1ConCert CalendarSee page

1 Beethoven I 1 pm Friday May 1 Fitters Workshop 6

2 Beethoven II 3.30 pm Friday May 1 Fitters Workshop 6

3 Bachs Universe 8 pm Friday May 1 Fitters Workshop 16

4 Beethoven III 10 am Saturday May 2 Fitters Workshop 7

5 Beethoven IV 2 pm Saturday May 2 Fitters Workshop 7

6 Beethoven V 5.30 pm Saturday May 2 Fitters Workshop 8

7 Bach on Sunday 11 am Sunday May 3 Fitters Workshop 18

8 Beethoven VI 2 pm Sunday May 3 Fitters Workshop 9

9 Beethoven VII 5 pm Sunday May 3 Fitters Workshop 9

10Sounds on Site I: Lamentations for a Soldier

Midday Monday May 4 Turkish Embassy 20

11 Silver-Garburg Piano Duo 6 pm Monday May 4 Fitters Workshop 24

12Sounds on Site II: Space Exploration

Midday Tuesday May 5 Mt Stromlo 26

13 Russian Masters 6 pm Tuesday May 5 Fitters Workshop 28

14Sounds on Site III: String Theory

Midday Wednesday May 6 Shine Dome 30

15 Order of the Virtues 6 pm Wednesday May 6 Fitters Workshop 32

16Sounds on Site IV: Forest Music

Midday Thursday May 7Australian National

Botanic Gardens34

17 Brahms at Twilight 6 pm Thursday May 7 Fitters Workshop 36

18Sounds on Site V: From the Letter to the Law

Midday Friday May 8NLA Reconciliation Place High Court

38

19Barbara Blackmans Festival Blessing: Being and Time

3.30 pm Friday May 8National Gallery:

Fairfax Theatre40

20 Movers and Shakers 3 pm Saturday May 9 Fitters Workshop 44

21 Double Quartet 8 pm Saturday May 9 Fitters Workshop 46

22Sebastian the Fox and Other Animals

11 am Sunday May 10Canberra Girls Grammar

Senior School Hall48

23 A World of Glass 1 pm Sunday May 10National Gallery:

Gandel Hall50

24 Festival Closure 7 pm Sunday May 10 Fitters Workshop 52

2Chief Ministers message

Welcome to the 21st Canberra International Music Festival: 10 days, 24 concerts and some of the finest music Canberrans will hear this year.

Under the leadership of its new Artistic Director, Roland

Peelman, the 2015 Festival has a program that ranges across the centuries, from Hildegard of Bingen to Deborah Conway. For lovers of the classical canon, it will provide a rare pleasure: the complete cycle of Beethovens piano sonatas, as well as three Bach cantatas, chamber music by Brahms, and a program from the Russia of 1915.

Taking its inspiration from the centenary of Einsteins General Theory of Relativity, this years Festival celebrates the links between music and science. It will visit several of Canberras leading scientific institutions, and will feature the music of Australias most enterprising composers and performers.

Canberra is delighted to extend a welcome to the first-class international musicians participating in the Festival, and to the many young musicians from across the country and overseas who will join the seasoned professionals on the Festival stages - not least the remarkable Moorambilla Voices.

I encourage Canberrans and visitors to this city to make the most of the many musical delights on offer, and wish everyone involved all the best for the 2015 Canberra International Music Festival.

Andrew Barr MLA ACT Chief Minister

Festival Presidents Message

There is nothing quite like the sense of anticipation, before the first note is played, for the delights and surprises that will unfold over the 10 days of the Festival.

Not only is this my first year as President of Pro Musica,

taking over from our supremely committed last President, Dorothy Danta: it is also the first year for our new Artistic Director, Roland Peelman. With the invaluable support of our General Manager Kathleen Grant, Roland has produced a program continuing the traditions built up by our previous artistic directors, as well as striking out in new and exciting directions.

The CIMF prides itself on being a festival which truly reflects the national capital and its ideals. Thus, the 2015 Festival draws its inspiration from the connections between music and science, with their shared ambition for pursuing truth, the one in knowledge, the other in art.

This festival has two other main features. The first is the number of new works specially commissioned for the Festival, and supporting the ongoing development of Australian music. The second is our deep commitment to young performers, and to integrating them in rehearsals and performances with more experienced musicians. Watch out for these young artists during the Festival concerts: you will be seeing and hearing the stars of the future.

I wish to express Pro Musicas deepest thanks to our sponsors and supporters across government and the corporate sector, and particularly to the large number of individuals who have contributed finance and resources. In addition I wish to pay tribute to the large number of volunteers and billeters who have committed their time and their hospitality to the Festival. Without this level of community commitment the Festival could not go ahead.

So, like you, I will sit back, take in a deep breath, and enjoy the 10 days of music making ahead of us.

Arn Sprogis President, Pro Musica, Inc.

3Artistic Directors Message

Whether we like it or not, Canberra is a city of government and governance. But equally, Canberra is a city of knowledge, a city of science and serious fact-seeking, whether on terra firma or in the depths of outer space. Canberra is also a place where the nation keeps its treasures, its bank accounts, its jewels, its books, archives and artworks, an enviable wealth of relatively recent history. Barely one hundred years old, she bears the imprint of Burley-Griffins vision combined with the presence of a strong international community and a sense of duty, service and scholarship amongst its citizens. The result remains a work

in process, but Canberra strikes me as an a-typically modern city that has proven remarkably resilient, given its proximity to the political epicentre and the inevitable ebbs and flows of the electoral cycle.

But none of this would mean anything if we could not stand back and admire the sunset, or wonder at those mountain peaks around Canberra. They remind us of an ancient land with a history that looms much larger than our mere century-old construct. All the things we have built and achieved would mean nothing if we did not have the time or space to think beyond that which meets the eye if it werent for our ability to listen and to imagine.

This Festival carries music in its heart. Unashamedly it celebrates the great Western classical tradition, not just because we love it, or because so many great musicians have a past or current association with Canberras School of Music. We have a Music Festival because the way we enjoy and make music remains one of the most potent, even wilful steps in the march of history. Its central tenet is the ability to create something out of nothing, and in doing so to explore uncharted territory.

Hence Albert Einsteins thoughtful frown and rigorously unkempt mane of hair gracing our posters this year. During his formative years leading up to the 1915 publication of the General Theory of Relativity, he saw more than any of his learned contemporaries did. Even amidst the ravages of war he still could imagine a greater world a more peaceful world. Einstein too was a musician.

Roland Peelman Artistic Director 2015 Canberra International Music Festival

4Whatever views we might hold about the ongoing significance of classical music in, and for, Australian society, we need have no doubt about that of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). He is one of the few composers whose image, basic biography and of course music is widely known far beyond the concert hall. For classical musicians and music lovers alike, his standing is colossal. If all Western Philosophy is a footnote to Plato, all classical music since c.1800 is a footnote to Beethoven. To understand the reasons for this, we must consider both the music itself and the world that surrounded it.

Unlike his older contemporaries, Mozart and Haydn, Beethoven was a child of the French Revolution, and in the midst of those best and worst of times it was Beethoven first and foremost who instinctively heard how music could act as a mediator between the artist and the world at large, far beyond the aristocratic salon. The more courteous musical forms of his forbears the symphony, the string quartet, and the piano sonata would never be composed the same way again. But, just as significantly, they would never be heard the same way again.

Beethoven was born in the Rhine city of Bonn in 1770. Like Mozart, he was a child prodigy, but unlike Mozart his musical training was to be irregular and sparse. His aristocratic patron, the Elector at Bonn was, however, a great admirer of Mozart, and saw to it that Mozarts latest published works were available to his

court musicians. Thus, even before travelling to Vienna, Beethoven was able to gain a considerable knowledge and mastery of the principles of composing in what we now call sonata form, a sophisticated way of constructing large-scale musical forms through the rhetorical coordination of melody and rhythm grounded in musical tonality a sense of home key.

Beethovens first piano sonatas, juvenilia for which the composer did not give an opus number, date from this time. His self-conscious coming-of-age as a composer would only begin in earnest when he travelled to Vienna in 1792. The court in Bonn sponsored him to go there, as one patron famously put it, to receive Mozarts spirit from Haydns hands; in the end he would not so much absorb their influences as completely transform them. In Vienna Beethoven also began a career as a virtuoso pianist and brilliant improviser, and from 1795 his published compositions attracted increasingly favorable attention among them his first official piano sonatas, the two that make up his Opus 2, both dedicated to Haydn.

One way to understand how Beethovens composition developed from these two sonatas across the 30 sonatas that followed is to map them onto the traditional three periods division used both by scholars and biographers. This is, of course, a simplification: changes in his compositional style appeared gradually, and in many respects the periods overlapped.

The First Period, roughly from 1795 to 1801, includes the first 11 piano sonatas. It corresponds with these first years in Vienna, and shows the direct influence of Haydn in their taut motives and often humorous character, and of Mozart in their lyricism. We can also hear an engagement with the sensitive style of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, most obvious in the slow movements of these sonatas, alongside features that would soon mark his music as starkly original: the greatly extended development (middle) and coda (final) sections, and an emerging symphonic approach to writing for the keyboard.

