BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
When I sit down to chat with Australian guitarist Slava Grigoryan, there’s one topic he keeps circling back to — and that’s his enthusiasm for Flexible Sky Redux, which he performs with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.
You might not have heard the original piece played live, but Slava certainly has. When he directed the Adelaide Guitar Festival back in 2016, he sat in the audience to listen to a performance by its composer Wolfgang Muthspiel. This version for guitar and string quartet moved Slava so intensely that he made his own recording of the piece, released on ABC Classic a year later.
Flexible Sky Redux is a larger-than-life version, playfully reimagined for more instruments. Slava says, “there’ll be a lot of musical language in this that audiences are not necessarily familiar with”.
“I love how [Muthspiel] bridges these musical worlds together, and creates a very unified new genre between classical music and very contemporary, jazz, concepts; I hear a lot of choral influence in there as well.
“It’s just a wonderful, wonderful combination of things that I personally adore as a musician.”
While some musicians dedicate their careers to a single genre, Slava embraces almost anything. It’s why he’ll play a contemporary piece like Flexible Sky Redux alongside a centuries-old work like Vivaldi’s Concerto in D major RV93.
“I love Baroque music … I do this through the prism of a modern instrument.”
Slava is unafraid to break the rules in his performance of 18th-Century music because, quite simply, his current instrument wasn’t around back then. This freedom to bring Vivaldi into the modern era — with today’s instruments, acoustics, and sometimes amplification — appears just as enjoyable to Slava as the rhythm and harmony of the piece itself.
But most enjoyable of all is sharing this experience with audiences. Having released more than 30 albums, the ARIA-winning virtuoso still believes there’s nothing like playing live music and feeling your response in real time.
“This all goes back to something very simply in concept, and it’s the power of music,” he says. “It’s like a medicine for the soul; for the heart.”
Slava has built such a long history with MCO audiences, he can’t even pinpoint their first concert together. But the Flexible Sky program brings the first collaboration of its kind with artistic director and violinist Sophie Rowell.
“It’s the first time we’re working together with MCO, and for that I’m really excited to be working with her; with an orchestra that she’s directing and evolving with.
“That’s going to be amazing to listen to such a wonderful musician at the helm, and incredible players around her.”
Slava keeps evolving through experiences like this, too. As he turns 50 in 2026, he feels lucky to continue growing through his life in music.
“I love the fact that the fingers and the mind are still working – there’s no use-by date,” he says of his profession.
“I love the idea of just continuing this, and not thinking about retirement, and just playing as long as long as one can.”
Hear Slava play with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra in the Flexible Sky program from 26 February-1 March. Full details and bookings on the MCO website.
This article features in the MCO’s Flexible Sky concert guide.
Images supplied. Credit Simon Shiff. MCO captured by Lucien Fischer.
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