CONTENT COURTESY MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE
There’s a wave of new and innovative music hitting the Melbourne Recital Centre this month. Here, we bring you some top picks for the festival.
What: A violin and a ball of wool
Who: Anna McMichael takes her violin into previously unexplored territory, and in this special festival performance she has worked with composers Damian Barbeler, Kate Moore, and Daniel Blinkhorn to create some unique and fascinating soundworlds.
This is your only chance to hear the violin matched with Arctic Ice field recordings, moving electronic soundscapes, and a ball of wool used as a violin bow!
Damian Barbeler also joins Anna on stage to perform his work Piece for Violin and Ball of Wool.
When: 6pm May 2, Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre.
What: 10 at 10 Melbourne Edition
Who: Decibel New Music Ensemble, founded in Western Australia in 2009.
To celebrate 10 years – four international tours, five recorded releases, more than 70 commissioned works, and 30 world premieres performed in Australia – Decibel commemorates with 10 concerts of 10 works across the country in 2019. The musicians will perform Australian works commissioned and premiered by the ensemble.
When: 6pm May 3, Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre.
What: Generations
Who: Three generations of Australian women composers are celebrated in a richly hued kaleidoscope of music from across the decades.
Helen Gifford’s compelling compositional voice begins the journey, with her seminal works setting the scene for generations of women composers including Christine McCombe, Annie Hsieh, Melody Eotvos, Kate Neal, and Kate Moore.
With a particular focus on the female voice, coupled with an eclectic mix of instruments and ensemble settings, the power of these individuals speaks to us across the generations.
When: 3pm May 4, Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre.
What: Workers Union
Who: Pianist and narrator Lisa Moore collaborates with virtuosi ANAM talent in a dramatic ensemble program featuring radical landmark works from 1970s counter-culture.
Composed by two bold figures, American Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together and Dutch Louis Andriessen’s Worker’s Union are written for any group of instruments. They pack an incessant, rhythmic, driving punch, pushing limits and bucking established chamber music traditions.
Coming Together delivers a letter written by an Attica Correctional Facility inmate Sam Melville, who was murdered in prison riots. It speaks of a renewed revolutionary optimism: ‘I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the passing of time’. Workers Union requires the musicians to play loud and together in unison rhythm, yet individually choosing any pitch, finally building and exploding into a roudy ‘national anthem’. Andriessen’s poem Langzame Verjardaag (slow birthday) in it’s Australian premiere, meets these giants in the middle – sweetly serenading throughout. Fasten your seatbelts and immerse yourself in these revolutionary classics.
When: 6pm May 4, Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre.
READ NEXT: Composer Mark Holdsworth chats about his work that’ll be performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part of Metropolis New Music Festival.
READ NEXT: The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will perform composer Missy Mazzoli’s music at the Melbourne Recital Centre in Metropolis on May 4, and she tells us all about it.
Images supplied.