Beethoven and the Piano Sonatas

5The best known of the First Period sonatas, Op. 13 in C minor (the so-called Pathtique), displays these features in abundance. The opening slow introduction melds a French baroque overture to a post French revolutionary symphonic drama, and then leads into music that displays, according to Barry Cooper, a strength of character, depth of emotion, level of originality, range of sonorities, and ingenuity of motivic and tonal manipulation, anticipating in many ways his style of the next decade.

The Second Period, approximately 18011816, is commonly known as Beethovens heroic period, in part a reference to his Third Symphony, the Eroica (1803). It can cover all the sonatas from Opus 26 to Opus 90, and is typified by works of unprecedented length and complexity, and which are also often much more public in nature. Both the third movement of Op. 26 in A flat and the second movement of the Eroica, for instance, are funeral marches that for contemporary listeners would have evoked the military music of the Napoleonic era.

Today we are more likely to associate such music with the drama of Beethovens own life. By 1802 the composer knew he was going deaf, and in a letter written to his brothers Carl and Johann at Heiligenstadt on 6 October 1802 he made it very clear that it was only his art that gave him the strength to continue living. Was it, then, Beethovens personal suffering that inspired him to compose works like Op. 27 No. 2 in C sharp minor Quasi una fantasia (the Moonlight)?

Musicologists tend to be cautious about making such subjective connections, but they would certainly agree that at the very least the formal ambition of the Eroica symphony is matched by works like Op. 53 in C major (the Waldstein). In the first movement of this sonata the chorale-like second subject is in the key of E major, a long way from the home key of C major; a bold musical experiment that shows the composer exploring new possibilities for the sonata form.

In these middle period sonatas, Beethoven also uses music topics drawn from other genres, including operatic recitative. The first movement

of Op. 31 No. 2 in D minor (The Tempest) for instance, opens like an improvised fantasia, and also includes a long passage of recitative without words. One result of such musical experimentation is that by the end of this middle period we really can no longer align this music to the classical style without at least some drastic qualification.

The Third Period (c.18161827) coincides with music that becomes rather less public and heroic in character and instead more abstract and introspective, incorporating poetic extremes from the meditative to the grotesque. The sonatas of the Third Period (the last five sonatas, Opus 101 to Opus 111) are increasingly novel in structure; they often include long sections of an improvisatory or recitative-like character. Other characteristics include a penchant for variation form, such as we hear in the slow movement of Op. 106 in B-flat major (the Hammerklavier), the incorporation of lengthy passages of fugato and contrapuntal textures (such as the finales of the Hammerklavier and the Op. 110 in A-flat major), and the use of non-traditional movement plans, such as the two movements of the last sonata, Op. 111 in C minor. Such features help align these late sonatas with a characteristic that Goethe would come to see as typical of the late works of many great artists: a wrestling with the reality of physical decay, mimicked in an apparent formal decay, that leads to the creation of works of art that aspire ultimately to transcend that very condition.

However we choose to categorise these 32 Piano Sonatas, however, there is no doubt that hearing them gives us an opportunity to gain a deep insight into the composers musical Lebenslauf a lifes creative journey in sound. It is perhaps the ultimate validation of Beethovens creative genius that the luxury of being able to hear the entire cycle remains despite the vast expanses of time and distance that now separate us from his world so much more than a mere idle distraction. They speak of, and to, our common humanity.

Peter Tregear

6Friday 1 May, 3.30pm Fitters Workshop

ANU School of Music and Friends of the School of Music present:

CONCERT 2

BEETHOVEN a piano for life II

Op. 2 No. 2 in A major Andrew Leathwick

1. Allegro vivace2. Largo appassionato3. Scherzo (Allegretto)4. Rondo (Grazioso)

Op. 49 No. 1 in G minor Daniel Pan1. Andante2. Rondo Allegro

Op. 54 in F major Lisa Moore1. In tempo dun Menuetto2. Allegretto

Op. 78 in F sharp major Nicholas Mathew*

Fr Therese1. Adagio cantabile Allegro ma non troppo2. Allegro vivace

INTERVAL

Op. 81a in E flat major Alex Raineri

Les adieux1. Das Lebewohl (Adagio Allegro)2. Abwesenheit (Andante espressivo)3. Das Wiedersehen (Vivacissimamente)

Op. 111 in C major Nicholas Young1. Maestoso Allegro con brio2. Arietta (Adagio molto semplice e cantabile)

115 including interval

This concert is supported by David Taylor

Friday 1 May, 1pm Fitters Workshop

CONCERT 1

BEETHOVEN a piano for life I

Op. 2 No. 1 in F minor Kotaro Nagano1. Allegro2. Adagio3. Menuetto (Allegretto)4. Prestissimo

Op. 14 No. 1 in E major Arnan Wiesel1. Allegro2. Allegretto3. Rondo (Allegro commodo)

Op. 31 No. 3 in E flat major Lisa Moore

The Hunt1. Allegro2. Scherzo (Allegretto vivace)3. Menuetto (Moderato e grazioso)4. Presto con fuoco

INTERVAL

Op. 49 No. 2 in G major Bernice Chua1. Allegro ma non troppo2. Tempo di Menuetto

Op. 31 No. 2 in D minor Gabi Sultana

The Tempest1. Largo Allegretto2. Adagio3. Allegretto

110 including interval

This concert is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer

7Saturday 2 May, 2pm Fitters Workshop

Tim Benson presents:

CONCERT 5

BEETHOVEN a piano for life IV

Op. 10 No. 1 in C major Gabi Sultana1. Molto allegro e con brio2. Adagio molto3. Finale - Prestissimo

Op. 31 No. 1 in G major Ian Munro1. Allegro vivace2. Adagio grazioso3. Rondo (Allegretto)

INTERVAL

Op. 22 in B flat major Kotaro Nagano1. Allegro con brio2. Adagio con molta espressione3. Menuetto4. Rondo - Allegretto

Op. 57 in F major Maria Mazo

Appassionata 1. Allegro assai2. Andante con moto3. Allegro ma non troppo

110 including interval

This concert is supported by Marjorie Lindenmayer

Saturday 2 May, 10am Fitters Workshop

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany presents:

CONCERT 4

BEETHOVEN a piano for life III

Op. 13 in C minor Anna Goldsworthy

Pathtique 1. Grave Allegro di molto e con brio2. Adagio cantabile3. Rondo Allegro

Op. 28 in D major Arnan Wiesel

Pastoral 1. Allegro2. Andante3. Scherzo Allegro vivace4. Rondo Allegro ma non troppo

Op. 79 in G major Nicholas Mathew*1. Presto alla tedesca2. Andante3. Vivace

INTERVAL

Op. 101 in A major Daniel de Borah1. Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten

Empfindung (Allegretto ma non troppo)2. Lebhaft, marschmssig (Vivace all Marcia)3. Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll (Adagio ma

non troppo, con affetto)4. Zeitmass des ersten Stckes (Tempo del

primo pezzo) Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr und mit Entschlossenheit (Allegro)

Op. 110 in A flat major Gil Garburg1. Moderato cantabile molto expressivo2. Allegro molto3. Adagio ma non troppo Fuga (Allegro ma

non troppo)

110 including interval

This concert is supported by Koula Notaras and Emmanual Notaras

8Saturday 2 May, 5.30pm Fitters Workshop

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany presents:

CONCERT 6

BEETHOVEN a piano for life V

Op. 10 No. 2 in F major Stephanie McCallum1. Allegro2. Allegretto3. Presto

Op. 14 No. 2 in G major Arnan Wiesel1. Allegro2. Allegretto3. Presto

Op. 26 in A flat major Clemens Leske1. Andante con Variazioni2. Scherzo Allegro molto3. Marcia funebre sulla morte dun Eroe4. Allegro

INTERVAL

Op. 90 in E minor Anna Goldsworthy1. Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit

Empfindung und Ausdruck2. Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar

vorgetragen

Op. 109 in E major Sivan Silver1. Vivace, ma non troppo

Adagio expressivo Tempo I2. Prestissimo3. Gesangvol, mit innigster Empfindung

(Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo)

110 including interval

This concert is supported by Margaret Saboisky

* Nicholas Mathew appears by arrangement with the ANU School of Music

Andrew Leathwick, Alex Raineri and Adam McMillan appear by arrangement with the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM)

9Sunday 3 May, 2pm Fitters Workshop

CONCERT 8

BEETHOVEN a piano for life VI

Op. 2 No. 3 in C major Adam McMillan

1. Allegro con brio2. Adagio3. Scherzo - Allegro4. Allegro assai

Op. 10 No. 3 in D major Clemens Leske1. Presto2. Largo e mesto3. Menuetto Allegro

4. Rondo - Allegro

INTERVAL

Op. 27 No. 1 in E flat major Daniel de Borah

Sonata quasi una Fantasia1. Andante Allegro Andante2. Allegro molto e vivace3. Adagio con espressione - Allegro vivace -

Presto

Op. 53 in C major Stephanie McCallum

Waldstein1. Allegro con brio2. Introduzione (Adagio molto)3. Rondo (Allegretto moderato Prestissimo)

105 including interval

This concert is supported by Barbara Campbell and Jennie and Barry Cameron

Sunday 3 May, 5pm Fitters Workshop

CONCERT 9

BEETHOVEN a piano for life VII

Op. 7 in E flat major Ian Munro

Grand Sonata1. Molto Allegro e con brio2. Largo, con gran espressione3. Allegro4. Rondo - Poco Allegretto e grazioso

Op. 27 No. 2 in C# minor Kotaro Nagano

Moonlight1. Adagio Sostenuto2. Allegretto

3. Presto agitato

INTERVAL

Op. 106 in B flat major Maria Mazo

Hammerklavier1. Allegro2. Scherzo (Assai vivace Presto

Prestissimo Tempo I)3. Adagio sostenuto. Appassionato

e con molto sentimento4. Largo, Allegro risoluto

Fuga a tre voci, con alcune licenze

110 including interval

This concert is supported by Claudia Hyles and Mary Louise Simpson

10

Anna Goldsworthy

Described by The Australian as a musical ambassador, Anna Goldsworthy is one of Australias most acclaimed and versatile musicians. She has performed extensively as a piano soloist throughout Australia and internationally.

