BY MIRANDA ILCHEF
Elemental Resonance
Paul Nicolaou (harp)
Gosford Regional Library, 19 September
Recently I had the pleasure of watching harpist/composer Paul Nicolaou’s self-produced concert Elemental Resonance in Gosford, although ‘watching’ only really encapsulates part of the experience, as the performance included elements of touch, sight and even smell woven together in a fairly seamless narrative.
Paul and I both studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and it has been a pleasure to watch his career bloom as both a harpist and composer. This latest project, which he has taken on a national tour, demonstrates his fine attention to detail and a careful focus on audience experience – a factor which feels increasingly important in an attention-hungry world.
Saturday’s concert took the audience on a journey through each of the four elements with the short pieces (all by living Australian composers, including Paul himself) sorted into either Earth, Air, Fire or Water. While it would have been nice to see more musical contrast between the elements (particularly the Fire section, which was missing a certain punchiness that I had expected), there were other clear demarcations between the sections – particularly in the rather beautiful LED lighting strip on his harp, which illuminated the instrument and strings in green, white, red and blue. The relaxed setting allowed the audience to get up quite close to the action. I was able to watch the harp played at a closer range than I probably ever have; an experience that I think both myself and a young child in attendance found equally fascinating.
Elemental Resonance was simultaneously suitable for shorter attention spans and yet still encouraged the audience to slow down. The same young child in the front row was riveted throughout because there was novelty at every turn. She played with the silky sheet designed to simulate the flow of water, and popped bubbles that floated around Paul as he played; and yet she also laid down and, with unbroken attention, watched low-stimulation footage of a flickering candle flame during one of Paul’s improvisations. This event felt like an ideal gateway into classical contemporary music.
Images supplied. Credit Brian Rapsey.
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