In 2017, the Metropolis New Music Festival examines the intricacies and dichotomies of the old and the new.
Presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and taking place in the Melbourne Recital Centre, this festival is one of the nation’s leading events that brings new music to life with star performers. Throughout the festival we’ll hear premieres from living composers such as Kats-Chernin, Meredith, and Tawadros – as well as pay respect to works from the past as they’re presented in colourful programs.
Check out these events, which are set to ignite Melbourne with talent and culture.
Explore the Metropolis New Music Festival Program online for events kicking off this May.
Between Strings
Based between New Zealand and Australia, Katapult challenges composers and audiences to experience Baroque and classical instruments from a modern perspective. Their collaborators, many of whom have never before written for the subtle colours of Baroque instruments, expand the sonic possibilities of baroque and classical instruments in fresh and new ways.
In its Melbourne debut Between Strings, Katapult joins forces with special guests and stalwarts of the Melbourne continuo scene, Laura Moore and Peter de Jager, to present a program featuring three brand new works by New Zealand and Australian composers re-imagining the timbral world of period instruments.
Metropolis #1
Featuring world premieres from Joseph Tawadros and the MSO 2017 Composer-in-Residence Elena Kats-Chernin, this concert will highlight the fascinating musical opportunities to be found in instruments such as the oud (a North African stringed instrument similar to the lute), the harpsichord (a keyboard that was prominent in the Renaissance and Baroque eras) and the recorder. Experience the cutting-edge music of Melbourne’s very own Metropolis series, live from the Melbourne Recital Centre and join the MSO to experience tomorrow’s generation of big name music makers – today.
Resonant Bodies
In 2017, the Resonant Bodies Festival comes to the Melbourne Recital Centre. For one night, United States-based Australian sopranos Jessica Aszodi and Jane Sheldon, known for their own adventurous vocalising, will invite some of their favourite local and international vocal artists to let loose in the Melbourne Recital Centre Salon.
Latitude 37: The Things That Bind Us
Latitude 37 present a program of new music from near and far, including such far flung countries as Iceland, the United Kingdom and the United States, and then those countries closer to home, New Zealand and Australia. The program focuses on the passage of music and time, and that which makes all human beings essentially the same. The heart beat which brings all music to life can be seen in the recurrent musical techniques of the past and present, such as ostinato bass-lines, or rhythmic patterns, all woven together with a pendulum-like sense of beat.
Metropolis #2
Explore the Metropolis New Music Festival Program online for events kicking off this May.
Images supplied. Featured image Mahan Esfahani credit Bernhard Musil and Deutsche Grammophon.