An accomplished chamber player, Anna is a founding member of Seraphim Trio, which in 2015 celebrates its twenty-first anniversary.

She collaborates regularly with Australias most distinguished musicians, such as oboist Diana Doherty, clarinettist Paul Dean, trumpeter David Elton, soprano Jane Sheldon and the Australian String Quartet. Annas literary publications include the memoirs Piano Lessons and Welcome to Your New Life, as well as the Quarterly Essay Unfinished Business. She is currently Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, Kenneth Moore Memorial Music Scholar at Janet Clarke Hall, and Research Fellow at the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide.

Andrew Leathwick

Andrew Leathwick began piano lessons at the age of nine. In 2014, he completed the requirements for a Master of Music with First Class Honours at the University of Waikato. While at the University,

Andrew was the winner of many awards and competitions, including the University of Waikato Cultural and Arts Person of the Year Award, the University of Waikato Concerto Competition, and the Sir Edmund Hillary Medal.

In 2013, Andrew won the New Zealand National Concerto Competition, playing Prokofievs Third Piano Concerto, where he also received the junior jury prize and audience choice award. He is currently studying at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) in Melbourne.

Daniel de Borah

Australian pianist Daniel de Borah was a major prize winner at the 2004 Sydney International Piano Competition and has since appeared as soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players and with the Royal Philharmonic

Orchestra at the Barbican and Cadogan Halls, London. He has given recitals at major venues and festivals throughout the United Kingdom including return visits to Wigmore Hall, Londons Southbank Centre, Manchesters Bridgewater Hall, St Davids Cardiff, the Brighton and Newbury Festivals.

Daniel has also appeared widely in Australia with the Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria. He has partnered many leading soloists and ensembles including Li-Wei Qin (cello), Rivka Golani (viola), Kristian Winther (violin), the Australian String Quartet, the New Zealand String Quartet, Thomas Indermhle (oboe) and Andrew Goodwin (tenor), appearing at the Canberra International Music Festival, Huntington Estate Music Festival and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville.

In 2015 Daniel joins the Australia Piano Quartet, ensemble-in-residence at the University of Technology, Sydney. APQ performances in 2015 include an eight-concert series at the Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera House, a seven-project collaborative series at UTS and a tour to France and the UK including the quartets London debut at the Barbican Centre.

Bernice Chua

Photo: Darren James

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Nicholas Mathew

The British pianist and musicologist Nicholas Mathew is Associate Professor and Weisman Schutt Chair in Music at the University of California at Berkeley, and joint leader of the piano program there. He has always divided his musical life between the contrasting joys of

scholarship and performance. While a student at Oxford University, he studied piano performance concurrently at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with the Romanian virtuoso Carola Grindea. His formative years as a musician, however, came during his graduate studies at Cornell University in New York State, where he worked with the generations leading fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, and encountered the extraordinary range of historical keyboard instruments that have captivated him ever since.

For the past decade, he has aimed to evolve the aims and aesthetics of what was once the period instrument movement away from prescriptive questions of what was towards an appreciation of the richness and plurality of new expressive choices that can be promoted by a knowledge of historical practices and a love of instruments in their myriad forms. He is the author of Political Beethoven and (with Benjamin Walton) The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini, as well as several scholarly articles, on Beethoven, Haydn, Rossini, and the history and theory of piano performance.

Nicholas Mathew appears by arrangement with the ANU School of Music.

Daniel Pan

Photo: Bruce Hedge

Clemens Leske

With a repertoire of some thirty-five concerti, Clemens Leske has performed with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, West Australian, Tasmanian and Queensland symphony orchestras and has played at venues in Spain, the United

Kingdom, Singapore, New Zealand, Hungary and China. In May, 2005 he gave his London Royal Festival Hall debut, performing Rachmaninoffs First Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Recent appearances include performances of Strauss Burlesque as well as Beethovens Triple Concerto with the Sydney Symphony under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Mozarts K467 Concerto in C at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and Rachmaninoffs Third Piano Concerto, both with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He performed with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra last year with Beethovens Fourth Piano Concerto, with conductor Niicholas Milton and was also invited on a national tour in partnership with flautist Sir James Galway.

Adam McMillan

Born in Brisbane, 21 year old pianist Adam McMillan is currently studying at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM). Adam began playing when he was four, and by age 16, Adam had performed the Bach Concerto in D minor

with the Tagiev Chamber Orchestra in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Recent performances include playing in the 4MBS Festival of Classics Beethoven Marathon, performing as soloist with the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, and collaborating with other pianists in the Australian Piano Duo Festival. He has enjoyed performing and recording the works of emerging Australian composers, and has recorded a CD with cellist Elizabeth Hubbard that continues to raise money for the charity HeartKids.

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performances of Alkan have been described by critics as titanic, awe-inspiring, stupendous, virtuosic pianism of the highest calibre and one of the glories of Australian pianism.

Stephanie appears on over 40 CDs including 17 solo albums ranging through Liszt, Weber, Magnard, Xenakis and premier recordings of Alkan, Kats-Chernin and even newly transcribed Beethoven.

Lisa Moore

Described as beautiful, impassioned; brilliant and searching in The New York Times, pianist Lisa Moore has collaborated with a large and diverse range of musicians and artists throughout the world, in venues such as La Scala,

Carnegie Hall and the Musikverein. Originally from Canberra, Lisa has been based in New York City since 1985, and has performed with the London Sinfonietta, New York City Ballet, American Composers Orchestra, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich Ensemble, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australia Ensemble, Paul Dresher Double Duo, Alpha Cantauri and Terra Australis. Lisas festival guest appearances include Crash Dublin, Uzbekistan, Lithuania, Greece, Graz, Tanglewood, Aspen, Huddersfield, Paris d'Automne, Lisbon, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, BBC Proms, Southbank, Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin, Perth, Sydney, Israel and Warsaw.

As a concerto soloist Lisa has performed with the London Sinfonietta, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney, Tasmania and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, among many others, under the batons of conductors from Richard Mills to Edo de Waart and Pierre Boulez.

Lisa enjoys performing the highly diverse range of piano repertoire found in traditional, new and experimental forms. She has premiered and commissioned hundreds of new works, working with contemporary composers ranging from Iannis Xenakis, Elliot Carter, Peter Sculthorpe and Gerard Brophy to Elena Kats-Chernin and Martin Bresnick.

Maria Mazo

Maria Mazo, already an award winner at the Van Cliburn (USA), Honens (Canada) and Busoni (Italy) International Piano Competitions, is the winner of the 2013 International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna. She also recently achieved great praise

from audience and critics at the 2014 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in Tel-Aviv where she was awarded the Audience Prize after performing with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Asher Fisch.

Although her repertoire ranges from Bach to the present day, Maria Mazo has always been fascinated by Beethovens music, and it was her interpretations of some of his masterpieces that first established Maria Mazo in the international concert scene. In 2004 she won the Beethoven Piano Competition in Mannheim, Germany; the following year later she added to her reputation with a highly acclaimed performance of Beethovens Hammerklavier Sonata at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Her next step was to win First Prize at the Beethoven Competition in Vienna, one of the oldest, most traditional and prestigious music competitions in the world, in which only the works of Beethoven are performed.

Stephanie McCallum

Stephanie McCallum is a piano soloist known internationally for her work on the reclusive Romantic composer, Alkan, and nationally for her many recordings and work championing unusual, new and Australian repertoire. Currently an Associate Professor

of Piano at Sydney Conservatorium, University of Sydney, Stephanie has performed internationally in recital, as soloist with major Australian orchestras, and with AustraLYSIS, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, ELISION, Australia Ensemble, ACO, Kammer, Halcyon and other groups. Her live solo

Photo: Tobias Moses

Photo: Bruce Hedge

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Antonin Chopin Festival, performing Chopins Piano Concerto No.1 with Poznan Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra, Poznan Symphony Orchestra and Lomza Chamber Philharmonic, and has performed in Tokyo, Kagoshima, Sendai, Warsaw, Krakow, Lomza, Montreal, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Sydney and Aix en Provence.

Alex Raineri

21-year-old pianist Alex Raineri is currently based in both Melbourne and Brisbane. Alexs performance experience includes tours of California, South-East Asia, New Zealand, Germany and a numerous recital and chamber music

engagements in Australia including regular broadcasts on ABC Classic FM and the MBS Networks. He has performed concertos with the Queensland, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and has had several competition successes including first prizes in the Kerikeri International Piano Competition (2014), Australian National Piano Award (2014) and ANAM Concerto Competition (2014).

