Orange Chamber Music Festival | Gala Concert
Saturday March 9 | Civic Theatre, Orange, NSW
A highlight of this year’s Orange Chamber Music Festival was the Saturday night Gala at the Civic Theatre. It showcased “the universal language of music in a display of sound, colour, and dance”, an eclectic mix of old and new, Australian and overseas, involving the vast majority of musicians invited to the Festival. The concert opened with Australian composer Moya Henderson’s Yapu Vudlanta – On and Off the Ground fourth movement, played by violinist Zoe Friesberg, violist Dana Lee, and pianist Yerim Lee who we saw for the first time during the Festival. Henderson was chosen to start, in deference to her many achievements, including being appointed Resident Composer for the inaugural season of the-then Australian Opera in the brand new Sydney Opera House in 1973. The music certainly lived up to its title, what with the regular changes in mood and the constant return of the main theme throughout. The composer herself was commissioned by OCMF to provide a new arrangement of her work for this particular combination of instruments.
Brahms’ Trio in A minor Op 114, rarely performed with the viola part, was played with polish by Dana Lee, Noah Oshiro and Yerim Lee. Scenes from Romeo and Juliet by Australian composer Matthew Hindson was played by the dedicatee, the Nexas Saxophone Quartet, to which was added a dancer, Jamie Kaye, who choreographed a mix of ballet and contemporary dance. The presence of a dancer was rather fitting as the original work was part of a collaboration between Hindson and the National College of Dance, to which additional movements were added. Nexas also played the following work Addis Ababa from Ciudades by Dutch composer Guillermo Lago (Willem van Merwijk). It featured Michael Duke on soprano sax, Andrew Smith alto sax, Nathan Henshaw tenor sax, and Jay Byrnes on baritone sax. Each type of sax were given virtuosic passages during the work, enabling them to show off their skills with advanced techniques such as circular breathing, altissimo, and slap-tongue. Clarinettist Lloyd Van’t Hoff used loop technology to complement and create multiple layers of repetitive sound in Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, enhanced by animator Nikki Pet’s visual background showing the horrific 9/11 tragedy. The Orava Quartet were next, playing a work by an unknown Polish composer, Wojciech Kilar, in their usual high octane style.
The penultimate work was Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, and clarinet. Orange’s own David Shaw, the newly appointed Director of the Orange Regional Conservatorium was the flautist, joining harpist Emily Granger, making her first appearance at this year’s Festival, Van’t Hoff, and the Orava Quartet. The musicians combined very well, particularly with the many changes in rhythm and tempo. The cadenza by Granger on her new Salcedo black harp was the highlight.
The concert finished on a high with young Australian saxophonist and composer Nick Russoniello’s Over the Range, commissioned by OCMF “to round up this celebration of wonders”, evoked the “expansive beauty” of the Central West on the other side of the Great Dividing Range. The title of the work took its name from a poem by Banjo Paterson who was born near Orange. The premiere here in Orange was performed by a chamber ensemble of Shaw, Van’t Hoff, and the Nexas Quartet spread evenly with three on each side of the hall while the remaining musicians were on stage. The former went on stage during the climax as they started singing Paterson’s words “Vision Splendid”, supported by an Audience Choir, to emphasise the importance of community. The composer was present in the audience so, fittingly, joined the musicians for their final bows.
You can read more about the other events in the Orange Chamber Music Festival here >>
