BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Through the generosity of its major arts patron, The Michael Aquilina Chamber Music Festival and Gala Series have provided a base income for more than 50 musicians performing at the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall.
While it’s certainly heartwarming, it’s also important to acknowledge that the story doesn’t end there.
The MDCH — an initiative of co-founders Adele Schonhardt and Chris Howlett — is providing a lifeline to the classical musicians of Australia as it gives them a space to keep making live music during lockdowns. The Athenaeum Theatre is setting the stage, and Kawai is supplying the keys. But at the end of the day, it’s all down to you to tune in from your home and enjoy the music.
The Australian String Quartet’s Dale Barltrop is one of three Australian concertmasters who will perform in the Aquilina Gala Series Concert 1 this June. Performing on the same program as concertmasters Sophie Rowell and Tair Khisambeev — as well as other leading local musicians such as Michelle Wood and Stefan Cassomenos — Dale tells us how “support and empathy for each other has grown even stronger” during COVID-19. Here’s how he’s gearing up for a life-changing live stream event.
Dale, it’s lovely to chat with you. How’d your relationship with MDCH begin?
Thanks Stephanie. It’s great to have the opportunity to talk a little bit about MDCH, because it has been such a beacon of light for Melbourne musicians during this period since we haven’t been able to work.
Chris Howlett phoned me back in April to float the idea of running a week-long festival that would celebrate the orchestral musicians in Melbourne. I was so touched by the idea, I recall fighting back a few tears in my eyes!
And thus began the Faces of Our Orchestra festival, in which I assembled four of my Melbourne Symphony Orchestra colleagues to perform with me in the opening concert.
Your Aquilina series performance boasts a seriously all-star group of musicians. What does it mean to you to be able to perform with so many musicians of this calibre during arguably the most unstable time our industry has experienced?!
For me, one of the most difficult aspects of these past few months has been the loss of my sense of purpose in the world.
Like so many of my colleagues, I have relished the opportunity to slow down and self-reflect, but to be prevented from performing or even making music with others has been incredibly difficult.
We thrive on the magic of interacting with our fellow musicians and audiences. It is a very powerful thing, and I think after these past few months, I’ll never ever take it for granted again.
My colleagues are also some of my closest friends, so it really feels like the most joyous reunion to be back together playing again!
Tell us a bit about how you’ve been working with these musicians. How do you rehearse for a chamber music event when you can’t easily gather together?
Thankfully, since the government restrictions eased to allow slightly larger groups of people to assemble, we have been been able to get together to rehearse in each other’s living rooms — certainly not in my little one-bedroom apartment, but thankfully another MSO colleague opened up their home to accommodate our rather large group of seven players!
Because you’ve been working together towards this wonderful event, how would you describe the relationship or culture between you and the other players? Do you find this experience is bringing you together with a sort of solidarity or feeling of hope?
The common sense of loss that we have all felt during the past months has strangely brought us even closer together. We’ve always been a big family, spending countless hours of our lives making music together. But I think that our support and empathy for each other has grown even stronger during this forced separation.
Working on this upcoming program together has felt so important and so vital. It feels like our lives depend on it!
Talk us through the program. How do you choose pieces of music that will be engaging to people at home? That is, does the medium influence the program?
This program features the wonderful Quartz Quartet playing Haydn’s Joke String Quartet No. 30, a charming work that also lays bare Haydn’s cheeky sense of humour.
The Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D minor comes next, in which I am joined by the MSO’s newly appointed assistant concertmaster Tair Khisambeev. This piece is one of the most celebrated and loved of all of Bach’s instrumental works and, for me, the central slow movement is an utterly sublime creation.
The program concludes with a rarely heard version of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major — for piano trio, arranged by Beethoven himself, featuring Sophie Rowell, Michelle Wood and Stefan Cassomenos.
So clearly, this program celebrates the music of the great masters and we hope that the audiences at home will delight in hearing these works live-streamed in the comfort of their living rooms!
But our main priority in deciding the repertoire for this program, perhaps selfishly, was to play music that we personally love and cherish!
Speaking of Sophie and Tair, you’re not the only concertmaster featured in this Aquilina event. Sophie will perform in the Beethoven, but you’ll be playing with fellow concertmaster Tair on the Bach! What’s it been like working on a program in which three concertmasters will appear?
I am thrilled to be performing alongside my wonderful fellow concertmasters, Sophie Rowell and Tair Khisambeev. It’s a pretty rare thing for all three of us to be featured together in one program, so we’re pretty excited about that.
Tair and I have enjoyed putting the Bach together and are relishing the opportunity to try out new ideas on each other in a piece that we’ve both played many times.
It will also be wonderful to be joined by the Quartz Quartet and Stephen Newton on bass in a more intimate version of the Bach ‘Double’ than one might usually encounter!
Your performance has been generously supported by Michael Aquilina. As a musician, what does this sort of generosity mean to you?
Michael’s support and passion for our musicians has been humbling. His belief in the importance of music, his advocacy of the musicians, and his desire to see our artform survive through this crisis have given us pause for reflection.
We must do everything we can, in whatever way we can, to support each other in the arts community and to demonstrate to the world that what we do is vital for humankind.
We will be eternally grateful to Michael, and to all of the people in our community who understand and champion the power of live music.
Dale, more broadly speaking, what has MDCH offered to you and your career during COVID-19?
Like all of my colleagues, I am itching to return to live performances as soon as we can! But during this period, MDCH has been a lifeline for me and for so many musicians and audience members. Aside from the valuable financial assistance it has provided, MDCH has given me a fresh purpose to make music like never before. With so few performances on the books lately, it has been a godsend to have an outlet to perform — even if we can’t see our audience for now!
To those who might be hesitant to tune in to a live streamed performance, or feel it’s not quite a substitute to live concerts, what would you tell them?
I don’t blame people for feeling that live streamed performances are no substitute for the magic of attending a concert: it’s simply not possible to recreate that experience, no matter how good the microphones, cameras and speakers are. But unlike putting on a CD at home, a live streamed performance is about hearing music that is created in that very moment.
This is a powerful thing, particularly in a world saturated with online videos and recordings — experiencing art in real time by musicians who are pouring their hearts and souls into a moment in history.
Visit the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall website to explore the full Michael Aquilina Gala program. Dale will perform in Concert 1 at 7.30pm June 6. Watch from home.
Images supplied. MDCH captured by Albert Comper.