A passionate chamber musician, Alex is the pianist and co-artistic director of the Brisbane contemporary music ensemble Kupkas Piano. Other chamber music partnerships have been with Brett Dean, Ensemble Offspring, Greta Bradman, Tabatha McFadyen and Angus Wilson among others. In addition to his studies at ANAM, Alex is also undertaking a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Griffith University) and is a current recipient of a Griffith University Postgraduate Research Scholarship.

Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg

see Concert 11, p. 24 below.

Ian Munro

Ian Munro has emerged over recent years as one of Australias most distinguished and awarded musicians, with a career that has taken him to thirty countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia. His award in 2003 of Premier Grand Prix at the

Queen Elisabeth International Competition for composers (Belgium) is a unique achievement for an Australian and follows on from multiple prizes in international piano competitions in Spain, Italy, Portugal and the UK, where his second prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1987 established his international profile. In the UK Ian has performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, English Chamber Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Elsewhere, he has performed with orchestras in Poland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, the USA, China, New Zealand and all the major orchestras in Australia in over sixty piano concerti.

A widely experienced chamber musician, Ian joined the acclaimed Australia Ensemble in Sydney in 2000. Ian has performed concerti by Ravel, Munro, Mozart, Kats-Chernin, Gershwin and Edwards, and toured to the UK, Russia, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Uzbekistan and throughout Australia and New Zealand in recitals, chamber music and concerto performances.

Kotaro Nagano

Since winning 1st prize at the Taipei Chopin International Piano Competition, Kotaro Nagano has won several other competitions, including the Second Australian International Chopin Piano Competition (1st prize and Audience Prize), the International

Piano Competition Halina Czerny-Stefanska In Memoriam in Poznan (2nd prize and Chopin Nocturne Special Prize), the Tokyo Piano Competition (1st prize) and the 16th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (diploma prize).

He made his debut in the Opening Concert at the

14

Gabi Sultana

Described as one of our most promising pianists of our generation of mammoth talent and a demon of energy; yet one of impeccable articulation, Gabi Sultana, who hails from the island of Malta, is a highly acclaimed soloist and chamber

musician. As the winner of the Contemporary Music Prize and Outstanding Pianist Awards at the 2013 IBLA Grand Prize International Music Competition in Sicily, Italy, she toured the States of Virginia, Arkansas and New York culminating in her debut at Carnegie Hall in May 2014.

As a soloist she has also performed throughout Europe. She is currently working with Spectra Ensemble (BE) and together they have performed at internationally renowned contemporary music festivals such as Transit (BE), Gaida (LT) and Ars Musica (BE).

Arnan Wiesel

The Israeli born pianist Arnan Wiesel is a winner of national and international prizes including Israels highest prize for young musicians, the Francoix Shapira Prize. A finalist in the Sydney Piano Competition, his career as solo and chamber musician

has taken him to Australia, USA, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Israel. Performances include concertos with the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and recitals in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Frankfurt Alte Oper, as well as appearances at festivals in Germany and Israel.

Since taking up residence in Australia, he has performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Canberra Symphony Orchestra, the Adelaide Festival, in numerous ABC Live concerts, and in the Canberra Chamber Music Festival. From 2005 to 2010 he performed the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach both on the modern piano and on the clavichord.

Nicholas Young

With a passion for classical and modern piano performance, Nicholas Young is emerging as one of Australias most captivating and versatile musicians. After completing his Bachelor of Music (Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium in 2012

with First Class Honours and a University Medal, he commenced Masters studies in Solo Piano at the Universitt Mozarteum Salzburg. Nicholas was the national winner of the 8th Yamaha Australian Youth Piano Competition in 2007. This success was followed by further important prizes including the First Prize and Best Beethoven Performance of the 2015 Grand Prize Virtuoso International Piano Competition.

Nicholas has given solo and chamber performances in Australia, New Zealand, Austria, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, in such venues as the Sydney Opera House, Wigmore Hall and Mozarteum Wiener Saal. He has appeared as soloist with the West Australian, Queensland, Adelaide and Willoughby Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Vienna International Orchestra in Austria, and his performances have been broadcast by ABC Classic FM.

How well do you really know your piano?

Meet the Piano Whisperer

in the Music Room, Wesley Music Centre, 10.00-11.30 am, Tuesday May 5

Master piano technician Ara Vartoukian from Theme & Variations Piano Services presents a seminar on the intricacies of the piano and its tuning, with guest pianist James Huntingford.

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Established in 1985 by senior concert technician, Ara Vartoukian, Theme & Variations Piano Services know all things piano.Equipped with an elegant showroom and bustling workroom, we are the place to go for sales, tuning, repairs and restorations. With an expert team of passionate, dedicated and professional staff, we strive for excellence in everything we do.

Call us today for all your piano needs on (02) 9958 9888.www.themeandvariations.com.au

Piano Sales, Tuning, Rebuilds & Restorations.

theme-var-festival-prog-v2.indd 1 7/04/2015 2:52 pm

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Friday 1 May, 8pm Fitters Workshop

Canberra Times presents:

CONCERT 3

Gala Concert: Bachs Universe

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004

Steve Reich (b. 1936)Vermont Counterpoint

Johann Sebastian BachTrio Sonata in G major, BWV 5301. Vivace2. Lento3. Allegro

Alister Spence (b. 1955)Time is Time Enough WP

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata Jauchzet Gott BWV 511. Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen2. Wir beten zu dem Tempel an3. Hchster, mache deine Gte4. Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren5. Alleluja, Alleluja

Kate Moore (b. 1979)The Dam (Beaver Blaze Commission) WP

Alex Oomens soprano

Festival Bach Ensemble:Leanne Sullivan trumpet

Matt Greco director / violinAnnie Gard violin

Heather Lloyd violaRosanne Hunt cello

Anthony Abouhamad director / harpsichord

William Barton didgeridoo

Rebecca Chan violin

Amy Dickson saxophone

Claire Edwardes vibraphone

Pete Harden electric guitar

80 no interval

This concert is supported by Betty Beaver

Soli Deo Gloria Glory only to God: this is how Bach would start a new piece. And Gods humble servant might occasionally encrypt his name B-A-C-H into the score itself, as a theme or as a harmonic progression. It tells us something about a persons understanding of a universe underpinned by the Word, wisdom and creative act of a potent God figure.Throughout the 17th century, the fundamental principles of order and gravity as conceived by God and articulated by Isaac Newton remained largely unquestioned. The notion of natural order then became the subject of much heated discussion in the discourse of the 18th century. But only the

violent upheavals of the French Revolution, 39 years after Bachs death, opened the door to a view of the world without a God.

Listening to Bachs Cantata Jauchzet Gott, one of his most openly jubilant compositions, one senses a genuine joy and acceptance of this divine order. From the initial doubled arpeggio to the ecstatic vocalisations of the soprano, male and female unite according to Gods law. The cantata may have as much to do with Bachs newly found domestic bliss a lovely young soprano called Anna Magdalena as with the presence of a decent trumpet player amongst

Bachs Universe

17

his Leipzig forces. The form of the trio sonata, whether in instrumental chamber music or on the church organ, uses two equal parts also, in combination with the bass a small-scale and playful tribute to the trinitarian principle that pervades most Western Christian music. This concert, however, starts with Bachs Partita No. 2 for violin solo, four strings strung on a small but exquisitely made instrument creating out of a simple chord sequence an entire universe as reflected within a drop of water.

It is the violin that became Albert Einsteins instrument of choice. Music, and Bach in particular, never failed to entrance him without any need for explanation, in contrast to the formulation of complex new laws and equations with mathematical challenges that remained a source of frustration throughout his life. It is widely understood that first wife Mileva, a mathematician, contributed considerably to his early scientific papers as a mathematician. Their domestic world, however, played out like an increasingly discordant duet, and eventually he settled for a more conventional arrangement with his cousin Elsa. By that stage Newtons comprehensible order had made way for a concept of time, space, light and matter that still defies our imagination.

The consequences of his relativity theory sparked new research in astronomy, physics, bio-chemistry and much more. The same elements of time, space, and matter also form the building blocks of music itself. During Einsteins lifetime already new models of musical structure were emerging, entirely different to the inner dialogue and outer discourse that drives Bachs creations. Composers were now free to use hypnotically additive structures inspired by Indian music, or African drumming patterns, or Zen devices that redefine our expectations and perceptions of sound as it unfolds. Steve Reich famously credited African drumming styles for his new

departures. The physicality of endlessly repeated percussion patterns and the ever so gradual process of going in and out of sync creates a state of trance: the ear is seduced, the body liberated and the mind lost somewhere along the way.

Not surprisingly, improvising musicians really connected with this approach (as they did with Bach) and it triggered yet another wave of jazz renewal. Alister Spence, a notable Australian jazz musician, has found much joy in the cool sounds of saxophone and vibraphone and in their playful interaction. Kate Moore, our composer-in-residence, found her starting point in the intricate constructions of American and Dutch minimalists. She too creates mesmerising, trance-like music, but with a passion that

perhaps wouldnt be allowed in Dutch Protestant circles or in good New York Jewish company.

