BY CUTCOMMON
As the weather gets colder, you could stay home and wrap yourself up in a blanket, blasting the air con while you watch Netflix.
Or you could enjoy the warmth of live music, and listen to world-class talent from pianist-composer Stephen Hough to the Zimbabwean singers of Nobuntu.
To help you take your pick, we’re bringing you some of the hottest events from the Melbourne Recital Centre — and if you’re willing to throw on your coat, you’ll be in for a treat when you arrive. (Literally. One of these gigs comes with morning tea.)
First, take a trip down memory lane with Hough’s Sonatina Nostalgica
If you’ve heard Stephen Hough perform live, you’ll seriously consider taking the opportunity to listen to him perform again – whether you’re a critic, audience member, or musician. Hough (pictured below) is known internationally as one of the great pianists of our time, but he’s also a fascinating artist whose interviews and writings offer deep insights into music.
What we love most about this performance is that Hough will perform Hough. You’ll get to hear the pianist-composer play Sonatina Nostalgica, which uses a Romantic style to evoke the memory of an English village. You’ll also hear music from Chaminade, Liszt, and Chopin under Hough’s expert hands – and if you stick around for a bit, you can listen to a chat between the musician and Australian Music Centre chair Marshall McGuire.
Hear Stephen Hough’s virtuosic playing at 7.30pm June 2 in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall.
Then contemplate a dystopian future with music, dance, and film
Could this be the end of the human race? It’s something you’ll contemplate when you experience the dance performance Last and First Men.
Unsettling and expressive, the production uses music and film from Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to share the story of its namesake – a 1930 novel from English philosopher Olaf Stapleton. Tilda Swinton narrates, and Neon Dance uses movement to bring you along on this sci-fi journey as part of the RISING festival.
Experience Last and First Men – Neon Dance this 7 June in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall.
Watch musicians duck like pigeons in front of clay projectiles
If you’d like more of a RISING festival fix, you can also head along to a clay target event. Yes, it’s as unusual as it sounds. Speak Percussion – which has a long history of making percussion music in ways you’d never expect – will set up the stage with machines that’ll shoot targets at objects. Musicians will avoid them like pigeons avoiding clay in this experimental “risk-taking” event in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall.
Watch Pigeons – Speak Percussion this 14 June in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall.
Enjoy chamber music classics with ANAM talent
It’s mostly Mozart – but it’s a bit of Haydn and Beethoven, too. Musicians from the Australian National Academy of Music will join the Australian String Quartet for this chamber music program featuring these three giants of Western music.
Haydn’s String Quartet Op.33 No.6 in D is from a collection of quartets that premiered at a Christmas affair in 1781, surrounded by nobility. This music was enough to inspire Mozart to compose his own String Quartet in D minor – just one piece in his suite known as the ‘Haydn’ Quartets.
Beethoven’s Große Fuge is also on the program – and when it came out, the critics hated it. As most classical music fans would know, that’s usually a pretty good sign the work would only increase in popularity as the centuries progressed. If you like, you can chat with your fellow concertgoers about it over a cup of coffee before the show.
Feel the “peace, joy and love” from Zimbabwe to Australia
Who doesn’t enjoy feelings of “peace, joy and love”? These qualities are universal – and universally expressed through music. So you’re bound to feel a connection to the voices of a cappella group Nobuntu when they make their Australian debut in Melbourne Recital Centre.
These singers from Zimbabwe will perform their original music – and the group’s Duduzile Sibanda says audiences “will come out with their cups full, overflowing with everything that we will bring for them from Africa.” You can read more in our interview with Nobuntu.
Hear Nobuntu at 7.30pm in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall.
Images supplied. Hough credit Jiyang Chen. Speak Percussion credit Jeff Busby. ANAM concert credit Jacqui Way. Nobuntu by Tswarelo Mothobe.
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