BY LEWIS INGHAM
“The call for a more peaceful environment and lifestyle was stronger than my need to perform,” says pianist Helena Kernaghan about her decision to move from Melbourne to Albury in regional New South Wales more than 10 years ago. But, a passion for the lifestyle offered by regional living and chamber music has allowed Helena to reward the Albury Wodonga community with the Albury Chamber Music Festival, an event featuring world-class performers in stunning local venues.
Established by Helena and Fr. Peter Macleod-Miller in 2016, the ACMF has continued from strength to strength, largely on the back of support from the local community and the imaginative programming of Helena as artistic director.
We chat with Helena to find out about a three-concert chamber music series that will be presented in Albury in the lead up to ACMF, and gain insight into the impact of ACMF on a new generation of classical musicians in regional Australia and the experiences of Helena as an artist based in regional NSW.
The Albury Chamber Music Festival will have its fourth iteration in 2019. What has been the response from the community?
From the word go, we have had support and interest from the local community, and we are now at the stage where ‘spreading the word’ to people outside and away from Albury Wodonga is our main focus.
We are very fortunate for the beautiful venues at which we hold our festival, and concertgoers have enjoyed the intimacy and interaction between performers and the audiences. The overwhelming response has been: let’s get more people to hear about this wonderful musical experience on the border of NSW and Victoria!
As artistic director of ACMF, what is at the forefront of your mind when programming and organising performers?
I like to keep it simple – quality and variety. I have been commended on my imaginative programming, but I really put all the focus in getting the right musicians, and then negotiating music that they love to perform. It then becomes a jigsaw puzzle of sorts, ensuring there’s enough balance and variety throughout the seven concerts that people won’t want to miss one.
The other essential aspect for me is to ensure the commissioning of a new Australian work. We have been very fortunate to be able to include this in every festival since 2016, and have showcased some exciting new compositions by up-and-coming and very established Australian composers. Last year’s commission, a piano trio by composer Gordon Kerry, was beautifully performed in the festival’s closing concert by one of my favourite Australian trios, the Firebird Trio.
In the lead up to the 2019 ACMF, concert series Sundays at St. Matthew’s is taking place with some wonderfully talented performers. What influenced the decision to organise a concert series on top of the ACMF, and what can people expect from these concerts, with the first one happening this Sunday?
The main idea for organising Sundays at St. Matthew’s was to keep the festival in the minds and schedules of the local community, in particular. There are a core group of music-loving enthusiasts in the Border region, and seeing their enjoyment and appreciation for the concert events we continue to organise is very rewarding.
We have been so lucky to have Melbourne-based musician Claire Higgins as part of the 2019 festival committee, and she has done a fantastic job of coordinating the organisation of the three concerts in this series.
The series commences with cellist Zoe Knighton, who will be presenting an all-Bach solo cello recital in the beautiful acoustics of St Matthew’s Church in Albury. This concert is on this Sunday afternoon, and will also double as our festival launch where we will officially announce the program for the 2019 festival. Local crowds are familiar with Zoe’s outstanding playing, as part of the Flinders Quartet who featured in our 2018 ACMF program, and many of the local aspiring students have had the good fortune of performing for Zoe in public masterclasses.
Late June’s concert will feature the amazing Australian mezzo, Sally-Anne Russell; a marvellous musician, performer, person, and one of the true supporters and inspirations for this festival existing at all.
The final concert in this series is one I’m really looking forward to, as we welcome renowned harpist Marshall Maguire to Albury for the first time. This will conclude a wonderfully varied and beautiful mid-year concert series, with the festival itself two months later in November.
Your role in the festival and concert series is not just as artistic director, but as a performer. You’re accompanying mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell in the second Sundays at St. Matthew’s concert, for instance. What do you gain as a professional musician who can contribute artistically to their local community, and are there any special experiences that have emerged out of being a performer in regional NSW?
My dream has always been to maintain a regional lifestyle, and have the opportunity to collaborate with top-level musicians. I did leave Melbourne in 2006 with the underlying thought that I had said goodbye to the best of my performing days, but the call for a more peaceful environment and lifestyle was stronger than my need to perform.
It all started to change here for me in 2011 after the horrible tragedy in Fukushima, which resulted in me agreeing to perform at a fundraiser concert with a Japanese violinist who had moved to Albury and whose family were from the Fukushima region. I agreed to the concert as a gesture of goodwill, not expecting in the slightest what happened at the first rehearsal for this concert. As soon as Kaori Sparks started to play, I was absolutely blown away. She was as good as, actually better than, most of the violinists I had played with in my city-dwelling and international study years, and here she was in Albury!
This has led to an ongoing collaboration between us, and we are now two-thirds of the Ensemble in Residence for the ACMF: the Orpheus Piano Trio. Our cellist Sam Goble is also a rural-dwelling musician, but Sam calls Castlemaine (VIC) home.
ACMF seems committed to connecting with young musicians. How are they involved in the festival, and how might this impact their development as musicians?
Music education is an essential aspect of my musical life, and one that has taken precedence over performing, at times. This passion of mine is certainly integral to the structuring and ethos of the festival. The second concert of each festival is called the Rising Stars Masterclass and features up to three local and up-and-coming student performers who gain performance experience and tuition from the star performers at the festival. We also include a performance by a local student choir throughout the festival weekend, which was one of the highlights for many of the festival patrons during the 2018 festival.
Albury has an impressive list of musical exports, across a huge range of styles and genres. The ACMF is now affording students of classical music a very real opportunity to perform and learn from world-class musicians in their hometown, which has an incredible effect on changing the culture and mentality of the community.
Probably the best collective student experience to date was at last year’s festival, when choral students from The Scots School, Albury, performed a world premiere of Gordon Kerry’s new piece for student string quartet and choir. This was a very rare opportunity for a school group to perform a world premiere in the presence of the composer and other distinguished guests, so I think that the impact on our next generation of regional performers is an undoubted aspect of the festival.
Why is it important that regional areas have a thriving and diverse music scene, and what’s the goal for ACMF moving forward?
It is equally as important for regional areas to have a thriving and diverse music scene as it is for cities. As Australia’s overall population continues to increase rapidly, the ripple-on effect makes for greater variety and diversity amongst the people who are choosing to settle in the country. Once-remote destinations are now very accessible, and many people are moving to the country for the improved lifestyle that regional living offers.
There are perceived disadvantages to country living. However, there are pay-offs for these: fresh air, ease of parking, avoidance of peak traffic, and cheaper houses. In exchange for these advantages, you often lose variety, quantity, and quality of arts and performance exposure. Times are changing, and the Albury Chamber Music Festival is focused on minimising this gap for the Albury Wodonga area.
Visit the Albury Chamber Music Festival website to check out the upcoming concert dates. Its first event features cellist Zoe Knighton on 28 April.
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