In this brave new world multiple meanings, multiple perspectives and purposes can be embraced. Composers might see the physical world for what it is, explained or unexplained, and search for different layers of human complexity. Yet, within the context of a monocentric world, it could be argued that Bachs unequivocal statement SDG hides a much greater level of complexity than his worldly masters ever realised, and that his music, for all its hidden joy or veiled sorrow, evokes a much more unfathomable truth than this inscription may suggest. In the end, Einsteins life-long quest for a unifying theory proved as futile as Bachs ongoing tug-of-war with the local town council. Great art often emerges out of the collision of the personal and the universal. Tonights concert also reflects the collision of a past and a future that Bach the Kantor may have never suspected, but that we can now recognise in his music. Einstein, the scientist, expressed it in very simple words: I have this to say about Bachs works: listen, play, love, revere and keep your trap shut.

Roland Peelman

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Sunday 3 May, 11am Fitters Workshop

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)Cantata Ich habe genug BWV 821. Ich habe genug, ich habe den Heiland2. Ich habe genug! Mein Trost ist nur allein3. Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen4. Mein Gott! wenn kmmt das schne: Nun!5. Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod

Kate Moore (b. 1979)Broken Rosary

Johann Sebastian BachCantata Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Coffee Cantata) BWV 2111. Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht2. Hat man nicht mit seinen Kindern3. Du bses Kind, du loses Mdchen4. Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee ssse5. Wenn du mir nicht den Coffee lsst6. Mdchen, die von harten Sinnen7. Nun folge, was dein Vater spricht8. Heute noch, lieber Vater, tut es doch9. Nun geht und sucht der alte Schlendrian10. Die Katze lsst das Mausen nicht

Palace Electric presents:

CONCERT 7

Bach On Sunday

Tobias Cole counter-tenor

David Greco baritone

Alex Oomens soprano

Paul McMahon* tenor

Festival Bach Ensemble:Mikaela Oberg fluteKirsten Barry oboe

Matt Greco director / violinAnnie Gard violin

Heather Lloyd violaRosanne Hunt cello

Anthony Abouhamad director / harpsichord

*by arrangement with the School of Music, ANU

75 without interval

This concert is supported by Jim and Peronelle Windeyer

MS: Cantata 'Ich habe genug' BWV 82 (1727)

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Cantata Ich habe genug BWV 82

One of the best known and best-loved of Bachs ecclesiastical cantatas, Ich habe genug was composed in Leipzig in 1727 for the Feast of Purification of Mary, also known as Candlemas, which falls on 2 February. It, and the two others we know for sure that Bach composed for this occasion (BWV 83, 125), share the common theological theme of death understood as a joyful release from the cares of this world, and care-laden is a good description of the affect conveyed by the opening movement faltering strings and a plaintive oboe line surely one of the most evocative orchestrations of all of Bachs works.

To understand why Candlemas would produce music of such character we need to be aware that the ancient Jewish sacrament included an act of ritual sacrifice. Thus Marys submission to the law hinted at the sacrifice of her son that was to come, a connection that is made explicit in the Gospel according to Luke through its retelling of Simeons prophecy that her Infant Son would be a light to lighten the Gentiles (hence Candlemas).

Indeed the Catholic rite for this feast mandated the singing of the complete Song of Simeon (or Nunc dimittis), something that is hinted at in the recitative that follows. There is a reminder here for the congregation that for all their political & theological differences and no doubt their lingering memory of the devastation caused by the Thirty Years War the Lutheran and Catholic musical and theological traditions in Bachs Leipzig still shared much in common.

The lullaby-like middle movement and the dance-like finale (a kind of double concerto for the voice and oboe), ensure that Ich habe genug is ultimately to be understood as asking us not so much to resign ourselves to our inescapable mortality, but celebrate its overcoming. Certainly Bach thought highly of this cantata; he later re-scored it for soprano instead of bass, and also re-used the music of the opening movement to suit another occasion.

Cantata Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Coffee Cantata) BWV 211

Although classified as a cantata, Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Quiet! Stop chattering), BWV 211 (c. 1732), is really a mini comic opera, and indeed in modern performances is frequently presented fully staged. A rare work of secular social commentary by Bach, it plays on a fear that some of the good Brgers of Leipzig had that an addiction to coffee could have dangerous social consequences! To that extent its subject matter feels very contemporary, not so much because of the current Australian (not to say Canberran) obsession with good coffee, but in the way it satirises the moral panic that often accompanies the arrival of any new form of pleasure. A delightful final chorus observes that if most people are already drinking coffee to such an extent, how could a respectable daughter refuse to and indeed, why should she?

Here Bach, the serious church musician, proves himself as adept at applying his consummate musical skills to the dramatic demands of comic opera as he was with complementing the theological needs of the Lutheran rite. The Coffee Cantata reminds us, indeed, of one of music historys greatest what might have beens an opera from the hand of J.S. Bach that, sadly, was never to be.

Notes by Peter Tregear

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The Song Company

75 no interval

This concert is supported by Donna Bush

Anna Fraser sopranoHannah Fraser mezzo

Richard Black tenorOwen Elsley tenor

Mark Donnelly baritoneAndrew OConnor bass

with Oguz Mlayim ney

Traditional ney solo: Havada Bulut Yok (No cloud in the sky)

Ekrem Mlayim (b. 1981) some echo still WP 1

Ney solo: Tanburi Cemil Bey (1873-1916) Hseyni Oyun Havas

Thomas Tomkins (1572 - 1656) When David heard

Ekrem Mlayim some echo still 2

Ney improvisation

Robert White (1538-1574) Lamentations for six voices

Ney improvisation

Ekrem Mlayim some echo still 3

Ney solo: Tanburi Cemil Bey Sedd-i Araban Saz Semaisi

Kim Cunio (b. 1969) Psalm 57 WP

Ekrem Mlayim some echo still 4

Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623) When David heard

Ney improvisation

Ekrem Mlayim some echo still 5

Arvo Prt (b. 1935) Da pacem Domine

Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris Quia non est alius qui pugnet pro nobis Nisi tu Deus noster.

Give peace in our time, O Lord For there is none other that fighteth for us But only Thou, our God.

Monday 4 May, Midday Turkish Embassy

ACTEW presents:

CONCERT 10

Sounds on Site I: Lamentations For a Soldier

Prts prayer for peace was composed for the victims of the 2004 Madrid train bombings. It has since become a more universal lament for all innocent victims of atrocities around the world, now and then.

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Rumi and the Mevlevi Order

Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi is a 13th century Persian-born Anatolian mystic and poet. He is known as Mevlana (our master) in the East and as Rumi (from the land of Rum Anatolia) in the West. Rumi was born on September 30, 1207 in the city of Balkh in present-day Afghanistan, where his father was the chief scholar. A Mongol invasion forced the family to leave and they ended up in 1228, in Konya (in present-day Turkey) at the invitation of the Seljuk Emperor.

From an early age, Rumi attended his fathers lessons, acquiring Turkish, Arabic, common Greek and Classical Greek, studying other religions along with Islam. Later on, he himself would teach hundreds of students in Madrassahs.

In his books (Masnawi, Divan-i Kebir, etc.), Rumi discusses how to be a wholesome human being: one who has inner peace and harmony, who is both aware of and appreciates Gods blessings, who takes a stand in the face of lifes hardships, and is tolerant and loving.

Rumi died in 1273 and was laid to rest beside his father in a mausoleum in Konya. After his death Rumis followers established the Mevlevi Order. Based on adab and erkan (discipline and rules of conduct), every part of the Mevlevi lifestyle has symbolic meaning, as in the rituals of the whirling dervishes, considered an extension of daily life. Mevlevihanes are the training centres of Mevlevi dervishes. Besides intensive soul training, candidates receive schooling in literacy, music and other artistic skills. The Mevlevihanes in Istanbul have played a significant role in training master performers of Turkish music.

Oguz Mlayim

The Ney or Turkish flute

According to Rumi, music is the language of God. No other form of art penetrates the human soul as directly as music. In Rumis world, music brings God and man together.

The ney is the symbol for insan- kmil, a person who has become fully mature. The ney is like a friend who is pale and hollow, revived only by the breath of the Creator. For this reason, the ney is called ny- erf (holy ney).

some echo still

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field Ill meet you there

When one is asked to set Rumi to music, it soon becomes apparent that there is something beyond words and meaning in his poetry. In some echo still, I have sought to go beyond a simple setting of Rumis words, and to create, for the performers and the audience, an experience that reflects his secret an effortless sense of unity within the infinite variety found in creation, as manifested in the meditative ritual of whirling dervishes.

As a composer I am fascinated by the visual poetry and harmony created by bodies, clad in white, in perpetual motion while remaining perfectly still. The unity created by the individual dervishes spinning to their own devotional cycle while forming a harmonious system with many others is an analogy of the universe as perceived by Rumi.

In some echo still, each performer becomes a spinning sphere in cyclical rhythmic and melodic motion as part of an interconnected system. The diagram below is an excerpt from the score.

Ekrem Mlayim

r=24

r=18E xp anded Rhy thm C yc le of

double rotation (4 . 5x 2= 9 pu lses)

r=9E xp anded Rhy thm C yc le of

quadrup le rotation (2 . 25x4 = 9 pu lses)

r=18

r=16r=12

r=9

r=8

MODEL.01

01.E01

22

When David heard

Thomas Tomkins and Thomas Weelkes stem from the next generation of English composers. Tomkins being the more conservative of the two concentrated mainly on religious work, albeit in the newly reformed fashion. Weelkes on the other hand was a wayward drunk, eccentric and incapable of holding a job. Both were drawn to the David and Absalom story, perhaps for different reasons, but both realised a rendition of great emotional impact. Absalom the soldier, slain by Joab against the direct instructions of David, can easily be seen as one of the many young men drawn to battle and consumed in the heat of conflict, pointless victims to greater game of geo-political manoeuvres. Except for the fact that this soldier had a name Absalom, and his father was David King David.

