BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
It takes a special quartet indeed to create opportunities for those outside its four players.
Flinders Quartet has announced its 2019 program. And while we are all invited to attend concerts featuring some of the most remarkable chamber music works throughout history, the group also reaches directly into the community’s passions for music in a different way.
“As we approach our 20th birthday in 2020, it is a great time for reflection on how much we have grown – and a chance to look forward to the myriad ways in which one can listen to a string quartet,” Flinders’ cellist Zoe Knighton says.
Some of those ways can be found outside the traditional concert hall. A secondary schools pilot program will see Flinders working with teenagers to bring them the music of Shostakovich – and it doesn’t matter if these young students play a musical instrument or not.
“Whenever we work with teenagers, the music of Shostakovich seems to resonate quite intensely with them,” Zoe says.
“They identify with his music so intuitively, and that’s an exciting point of entry to chamber music for those teenagers.
“The students will be making films, art work, and responding in other really active ways to the music.”
Venturing out further into the creative community – this time, geographically – Flinders will work with six regional chamber ensembles as part of the educational John Noble String Quartet Program.
“Sharing the stage with these quartets is always a treat,” Zoe says.
“These teenagers and amateurs have such a delightful energy and we relish feeding off that.”
Inspiring young musicians to present chamber music is undoubtedly inspiration itself for Flinders. But Zoe explains that the quartet is also keen to play its part in the commissioning of new Australian music.
The group will premiere a new work by Flinders’ 2017 Emerging Composer Development Program participant Matthew Laing, who has also curated works by Haydn and Schumann to “best show off his composer voice”.
“We are thoroughly enjoying nurturing these composers,” Zoe says of the program.
“Matthew has such a great musical brain. He hears his music so vividly and that is really useful in making aural sense of the dots on the page.”
In addition to the premiere of Matthew’s work, this year the program’s new emerging composers Claire Farrell (Tasmania), Derek Brookes (South Australia), Jet Kye Chong (Western Australia), Philip Eames (New South Wales), and Claire Higgins (Victoria) will take part in workshops with mentor Stuart Greenbaum and a performance to be live-streamed in August.
“The element I love most about our composer program is the collegiality that is created for the group of composers we are working with,” Zoe says.
“For a composer, gaining inspiration from peers and ideas from peers is a golden opportunity.
“The moment I love best is when a composer hears their music played live for the first time. From there, we can begin to create a relationship with the composer so we can be the best conduit possible for their musical vision.”
Zoe considers the inclusion of 21st Century Australian composition in the program as “our responsibility for being a voice for today’s composers”.
“String quartets are known for inspiring a composer’s innermost thoughts, and I love to think of audiences hundreds of years in the future having an insight into how we are living today through the music that is being composed today.”
But 2019 is also a reflection of the years past – the 18 years in which Flinders has been bringing music to life; and the centuries of fine music from across the world.
“More than anything else, art represents society at any given time in history. While we are playing works by Shostakovich, Haydn, or Debussy, we are drawn into a different time and place and can have insights into their lives that can’t be gained from reading a history book.”
Program 1 will see the quartet perform Matthew Laing alongside Schumann and Haydn; while Program 2 presents “the rather ambitious task of creating [Flinders’] own Shostakovich cycle”. Selected movements of the composer’s 15 string quartets have been curated alongside projections and anecdotes to unravel his historic narrative.
In Program 3, Flinders invites guest performers to the stage for a concert “exploring the connections between Asian colours and the music of Debussy”.
“It’s going to give us a new perspective on how to approach and experience Debussy’s music,” Zoe says.
Explore the full program on the Flinders Quartet website.
Flinders features Nicholas Waters (violin), Thibaud Pavlovic-Hobba (violin), Helen Ireland (viola), and Zoe Knighton (cello).
We’re looking forward to collaborating with Flinders in 2019 to bring you more stories about these programs and artists!
Images supplied. Credit: Pia Johnson.
