BY CUTCOMMON
It’s the final month of the year — and your chance to break into the season with some new live music. What will your summer soundtrack be?
We’ve asked the team at Melbourne Recital Centre to reveal their hottest picks for December — and there are plenty of bright concerts for you to check out.
Quartz – Sweet Disposition
Can’t really go wrong with a spot of Mozart and Mendelssohn, can you? This Melbourne string quartet (above) will play a string quartet from each of these composers. Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21 was dedicated to the King of Prussia, who fashioned himself a cellist. Mendelssohn wrote his String Quartet No. 1 in London, on the same holiday that inspired his Scottish symphony and Hebrides overture.
Quartz is made up of violinists Kathryn Taylor and Philippa West, violist Merewyn Bramble, and cellist Zoe Wallace — highly accomplished in their own rights (as you can hear in this video below, if you’d like a taste of how they sound in the Melbourne Recital Centre).
Ossicle Duo & Rubiks Collective – Displaced Bodies
Trombone and percussion — sounds like a strange mix, right? That’s Ossicle Duo, and its performers Benjamin Anderson and Hamish Upton will come together with one of Australia’s most popular and innovative new music ensembles: Rubiks Collective. Expect the world premiere of a new Australian composition from Jakob Bragg, and expect it to be good — it won the Melbourne Recital Centre & Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Composition Award. That one is called Displaced bodies, weapons of action, but you’ll also hear three other works on this fascinating program. Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh’s Quietude uses wine glasses as instruments, while Noemi Liba’s CardioMyopathy explores the way our hearts pump blood around our bodies. In her composition process, Noemi worked with artist Vanessa Steinberg who was waiting to receive heart surgery. Vanessa’s visceral journey is infused in this music. Richard Barrett’s EARTH opens the event.
KIAZMA Piano Duo – Mother Goose
How often do you get to hear two virtuosic pianists performing at the same time? Our guess would be ‘rarely’. The two players in the Primrose Potter Salon include Aura Go and Tomoe Kawabata — also known as KIAZMA Piano Duo. While a critic’s ear might appreciate their combined skills, these performers have curated a couple of concerts that aim to bring pure joy to a very different group of listeners: children aged 6 years and up who can watch all those shiny black and white keys!
The name of this event refers to Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) Suite, which the French composer dedicated to the two children of a sculptor. Across five pieces, you’ll get to meat Tom Thumb, Sleeping Beauty, beasts, and fairies. Then in Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants (Children’s Games), you’ll hear 12 miniatures that evoke the playfulness of a spinning top, soap bubbles, and leap-frog. The event also features Faure’s Dolly Suite. Dolly was the daughter of Emma Bardac (the composer’s love interest), and many pieces in the suite were intended as gifts to mark special occasions such as birthdays and New Year. Some might say this concert itself could make a nice little gift!
KIAZMA Piano Duo – Christmas Trees
It may still be early in December, but KIAZMA is getting into the Christmas spirit with Liszt’s Weinachtsbaum — a charming ode to Christmas trees. The composer wrote it for his granddaughter, and she was the first in the world to hear it, right there in her room on Christmas Day. There are 12 songs in the piece, and most of them are inspired by carols. From lighting candles on the tree to listening to evening bells, this is another inspired work that KIAZMA will perform for young music-lovers aged anywhere from 6 to 106. Warm up with this video of KIAZMA performing The Art of Fugue — a stunning piece for any age.
Affinity Quartet – Innovators
Affinity Quartet is based in Melbourne — but its players are serious globe trotters. In recent years, they’ve taken out top prizes in four international string quartet competitions, including awards in Germany and Austria, one you might’ve seen this year on home soil — the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. Competing against chamber ensembles from around the world, Affinity made it through the grand final and took out three major prizes including a grand prize, first prize, and audience choice award. This remarkable young group has chosen to play Brahms and Haydn in its final Melbourne concert of the year. You’ll hear Haydn’s Emperor string quartet, and Brahms’ String Quartet No. 3.
Check out the time they played Haydn in the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition — the first Aussie string quartet ever to make it to the finals.
Ros Bandt with Alana Blackburn – Sounding Spaces
You’ve never heard music like this before: Dr Ros Bandt is performing an all-original concert program including some world premieres. Debris was created with Dr Alana Blackburn and through original field recordings it recalls a tornado event that ripped through the University of New England music department and took out hundreds of trees surrounding the campus. Alana — who will perform amplified recorders in this concert — also commissioned new electro-acoustic work Re-Growth?. Visuals from Australian filmmaker Jutta Pryor will form part of the experience. From underwater recordings to renaissance flute, and live electronics and sound dispersion from Jim Atkins, this event will launch you into a summer of contemplation about the nature that surrounds and changes us.
Check out the full calendar of December events on the Melbourne Recital Centre website.
Images supplied. Credit: Cameron Jamieson. Ossicle Duo by Darren Gill.