Roland Peelman

Lamentations for six voices

English religious upheavals in the 16th century prevented liturgical use of Latin texts after 1549, but the Lamentations (and other works in Latin) continued to be written. Robert White wrote two extensive settings of the Jeremiah Lamentations. Both remain amongst the most unfairly neglected works of the English Renaissance. Like William Byrd, White was a catholic with talent and connections to boot. He was the son of an organ builder, obtained a music degree in Cambridge in 1560 and by 1562 was ready to take over Christopher Tyes position in Ely. After a stint at Chester Cathedral, he received the plum post of organist and master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey. Sadly, White and his family fell victim to a virulent outbreak of the plague in 1574.

Canberra Weekly is a proud sponsor of the

2015 Canberra International Music Festival

Canberra Weekly is a proud sponsor of the

2015 Canberra International Music Festival

24

The Silver-Garburg Piano Duo

In the great and often underappreciated art of piano duo playing, Sivan Silver and her partner Gil Garburg are setting a new standard: acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, the duo has been invited time and time again by top orchestras, festivals, and concert organizers. They have performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Vienna Musikverein, the Sydney Opera House, and the Berlin Philharmonie; they have concertized in approximately 70 countries on five continents; and they collaborate regularly with such orchestras as the Israel Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie.

Their recording of Mendelssohns concertos for two pianos and orchestra, with the Bavarian Chamber Philharmonic under Christopher Hogwood, has been called breathtaking (Bayerische Rundfunk), extremely exciting (Sddeutsche Zeitung), and brilliant (Rondo). The Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung raved about the lyrical sensitivity and the ravishing technical mastery of the duo, noting that only rarely does one experience such spontaneous shouts of bravo at the end of a concert. The Independent concluded: What a wondrous evening!

The two Israelis, who live in Berlin with their son,

can be heard all over the world during the 2014-15 season both with orchestra and in recitals. Upcoming engagements include tours with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and the Brno Philharmonic. The duos most recent recording, Stravinskys Petrushka and The Rite of Spring for four hands, is about to be released on the Berlin Classics label. An additional CD will be dedicated to the last works of Schubert.

In their late thirties, after 17 years of playing together, Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg are establishing themselves as a presence at the top echelon of the music world which, as a piano duo, requires a rare sense of oneness and of the ever-changing roles of the four hands. The avowed perfectionists rehearse for six hours each day, and the instinctive understanding between them is so deep that the two even breathe together. We express our own emotions and, at the same time, a combined sensibility. We are one, and yet were in dialogue with each other thats the magic, says Silver.

In 2014, the Graz University for the Arts unanimously chose the Silver-Garburg Duo to occupy one of the few extant professorships for piano duo. Previously, the pair taught at

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)Sonata for four hands in D major, Op. 61. Allegro molto2. Rondo, Moderato

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)Sonata in B minor (arr. Camille Saint-Sans)1. Lento assai - Allegro energico2. Grandioso - Recitativo3. Andante sostenuto - Quasi adagio4. Allegro energico - Stretta quasi presto - Presto

- Prestissimo - Andante sostenuto - Allegro moderato - Lento assai

Camille Saint-Sans (1835-1921)Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in A minor (arr. Claude Debussy)1. Introduction. Andante2. Rondo. Allegro ma non troppo

Gil Garburg and Sivan Silver piano

60 no interval

This concert is supported by Muriel Wilkinson and June Gordon

Monday 4 May, 6pm Fitters Workshop

Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and Embassy of Israel present:

CONCERT 11

Silver-Garburg Piano Duo

25

the Hannover Musikhochschule, where they themselves completed their studies in 2007 under Arie Vardi.

Silver and Garburg are invigorated by the need to constantly adapt to the demands of duo recitals and orchestral engagements, moving between intimate pieces that require unity, dialogic works, and those in which they evoke the grand power of an entire orchestra at the two pianos. As a piano duo, its easy to make effects with virtuosity. But that alone is far too little. We want to move our listeners emotionally and bring them to the core of the music.

Beethoven: Sonata for four hands in D major, Op. 6Music for two or more players at one keyboard began to come into prominence in the generation after J.S. Bach, as the piano began to displace the harpsichord as the default keyboard instrument in a well-equipped musical household. J.C. Bach contributed several sonatas to the four-hand piano repertoire. In the next generation, Mozart wrote a substantial quantity of exquisitely crafted and irresistibly appealing music for two pianists. Haydn was much less prolific in this medium; and his sometime pupil Beethoven contributed only a handful of early works to the four-hands literature. Of these, the most substantial is the two-movement Sonata in D Major, Op. 6, composed and published in 1797.

It is generally assumed that the D Major Sonata was composed as a teaching piece. Nonetheless, it foreshadows the composer's maturity in several respects The most striking omen of the mature Beethoven lies in the sonatas opening motif. If you take that three-shorts-and-a-long figure, change it from major to minor mode, and speed it up, you have the opening theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony -- arguably the single most famous piece of classical music in the world.

Liszt: Sonata in B minor (arr. Camille Saint-Sans)There are only three works in Liszt's vast output that belong to any sonata form: the Faust Symphony, the Dante Symphony, and the

Sonata in B minor for piano. This one-movement sonata makes the impression of a free, unbridled fantasia, virtually an improvisation; but in fact the whole work is tightly constructed from the music of the sonata's introduction.

The pianist and musicologist Alfred Brendel, among others, has claimed for years that the sonata is related to the Faust legend. Some musicologists have also argued that the piece is autobiographical, and point out that such a view would not exclude a Faustian interpretation.

Saint-Sans: Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in A minor (arr. Claude Debussy)This work is one of Saint-Sans' few genuine showpieces. Composed for his friend, the virtuoso violinist Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)it is deliberately challenging -- a testimony to the mature master's technique. Sarasate's frequent programming of the work did a great deal for its popularity in the years after its publication (1870); its appeal was wide enough, in fact, that both George Bizet and Claude Debussy made arrangements of it -- the former for violin and piano, and the latter for piano, four hands.

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Tuesday 5 May, Midday Mount Stromlo CONCERT 12

Sounds on Site II: Space Explorationwith Prof. Brian Schmidt, Director, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, ANU

I. At the Oddie Telescope (1911)

Kate Moore (b. 1979)Dolorosa (2014) WP for cello, electric guitar, vibraphone and live electronics

II. On top of sculpture platform Walking on the Moon Anne Graham (2007)

Kate Moore Rain (1998) for solo snare drum

III. In the Yale-Columbia Telescope ruined shell (1925)

Kate Moore Sliabh Beagh (Little Mountain) (2014/15) WP for piano solo Commissioned by Lisa Moore with assistance from the Australia Council

IV. In the Directors Residence

Kate Moore To that which is endless (2015) for keyboard and winds, reconfigured for CIMF 2015

V. In the Visitors Centre

Kate Moore Voiceworks (2015)

Prof. Brian Schmidt talks on Space Exploration

Pete Harden electric guitarBree van Reyk percussionKate Moore cello, sound designLisa Moore piano

90 no interval

This concert is supported by Bev and Don Aitkin

Roland Peelman in conversation with Kate Moore, Composer in Residence

RP: Coming back to Canberra, how does it feel?

KM: A concoction of mixed emotions! On the one hand it is very familiar to me, but I am observing the city now as an outsider. It is the quiet, almost desolate landscape that surrounds the city that speaks to me most. It promises solitude. The subdued colours of hazy eucalyptus blues and purples and sun parched green, yellow ochre and white adds mystical buoyancy to the place. It draws me in. My time in Canberra, particularly

at The Australian National University, was formative for me. It was a place of learning and the excitement of discovering something new.

RP: I believe you are close to the performers on Mount Stromlo. Tell us a bit more about those connections.

KM: It all began with the new piece commissioned for Lisa Moore, Sliabh Beagh. Lisa invited me to write a new work about Australians with Irish

27

ancestry. Having the same surname as Lisa, we exchanged stories about our heritage, trying to work out if we might be related. Were not, as far as we know.

My fathers family migrated from Ireland in 1841. They were farmers coming from country straddling the borders of County Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone. This landscape is called Sliagh Beagh, which means Little Mountain. My grandfather Harry passed away last year, so I decided to make this piece a tribute to him. He was the last Moore to work the land of a long line tracing back to the beginning of time. It seems fitting to premiere this piece on Mount Stromlo where my father works. My father was the first of our family to receive a doctorate and work away from the land. He is a physicist and works on Mount Stromlo.

The burnt-out telescopes are a fitting reminder of the battle between the destructive force of nature and the fragility of the culture placed upon it. No matter how great the learning, how enlightened the information, how much we know, we are at the mercy of our great planet.

