor showing us she too is pitch perfect on these incredibly difficult vocal tracks. The world class graphics, animations and lighting come into their own with Cafe Del Mar by Energy 52 up next. The trance piece first released in 1993 is an epic track and the uncredited lighting show takes its performance here to a whole new level.
Our MC Mobin Master recalls fond Adelaide times with his rebirth of the anthem Show Me Love by Robin S in 2007. Ella Monnery is back and once again crushes the lyric on this incredibly difficult sing. ATB’s - 9PM (Till I Come) follows with the iconic guitar hook followed by Sweet Dreams from the Eurythmics. The title track from the album of the same name released in 1983, Cassie McIvor re-takes the stage and demonstrates exceptional vocal skill on this tough, yet iconic lyric! Brava!
The high definition screens take on a life of their own again as Insomnia by British music group Faithless rolls in before the instrumental stylings of Children by composer Robert Miles with the unmistakable piano hook – played here by strings – transports us. We are treated to Paul Van Dyk’s For An Angel and then Cassie McIvor once again takes the stage with a rousing performance of the mashup Toca’s Miracle by Faithless from 2001; “let me tell you, you know, Aah // I need a miracle // I need a miracle // It's more than physical //What I need to get me through”.
Greg Gould takes to the stage again with Rudimental’s Feel The Love. The orchestra trumpet solo on the melody line is a cracker and absolute highlight! Gould returns, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, to sing The Potbelleez, Don’t Hold Back and Pink Floyd & Eric Prydz’ Proper Education. Originally billed for performance by Ilan Kidron, Gould seems underprepared and occasionally refers to lyric notes and concert master Sarah Grace Williams for his entrances. Nonetheless, Gould delivers bucket loads of energy and attacks the numbers with gusto.
Australian group Fisher gets the next guernsey with their Coachella hit and number one Australian Club Track Losing It, the baseline and iconic trombone drone vibrating the very foundations of the theatre.
A light show of rain drops, lightning strikes and a turbulent ocean are projected for Synthony - Storm Before Silence in the build up to Delerium’s Silence which again features Ella Monnery on vocals. The exceptionally well know 1999 piece, often hailed as one of the greatest trance songs of all time, is an incredibly complex sing. Early in the number it feels as though Monnery and the orchestra are out of sync, but as the track progresses Monnery hits her straps and delivers a spectacular finish to an exceptionally difficult vocal. Brava!
The haunting melody line from Adagio For Strings by Samuel Barber and Tiesto follows with a laser light show to dwarf them all before You Got The Love from The Source feat. Candi Staton closes out the show (or so we think!). Ella Monnery again delivering a killer vocal line that is record-perfect and joyous to listen to.
The audience aren’t ready for it all to be over however, and to cries of an encore the musicians re-take the stage for an absolutely thumping performance of Sandstorm by Darude. Flashing strip lighting and a laser light show punctuate the staccato beats and build to an epic climax that has the dance floor shake the very foundations of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre theatre!
If electronic dance music is your jive then Synthony is the fully immersive sound and light show you should not miss! Get onto it next time it is in town!
Paul Rodda
When: 5 Aug
Where: Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre – Closed
Touring: Sydney 29 Oct and Hobart 19 Nov
Bookings: synthony.com
Musica Viva. The Adelaide Town Hall. 21 Jul 2022
Wow! Just wow! What an event! What a performance!
Musica Viva’s A Winter’s Journey is a visual and aural feast. Allan Clayton MBE exquisitely sings Schubert’s iconic song-cycle Winterreise to Kate Golla’s empathetic piano accompaniment enveloped in an intimate wrap-around backdrop of animated projections of Australian landscapes by Fred Williams OBE.
Published in 1828, Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert and is a setting of twenty-four poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. Although there is not a single narrative, collectively the poems tell a story of a young man’s unrequited love. The songs are contemplative and ooze despair, but they are exquisite to listen to, and they require a singer who is at the top of his game. Clayton is most certainly that, and his performance merited the standing ovation he received, but there is much more to the concert than that.
In recent times, video projection technology has become increasingly significant in the staging of major theatre productions, such as Barry Kosky’s The Magic Flute in the 2019 Adelaide Festival, and the Sydney Theatre Company’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in this year’s Adelaide Festival. (It is also to be used in the much anticipated Brisbane Ring Cycle, should COVID ever allow the production to come to fruition.) The technology is also being used to bring visual art to wider audiences, such as the recent Van Gogh Alive event which is allegedly the most visited multi-sensory experience in the world. And at this very moment, we are in the midst of the Illuminate Adelaide festival.
The use of such technology might therefore be cliché in some respects, but its use in A Winter’s Journey is of an entirely different order. It is not merely used to provide a visual element to what is essentially an aural experience, or to provide a setting, but rather it is used to reinterpret a work of high art (namely, Schubert’s composition) and give it an entirely different context. In her Director’s Note, Dr Lindy Hume AM says that “Winterreise is a portrait in landscape” and in this performance the action is reimagined from the bleak later in the yearess of an icy European winter to an altogether different environment – that of the unforgiving but beautiful Australian bush and outback. The conceptualisation at the heart of this reimagination is nothing short of genius. As a skilled sommelier matches wines to a fine dinner, so the creatives behind A Winter’s Journey have selected paintings by Williams to complement the text of Müller’s poetry that Schubert has so beautifully set to music. Sometimes the motivation for the choice is a word, a phrase, or perhaps just a subliminal thought? Whatever the rationale, the combination of the projections, Golla’s playing, and Clayton’s singing and a characterisation of the songs is sublime.
