Wattleseed Ensemble | The Orchid and the Wasp
15th February 2025, Nexus Arts, Adelaide, SA
Wattleseed Ensemble is a modern string trio led by co-artistic directors Meg Cohen (violin) and Katie Yap (viola), with cellist David Moran. Despite being based in Melbourne and competing with other major events on this particular Saturday evening (Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, comedian Aaron Chen, and Charli XCX all performing concurrently), the group drew an impressive crowd of local chamber music aficionados to the cosy venue at Nexus Arts. The venue was the perfect size for the ensemble and audience, with the in-room bar adding to the convivial atmosphere.
The program for the evening spanned from medieval to contemporary, embodying the Wattleseed Ensemble’s ethos of story-telling through different eras. The diversity of the program was commendable, with obvious thought put into the selection of music which featured 3 female composers and 3 living composers, including 2 Australians.
The performance opened with a sombre rendition of medieval polymath Hildegard von Bingen’s Ave Generosa. The chilling arrangement by Donald Nicholson was very effective, featuring each musician as the monophonic chant was passed around with the others providing the drone or simple harmony. We then heard excerpts from Bach’s Goldberg Variations arranged for string trio. The instrumentation transformed the familiar melodies by adding sustained phrases, dynamic range and textural richness.
The next two works on the program were composed by South Australians, with both composers in attendance. In Anne Cawrse’s Sanctuary, composed 2021, Cohen and Moran delivered a beautiful meandering duet with a distinctive Australian sound palette, with influences of Sculthorpe and Koehne. We were then treated to the titular work by Jakub Jankowski, which very literally brought the Australian bush to the stage. Using suspended bunches of eucalypt leaves that the performers rustled or bowed with specially-designed guiros throughout, Jankowksi evoked the expansive soundscape of walking along a creek trail on a hot summer day. His inventive use of leaves, sticks and wooden instruments to conjure natural sounds could have been cumbersome in less able hands, but Wattleseed Ensemble expertly realised Jankowski’s ode to symbiosis, composed specifically for this tour.
The program concluded with the driving rhythm of Missy Mazzoli’s Lies You Can Believe In, bookended by arrangements of traditional folk tunes. The ensemble obviously enjoyed performing the Bulgarian and Swedish folk music, which made for a high-energy finale.
Overall, this was an engaging program full of new, newly arranged and rarely performed works, presented at the highest calibre of chamber music performance. The diversity of the program was certainly a highlight, taking the audience on a rapid-fire journey through musical eras and places. I look forward to Wattleseed’s next offering when they return to South Australia.
Guest Reviewer: Georgina Roberts