In the end, the Mount Stromlo project has turned out to be quite a family affair. Rain I wrote in 1998 when I was a student at the Canberra School of Music. It was inspired by the rhythms of raindrops dancing upon a corrugated iron roof. I love the sound of rainstorms that plummet to the dry earth after a long period of drought. The drops sound like they are drumming complicated

polyrhythms and dance beats. I wrote it for Bree van Reyk all those years ago in Canberra when we were students together. The funny part of the story is that, within a week of arriving back in Australia in January, I met up with Bree in Sydney. She asked me what I was doing over the weekend. As it happened I was heading to Singleton to visit my grandmother. Bree asked me: Is your family from Singleton too? Turns out that not only is Brees family also from Singleton but our fathers, both named Chris, were in the same class at Singleton High School and both played the guitar! I have known Bree for 18 years and this never came up in conversation until now! So I guess this event on Mount Stromlo is just meant to be and its all about family; my blood family and my musician family.

RP: 'The Dam' what does that refer to?

KM: Coming back to Australia this year I helped my mothers family move house from Annandale in Sydney to their property in the Southern Highlands. On this property there is a dam, and I have spent many late summer afternoons sitting by the dam listening to the great orchestra of creatures that inhabit it. I close my eyes and let my ears soak in the music of thousands of crickets that are gradually drowned out by the dusk chorus of frogs and birds. This is my favourite music of all time and I try to let that inform the music I write, a painterly soundscape depicting the rich vitality and energy of wildlife in their native habitat.

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Tuesday 5 May, 6pm Fitters Workshop

Tim Benson presents:

CONCERT 13

Russian Masters

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)Sonata No. 4 in F sharp major Op. 301. Andante2. Prestissimo volando

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)Pribaoutki (1914)

Trois pices faciles (1915)1. March2. Waltz3. Polka

Berceuses du chat (1915)

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)Blessed is the Man from the Vespers Op. 37

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)Pome, Vers la flamme for piano, Op. 72

INTERVAL

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 (1940)1. Prelude. Lent - Poco pi mosso - Lento2. Fugue. Adagio3. Scherzo. Allegretto4. Intermezzo. Lento - Appassionato5. Finale. Allegretto

Andrew OConnor bass-baritone

Tobias Cole alto

Maria Mazo, Gabi Sultana and Daniel de Borah piano

Andrew Leathwick and Adam McMillan piano

Tinalley String Quartet:Eoin Anderson violin

Lerida Delbridge violinJustin Williams violaMichelle Wood cello

ANAM wind players

ANAM string players

Kyle Daniel double bass

Robert Scott, Jason Noble clarinet

The Song Company and YAFF vocalists

110 including interval

This concert is supported by Gail Ford

Russian Masters

However we choose to hear it today, there is little doubt that for many of his contemporaries the scandalous sounds of Igor Stravinskys third great ballet for Diaghilev in Paris, The Rite of Spring, were heard as an ominous prelude to war. Stravinsky himself was far from immune to the changing temper of the times, as evidenced by the tortured genesis of his next ballet, Les noces, and the works that were to follow it. The

broader changes in aesthetic thinking that they reflected were to become known Germany as Neue Sachlichkeit, or the New Objectivity, and elsewhere as Neo-Classicism. Composers across Europe reacted to the destruction wrought by both the Great War and by the perceived excesses of the hyper-romantic music that preceded it. They sought instead to reassert principles of order, control and objectivity in art.

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This return to order, however, also included grotesque and absurdist dimensions, perhaps most famously reflected in the post-war Dada movement. But the grotesque had also long been a character common to Russian literature, reflecting, perhaps, the attempts of artists there to come to terms with the particularly disorientating impact of social and technological change through the nineteenth century that preceded the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Pribaoutki (1914) is a cycle of four songs Stravinsky composed in 1914 to Russian texts by Alexander Afanasyev that reflects both emerging aesthetic characteristics. Its Russian title has no direct English equivalent, although Nonsense Rhymes has been suggested. Trois pices faciles (1915) (Three easy pieces) for Piano Duet is in a more overtly grotesque vein, but also looks back to the similar distortions of dance music forms that can be heard in his ballet Petruschka (1911).

The Berceuses du chat (1915) (Cats Cradle Songs) reflect Stravinksys continuing interest

in Russian folk song. With the onset of war Stravinsky had lost access to the land of his birth, and there is no doubt that this interest took on added significance as a result. Certainly, he could draw upon first-hand knowledge of his subject matter; as was

the custom for well-to-do urban families, the Stravinskys had spent their summer holidays in the countryside, where the young composer gained direct experience of Russian and Ukrainian folk traditions.

For Stravinskys older Russian contemporary, Alexander Scriabin, a sense of social dislocation was to find expression more through the exploration of unconventional forms of spirituality, and by his parallel attempts to express this interest in spirituality through equally unconventional musical devices. In his Pome, Vers la flamme Op. 72, for example,

Scriabin sets a rather simple melody to a highly unusual accompaniment, both in terms of harmony and texture. According to Vladimir Horowitz, this was inspired by Scriabins eccentric conviction that a constant accumulation of heat would ultimately cause the destruction of

the world (hence toward the flame).

Peter Tregear

Like the works in the first half of this program, Shostakovichs Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 was composed under the shadow of developing conflict. In 1940 most of Europe had already plunged into war. The Soviet Union, though ostensibly protected by a non-aggression pact signed by both Stalin and Hitler, was already beginning to face the certainty of conflict, though no one could imagine the actual brutality of the Great Patriotic War which was to come. Yet the country was quiet, like the proverbial calm before the storm.

As with much of music, the Piano Quintet is a historical reflection of its time. It is a gravely serene piece marked by a simplicity of texture, especially in the piano writing. This clarity and accessibility was reflected in the popularity of the work immediately after its premiere. Rostislav Dubinsky, original first violinist of the Borodin Quartet, recalls in his book, Not By Music Alone: For a time the Quintet overshadowed even such events as the football matches between the main teams. The Quintet was discussed in trams, and people tried to sing in the streets the defiant second theme of the finale.

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Wednesday 6 May, Midday, The Shine Dome CONCERT 14

Sounds on Site III: String Theory

In memory of Professor Michael Raupach (1950-2015)

with Prof. Craig Savage,

Department of Quantum Science, Research School of Physics and Engineering, ANU

New Zealand String Quartet:Helene Pohl violin

Douglas Beilman violinGillian Ansell violaRolf Gjelsten cello

Barbara Jane Gilby violin

Lerida Williams violin

Kyle Daniel double bass

YAFF string players

Claire Edwardes marimba

This concert is supported by Dianne and Brian Anderson

Ross Harris (b. 1945)'Variation 25 for string quartet' (2008)

Martin Wesley-Smith (b. 1945)For marimba and tape

John Psathas (b. 1966)'Unbridled, Manos Breathes the Voice of Life into Kartsigar' (2004)

Address by Prof. Craig Savage

Roger Smalley (b. 1943)Strung-out (1987)

75 no interval

Variation 25 for string quartet

The title refers to the 25th Variation of the Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach. When I heard the New Zealand String Quartet perform the Goldberg Variations during their Bach and Mendelssohn series in 2007, I had a strong desire to pay my respects to the beauty and richness of the music and to write another work for the wonderful New Zealand String Quartet. I set about doing this by taking the music of the 25th Variation and using

it as the basis of a single movement for string quartet. The work begins with canonic additions to the original and evolves from there.

Variation 25 was written while I was the Jack Richards/Creative New Zealand Composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music in 2008.

Ross Harris

6D Calabi-Yau quintic manifold

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For marimba and tape

Martin Wesley-Smith has earned a reputation with songs for all occasions as well as through-composed vocal works such as the classic Who killed Cock Robin, the award-winning Quito or the more recent satirical work doublethink. Equally remarkable is his oeuvre of audio-visual pieces that combine computer-generated sounds with images and live performance such as Kdadalak or Papua Merdeka. In a lifetime of creative work that consistently took its lead from hot political hot issues (oppression in East Timor, PNG and/or any perceived instance of

political hypocrisy), one could easily forget that he set up the electronic studio at the Sydney Conservatorium and composed a number of perfectly crafted instrumental works that have remained in the repertoire. Arguably his most often-performed solo work is For marimba and tape from 1982. Created on the Fairlight CMI and lauded for its spirit of intelligent enquiry (The Independent, London 1988), the works cascading marimba runs ricocheting against witty electronic banter still fascinates and entertains.

'Unbridled, Manos Breathes the Voice of Life into Kartsigar'

In Greek music taximia form part of an oral tradition where improvisation played an important role. Songs always began with an instrumental prelude, the taximi, in which a musician showed off his prowess. This set the mood for the song to follow, and could last for as long as twenty minutes.

This work began as a transcription of a recording of a traditional taximi entitled Kartsigar, as performed by one of Greeces living master-musicians, clarino player Manos Achalinotopoulos (whose surname translates as he who cannot be bridled).

The taximi Kartsigar comprises two elements, an ostinato and the improvised melody. The melody forms the basis of the first movement of the quartet, and the ostinato forms the basis of

the second. In this piece the traditional ostinato has been removed and replaced by a pedal note (F-sharp), which creates a very different set of tensions and resolutions for the improvised melody.

When talking with Manos about his approach to playing the clarino, it becomes clear that his concept is of emulating as nearly as possible the human voice. This is the ideal that lies at the heart of much traditional musical expression in the instrumental folk music of Greece, and it is the key to understanding the phenomenon of listening to a unique player such as Manos and becoming gradually unaware of the presence of the instrument he is playing.

John Psathas

Strung Out (1987)

Born near Manchester in 1943, Roger Smalley is part of a remarkable group of British late 20th century composers who had their feet firmly planted in European structuralism and developed a soundworld reflecting the terse anti-romantic agenda of serialism at first before giving way to a mellower harmonic idiom that allowed a new level of freedom. After settling in Western Australia as Professor of Music, Smalley re-discovered the 19th century, which prompted a series of tautly constructed and vividly imagined concert works, often inspired by the nature itself

of the instrument. Strung Out is no exception. The initial idea of the work was a strung-out symmetrical seating arrangement with the double bass in central position and four violins each at the outer ends. Two types of material (slow and static verses fast and active) alternate, merge, and alternate again. The composer likened this idea to a series of beads - of differing sizes, shapes and colours - strung-out on a thread at varying distances apart.

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Wednesday 6 May, 6pm Fitters Workshop

CITY NEWS presents:

CONCERT 15 Order of the Virtues

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)Ordo Virtutum

Cast

Patriarchae et prophetae Patriarchs and Prophets Owen ElsleyRichard Black

Koen van StadeMark Donnelly

Andrew OConnorAndrew Fysh

Querela animarum Lament of the Souls Owen ElsleyRichard Black

Koen van StadeMark Donnelly

Anima The Soul Anna Fraser

Virtutes VirtuesScientia dei Knowledge of God Melissa GregoryHumilitas Humility Hannah FraserVirtute Virtue Samuel MitchellCaritas Charity Mark DonnellyTimor Dei Fear of God Andrew OConnorObedientia Obedience Melissa GregoryFides Faith Sonya HolowellSpes Hope Greg BrennanCastitas Chastity Owen ElsleyInnocentia Innocence Padraic CostelloContemptus mundi Contempt of the World Andrew FyshAmor caelestis Heavenly Love Andrew OConnorDisciplina Discipline Koen van StadeVerecundia Shame Mark DonnellyMisericordia Mercy Susannah LawergrenVictoria Victory Grace LeonardDiscretio Discretion Richard BlackPatientia Patience Leighton Triplow

Diabolus The Devil Clive Birch

directed by Koen van Stade

70 no interval

This concert is supported by

Jim and Peronelle Windeyer

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synopsis

Part I Prologue: Introduction of the Virtues to the Patriarchs and Prophets, who express their amazement at the Virtues.

Part II A group of souls, imprisoned in human bodies, voice their complaints and frustrations and regret their sins. One particular soul, Anima, is eager to escape life and go straight to Heaven. The Virtues tell her that she has to live first. The Devil tries to seduce her.

Part III The Virtues introduce themselves while the Devil occasionally interrupts and insults them.

Part IV Anima returns and shows penitence. The Virtues accept her and turn on the Devil. After defeating him, they praise God.

Part V enVoI: A musical contemplation on the difficult earthly journeys of the souls, and a hopeful plea for God to reach out and offer help.

Ordo Virtutum

Born in 1098, the sickly tenth child of a wealthy and influential family, Hildegard was sent at the age of 8 to live and study with a girl six years her elder, Jutta von Spanheim, who taught her to read and perhaps to sing. Six years later the two girls were enclosed at a Benedictine monastery, of which Jutta served as abbess. After Juttas death some years later, Hildegard established her own nunnery at Rupertsberg near Bingen, and developed an extraordinary career as a writer of religious and scientific books, of poetry and music, and of some 400 letters; as a preacher, and as a vigorous practitioner of Church politics.

Since childhood Hildegard had had visions, which continued well into her adult life. Over many years she compiled, with her confessor and secretary Volmar, three large books in which she both describes her visions and interprets them. The first of these, entitled Scivias (Know the ways of the Lord), concludes with a set of songs summarising the visions she has described in the text, and in the final portion, a dialogue in which a penitent souls pilgrimage to heaven is represented in dramatic form.

Music was an essential element of the medieval religious world in which Hildegard lived; it has been calculated that she spent at least 4 hours a day engaged in chant. For Hildegard, music was a medium of direct communication with God, and the 77 surviving liturgical works written for her nuns are the corpus of work

for which she is most widely known today. A striking feature of her music is the way in which she extended the compass of her vocal palette: at a time when the compass of religious chant was rarely more than an octave, and the intervals between successive notes rarely more than two or three tones, Hildegard wrote lines that leapt by fourths and fifths, and required a range of two octaves and more in her singers.

The child of a wealthy family, Hildegards earliest years would have been spent in a world of fine

fabrics, and however ascetic her personal life as a religious may have been, she evidently took pleasure in visualising shining robes for her nuns to wear while singing. Clearly Hildegard saw the potential for theatre to serve in religious worship. Poet, musician and costume designer - all these talents came together when Hildegard created one of the earliest known morality plays, Ordo virtutum - The Order of the Virtues, an elaboration of the story of redemption in the final

section of the Scivias.

We can assume that Hildegards nuns would have been cast in the singing roles of the Soul and the Virtues. The Devil, having no place in the heavenly order, has only a spoken part, described in the text as strepitus a hoarse shouting voice. Monks from a neighbouring monastery were probably recruited to sing the brief parts of the Prophets and Patriarchs.

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Thursday 7 May, Midday Australian National Botanic Gardens

ACTEW presents:

CONCERT 16

Sounds on Site IV: Forest Music

with Dr. Judy West, Executive Director, Australian National Botanic Gardens

In memory of Dr Tony McMichael (1942-2014)

A musical treasure hunt through the gardens, with an address by Dr. Judy West

Performers include:

Oguz Mlayim neyPete Harden electric guitar

James Nightingale saxophoneAlex Raupach trumpetEnsemble Offspring:

Claire Edwardes percussionBree van Reyk percussion

Jason Noble clarinetThe Song Company

Alexander Hunter and the ANU Experimental Music StudioThe YAFF instrumentalists

90 no interval

This concert is supported by Judith Healy

in memory of Tony McMichael

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS, CLUNIES ROSS ST, ACTON

Nestled at the foot of Black Mountain lies the Australian National Botanic Gardens, home of the worlds most comprehensive collection of Australian native plants. A visit to the Gardens takes you on a journey across Australias iconic landscapes from the lush greenery of Australias eastern coastal rainforest, through the grassy eucalypt woodlands, to the arid desert of Central Australia.

With its mission to inspire, inform and connect people to the Australian flora, the Australian National Botanic Gardens is the only national institution with a national collection that is truly alive. Displaying over 6,300 native plant species - showcased in themed landscapes that span across 35 hectares of water-wise and sustainably managed gardens.

The Gardens forms part of Parks Australia a Commonwealth network of reserves that includes such places as Kakadu National Park and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

Prime Minister John Gorton opened the Gardens as Canberra Botanic Gardens on 20th October 1970. Growing recognition of the Gardens importance as a national collection with plants from all over Australia led to the adoption of its new name, National Botanic Gardens in 1978. Australian was added to the official name in 1984 to identify the Gardens as the main national institution for botany and horticulture.

The Australian National Botanic Gardens is one of the first botanic gardens in the world to adopt the study and display of native plant species as a principal goal. In the 1970s the Gardens work

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in this area sparked national interest in Australian plants for suburban and public landscaping. Today, the Gardens is increasingly involved in the conservation of native plants through restoration projects, seed banking and species recovery projects.

To help grow and share the beauty of the Gardens, the Friends of the Australian National Botanic Gardens was founded in 1990 and has grown rapidly to include a broad group of people from all walks of life - united by a common desire to support and be part of the Gardens ongoing mission to inspire, inform and connect people to the Australian flora.

The Australian National Botanic Gardens offers visitors the opportunity to engage with its living collection in more ways than one - through a

range of self-guided walks, free twice daily guided walks, Flora Explorer electric bus tours, afterDARK evening experiences, talks, workshops, events and public programs.

On 7 May 2015, the Australian National Botanic

Gardens hosts a musical treasure hunt as part of the 2015 Canberra International Music Festival when the Gardens host Forest Music, with musicians performing underneath its canopy and amongst the array of plants and gardens. A complementary addition to the Australian National Botanic Gardens, classical music has been widely attested to enhance the growth and metabolism of plants due to the soft melodic pulsations that are created. Both the plants and visitors will enjoy this special event.

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Thursday 7 May, 6pm Fitters Workshop

Canberra Weekly presents:

CONCERT 17

Brahms at Twilight

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)Three Intermezzi for piano from Op. 1191. Intermezzo in B minor. Adagio2. Intermezzo in E minor. Andantino un poco

agitato3. Intermezzo in C major. Grazioso e giocoso

Johannes BrahmsTwo Songs Op. 91 for alto, viola and piano1. Gestillte Sehnsucht (Yearning Appeased)

text by Friedrich Rckert2. Geistliches Wiegenlied (Spiritual Lullaby)

text by Emanuel Geibel, from a Spanish poem by Lope de Vega

Johannes BrahmsString Quartet No. 3 in B flat Op. 671. Vivace2. Andante3. Agitato (Allegretto non troppo) Trio Coda4. Poco allegretto con variazioni

Daniel de Borah piano

Hannah Fraser mezzo-soprano

New Zealand String Quartet:Helene Pohl violin

Douglas Beilman violinGillian Ansell violaRolf Gjelsten cello

65 no interval

This concert is supported by Anna and Bob Prosser

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Three Intermezzi for piano from Op. 119

Although Brahms late piano works are brief, they are among the most complex, dense, and reflecti