At the beginning, Clayton and Golla come on stage. Golla sits at the Steinway grand piano which is located on a highly-polished inky-black floor framed on two sides by large untextured plain walls that soon prove to be projection screens. It delineates a performance space. The lighting is dim, almost eerie. Clayton stands away from the performance space and begins singing Gute Nacht, the first song of the Winterreise cycle. Memories of his critically acclaimed performance in the title role of Brett Dean’s opera Hamlet at the Adelaide Festival in 2018 come rushing back, and we know we are listening to a tenor who is master of his craft. He then joins Golla in the performance space as if to signify that his alter ego’s journey is about to commence. For the next seventy minutes, David Bergman’s evocative video design (who, incidentally was responsible for the magic behind The Picture of Dorian Gray), Matthew Marshall’s empathetic and moody lighting design and Hume’s considered dramaturgy and direction all combine perfectly to allow Clayton and Golla to give flight to beautiful music making. With the fading notes of the last song, Clayton walks out of the confines of the performance space, the lights dim and the journey is over.
Benjamin Britten once observed just how much Winterreise relies on the vocalist and pianist to bring it to life: “…One of the most alarming things I always find, when performing this work, is that there is actually so little on the page. [Schubert] gets the most extraordinary moods and atmospheres with so few notes... He leaves it all very much up to the performers.” Clayton and Golla indeed rise to the occasion, and produce a world-class reading of Schubert’s Winterreise.
This performance is a remarkable triumph for Musica Viva and for all who have brought it to life. You simply must not pass up the opportunity to see it, or to see it again, which should be easy because it will be broadcast.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed in Adelaide.
Other performances available in Canberra and Sydney, with an online concert on Wednesday 7 December at 7pm AEST.
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: musicaviva.com
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 24 Jun 2022
Serenity is the fourth concert in the ASO’s current Symphony Series, and that is certainly what we received for much of the program. However, serenity gave way to rampant exuberance in a blistering reading of Mussorgsky’s iconic Pictures at an Exhibition to finish the concert.
As is now the norm, the ASO begins the concert with a performance of Pudnanthi Padninthi (The Coming and the Going) composed by Jack Buckskin and Jamie Goldsmith arranged by Mark Simeon Ferguson. It is presented as an Acknowledgement of Country, and it has the effect of wakening our senses to wider possibilities.
The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams is an achingly beautiful piece that is so well named. One can almost visualise a skylark on wing – rising and hovering, circling, descending, and all the time warbling its evocative song. Emily Sun on violin is mesmerising. Her playing is articulate, crystal clear, and emulates the skylark to perfection. Her dynamics are astute, with pianissimo moments that are barely audible, and exquisitely controlled. Minimal vibrato, maximum impact. Thirteen minutes of transporting tranquillity that was enabled by unaffected playing from the orchestra under the calculated direction of Benjamin Northey.
And then to a world première no less. Cathy Milliken’s Ediacaran Fields is the fifth component of her orchestral cycle Earth Plays, and it is a noteworthy piece. It is not a composition that requires explanation through detailed program notes in order to be enjoyed. It stands alone as ‘pure music’, and if wanting to own a recording of it is a testimony to its quality and enjoyability, then this reviewer cannot wait until it is released on CD or similar. Milliken was in attendance and prefaced the performance with some words of explanation about the piece. This added to the enjoyment.
Ediacaran Fields is a musical response to Milliken’s musings about the nature of the existence of certain soft-bodied creatures that existed in what was the watery environment of South Australia’s Flinders Ranges some 550 million years ago. (Fossilised remains of these animals can be found in the world famous Ediacara fields at Nilpena Station.) The composition uses the full resources of the orchestra, with a broad dynamic and melodic palette. Having been told by Milliken that the piece “begins seven times over” as a reference to the biblical stories of creation allows the audience to understand the piece better, but, as has been said above, the pure music stands by itself.
A highlight of Ediacaran Fields is audience participation! About one-hundred audience members were supplied with small stones to ‘click’ together at various times during the performance under the direction of members of the percussion section of the orchestra and the conductor. The effect is remarkable. The sound is hypnotic. Our imaginations entertain all manner of interpretations as to the purpose of the ‘clicks’. Do they represent random changes in the evolution of species? Whatever they represent, the audience is enthusiastic in its applause. Ediacaran Fields deserves a place in concert programs around the world for many years to come.
Emily Sun re-joins the orchestra after the interval for a technically assured performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, which is a piece originally composed for the legendary violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate. It is melodic, difficult to play, and it gets the pulse racing. Sun’s performance demonstrates in spades her virtuosity and technical mastery of her instrument, but her approach perhaps errs on the side of being restrained, such as in the double and triple stopped passages that were executed sweetly rather than played with strident passion. The audience are clearly delighted with Sun’s performance, and the wolf whistling that ensues is almost akin to the reception a pop star receives!
Northey was at the top of his game with a spirited and passionate interpretation of Ravels’ orchestrated arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition. The orchestration places a sharp focus on almost every section of the orchestra. There is a moment in the sun for everyone, and for example, it is such a joy to see the timpanist in full flight relishing every drum roll, and the tuba taking the lead, and the strings savagely bowing in unison. It’s stirring stuff: sometimes zealous and impassioned, and sometimes serene.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed