Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 12 Mar 2025
The Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) is a nationally and internationally respected classical music performance training academy for Australia’s best young musicians who are well along the path to establishing themselves as musical forces to be reckoned with. Simone Young AM, who should need no introduction, has opined that “ANAM is an extraordinary institution: intense, demanding, challenging and immensely rewarding to be involved with. The musicians are totally engaged and committed.”
ANAM’s recent concert – A Viennese Matinée – as part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express Series is a palpable testament to Young’s assessment. The concert presented a tantalising taste of the musical culture of Vienna, that most musical of cities, and included works by Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, and J. Strauss. The program was performed by six ANAM students, including three with Adelaide connections, and two of ANAM’s faculty, including Paavali Jumppanen, who is ANAM’s Artistic Director and an internationally celebrated piano virtuoso in his own right, and violinist Zoë Black.
Schubert’s sublimely beautiful Notturno for Piano Trio, Op.148 (D.897) was performed by Jasmine Milton (violin), Jack Overall (cello) and Paavali Jumppanen (piano). The piece begins delicately with bell like tones on the piano and gentle pizzicato on the strings, before the drama starts with an emphatic tutti. The pace was more measured than what is often presented allowing musical technique to be more exposed and scrutinised, but Jumppanen kept a tight rein, and both Milton and Overall, never faulted. A delightful start to the program!
Maria Zhdanovich (Flute) and Georgia White (clarinet) then performed duet arrangements of dances from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. The arrangements were finely balanced and elegant, and the articulation of both performers was exceptional. It’s as if the two pieces were always intended for flute and clarinet alone.
The main item on the program was Beethoven’s monumental Violin Sonata No.9 in A major, Op.47, but arranged for string quintet, featuring Zoe Black and Jasmine Milton on violin, Jamie Miles on viola, and Ariel Volovelsky and Jack Overall on cello. Scholars believe that it is likely that Beethoven himself arranged the work for string quintet in order to draw out the emotion and drama that he intended but could not find it with the piano and violin alone. Interestingly, the usual combination of instruments for a string quintet at the time included two violas, not two cellos, which gives the piece an earthier sound with much more gravitas. However, most people know the Kreutzer in its usual form for violin and piano, and many members of the audience, regardless of their appreciation in hearing the quintet format, stated their preference for the original! The original has a delicateness to it at times, which feels lost when the dialogue between two instruments becomes a cross-conversation between five. Sections of the audience applauded after each of the first two movements, but the applause at the end of the finale was thunderous!
The program concluded with Arnold Schoenberg’s arrangement of Johann Strauss II’s Emperor Waltz Op.437. Originally scored for a full orchestra, Schoenberg’s arrangement for a reduced chamber ensemble underlines his belief that it promotes “a clarity of presentation and a simplicity of formal enunciation often not possible in a rendition obscured by the richness of orchestration”. Indeed, one might suggest the listening experience becomes more challenging, as melody lines and accompaniment become more exposed. In some ways, the reverse was experienced in the listening of the expanded version of Beethoven’s Kreutzer! The full ANAM ensemble clearly enjoyed performing the arrangement, and the final movement was especially appealing in its clarity.
ANAM is an organisation to be cherished and supported at every opportunity. Our Australian musical landscape is the richer for it.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 11 Mar 2025
As part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express Series at the Elder Hall, French-German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt presented a one-off concert of virtuosic gems that was bookended by two Bach suites for Solo Cello. On a warm early-Autumn afternoon, the Elder Hall was near capacity, such is Altstaedt’s celebrity. A single bench seat was located centre stage and there was an air of anticipation as the large audience waited for Altstaedt to make his eagerly awaited entrance.
With tousled hair (think Albert Einstein or Mischa Maisky) and all-black loose-fitting informal clothes, Altstaedt strode onto the stage with his 1749 Guadagnini cello in hand, sat down, and with no fuss immediately commenced his recital with JS Bach’s Suite for Cello No.1 in G major, BWV1007. There can’t be too many people who are not at least vaguely familiar with its seductively haunting Prélude. It’s a classic ear worm, and with his Guadagnini tuned slightly lower to A415 (rather than the modern standard of A440) in keeping with a baroque era fashion, the pensive melody with its tripping arpeggios danced lightly throughout the expanse of the acoustically splendid Elder Hall.
Altstaedt cut a lonely figure on the stage, almost vulnerable, but here was a musician who is at home with Bach. Rather than being exposed to the intricacies of the dances that comprise the suites, Altstaedt makes them his own with razor sharp intonation and phrasing, and immaculately controlled dynamics. His pianissimo has devastating impact. Each of Bach’s six cello suites follows the same pattern of movements, with the Sarabande dance being the centre piece. In both Suite No.1 and Suite No.5 in C minor, BWV1011, which ended the concert, Altstaedt drew out the dreaminess and sensuousness of the Sarabandes. His readings were transporting.
Between the Bach bookends were two modern compositions for unaccompanied cello, and their contrast with the Bach was both stark and exciting.
Henri Dutilleux’s Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher, composed as a tribute to the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, was first performed in 1982 by the iconic Mstislav Rostropovitch. It requires the G and C strings to be tuned a semi-tone lower, which gives the sound of the instrument a somewhat darker colour on open strings. Altstaedt laid bare the liveliness and glittering tonal palette and striking rhythms of the three movements, especially in the concluding Vivace.
Altstaedt addressed the audience in between each composition and took the opportunity to outline interesting aspects including about the different tunings. Introducing Sándor Veress’s Sonata for Cello Solo, he opined that it is rarely played and that Veress has, by and large, been undeservedly overlooked as a composer. The sonata feels spontaneous, and there is an innate tension between logical development and form over what almost feels like extemporisation at times. As with the Dutilleux, Altstaedt finds threads that are not self-evident to someone who has little or no prior experience with the piece and uses them to shape a compelling performance. The applause for the Veress was exuberant, insistent, and richly deserved
The striking contrast between the two Bach Suites and the modernist pieces by Dutilleux and Veress made for an almost mesmeric concert that was made all the more special for being performed by one of today’s finest exponents of the cello. Not too many are wolf-whistled at concert end!
Kym Clayton
When: 11 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 28 Feb 2025
By any measure, Innocence is a remarkable and enthralling piece of theatre. At the very start it grabs your attention – demands your attention – with the moody and foreboding overture that demonstrates a composer at the very heights of her compositional powers. It demands your attention when the curtain rises to reveal one of the most imposing sets you will experience on any stage. It sustains your attention as the set starts to slowly rotate, with only moments of pause throughout the next one-hundred-and-five non-stop minutes. It amplifies your attention as you bear witness and listen to one of the most harrowing stories unfold.
Hyperbole? Not at all. If anything, the above understates the impact Innocence has on the audience. Many Adelaide Festivals have a grand opera touted as their centrepiece, but this one blows them all away. The claim is real. Innocence is legacy of former festival Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy, and it is difficult to see how current Artistic Director Brett Sheehey AO can better this.
Innocence is presented by the Adelaide Festival in association with State Opera South Australia, and is a co-commission and co-production of Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, San Francisco Opera, Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Finnish National Opera, Ballet Helsinki, and in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera New York. With such impressive resources behind it, one is entitled to expect nothing less than artistic excellence of the highest order, and one’s expectations are met by the bucket load!
Innocence, with music by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and libretto by Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, explores themes of trauma, memory, and reconciliation. Set in a contemporary world, it centres around the aftermath of a shooting at an international school that occurred years earlier. The opera follows a group of people – students, teachers, and parents – who gather to reflect on the events and confront the haunting memories of that tragic day.
At its core, Innocence delves into how the past, particularly moments of violence, shapes the lives of individuals and communities. The narrative structure weaves together the perspectives of the characters, uncovering their inner conflicts, guilt, and the difficulty of moving forward. The shooting, which initially seems like a singular catastrophic event, is revealed to have far-reaching and complex emotional repercussions for all involved.
With its experimental score, the opera uses sound, atmosphere, and minimalism to create a deeply immersive experience. The music and vocal lines are often dissonant and frequently include uncomfortable intervals – it frequently evokes thoughts of Alban Berg’s music. The characters are caught in a web of fragmented memories and shifting identities, questioning the very notion of innocence in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Every character in the opera is touched in some way by the horrors of the shooting and feels guilt: the survivors because they survived; those indirectly impacted because they wonder why those more directly affected can’t put it all behind them. Human emotions are multifaceted and run deep.
Every character in Innocence is complex, and every member of the cast reaches deep inside their artistic being to bring Innocence to life, and they succeed admirably. No-one really stands out – it is a true ensemble piece. The singing is uniformly excellent, but the parochial audience especially enjoyed the commanding and warming tones of Teddy Tahu Rhodes. The text is sung in multiple languages, including English – a nod to the setting of the International School – and the surtitles are absolutely essential, but they are well designed and only a glance is needed to understand what is transpiring on stage.
Ultimately, Innocence is not just about remembering a violent act but also about the possibility of healing and the fragile nature of collective memory.
In interview, director Simon Stone describes Innocence as an “extraordinarily therapeutic opera about the need for honesty in the process of grief, and honesty in the process of recovering from a trauma” and as an “incredibly beautiful exploration of the scars we carry with us and the need to sometimes reopen wounds to make sure we can heal them properly the second time round.”
Stone is correct, and his vision for the opera comes through clearly, infusing everything with meaning and purpose. No member of the audience leaves the performance without being impacted and without questioning their own understanding of what it is to experience loss and subsequently grieve in a way that is visceral, inimitable, authentic and that provides an assured platform upon which to re-establish one’s sense of purpose and being.
The set has to be seen to be believed. It comprises a large two-story structure set on a revolve. Each of the two levels comprise a series of interconnected rooms that variously become a reception venue for a wedding including an impressive commercial kitchen, a café, classrooms in an international school, bathrooms, storage rooms, antechambers, balconies and the like. There is free movement between the levels via a staircase, and each room is independently and tastefully lit to make it easier to quickly see who is singing and where. The colours evoke mood at all times. When a room revolves out of sight and reappears some minutes later it has been transformed into something else. It is all done effortlessly and, crucially, unnoticed – the large backstage crew do a remarkable job, and fully deserve being brought onto stage and singled out as part of the final curtain call. The stage managers are to be commended.
French conductor Clément Mao-Takacs is more than a musician and expert conductor. He is clearly a creature of the theatre and understands the need for music and the elements of stage to work hand in glove. Like Escher’s hands, one produces the other – they are co-dependent. Mao-Takacs ensures the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is empathetic to everything that happens on stage. The music never dominates at the expense of the acting or singing, and individual instruments are allowed to feature just to the right degree. Frequently dissonance sounded consonant!
Christie Anderson, as chorus master of the combined Adelaide Chamber Singers and State Opera South Australia Chorus, again weaves her magic. The chorus is almost entirely out of sight but is heard as clear as a whistle. Impressive.
The text “I loved my brother. I love him still.” was sung by the bridegroom (Sean Panikkar), the brother of the mass murderer, in the purest and most heartfelt tones. Similarly, the single line “Let me go” was sung in the most disarming and sweet manner by the ghost of Markéta, one of the slain students to her grieving and inconsolable mother.
These two short sung texts are the most harmonic in the entire opera. They are brief beacons of love and hope, which is what Innocence is ultimately about.
Innocence is not to be missed. It is unique.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Feb to 5 Mar
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Elder Hall. 28 Feb 2025
Ensemble Lumen is a newly mined ensemble and comprises members of the faculty of the iconic Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide. In fact, today’s concert entitled Towards the Light, which is a nod to the university’s motto ‘Sub Cruce lumen’ (translating roughly as "the light (of learning) under the (Southern) Cross"), was the very first concert given by the ensemble.
The ensemble comprises Lloyd Van’t Hoff, clarinet, Emma Gregan, French horn, Lucinda Collins, piano, Anna Goldsworthy, piano, Elizabeth Layton, violin, Stephen King, viola, and Edith Salzmann, cello. It goes without saying – but let’s say it anyway – that they are all excellent musicians at the top of their game, and together they are even better.
The program notes provide a rationale for the title of the program and state that “…Ensemble Lumen explores facets of light in all its radiant forms. The program will illuminate the rarely heard music of William Shield, whose melodies once charmed the ears of Mozart and Beethoven. Dai Fujikura brings the solo horn to life in Yurayura, conjuring the mesmerising dance of a candle-lit flame. The Australian première of Libby Larsen’s Trio Noir draws a shimmering sonic parallel between music and the mystery of film noir, while Dohnányi’s sweeping Sextet embarks on a dramatic journey through light and shadow.”
It is not self-evident that the chosen compositions flesh out the rationale, and it’s arguable from the perspective of an audience member whether a program needs such a logical framework to ‘make it work’, but presumably it helps the musicians to design and perform a coherent performance. After all, the human mind constantly seeks patterns and structure in order to make sense of things.
William Shield’s String Trio No.8 in F major is an absolute light, but his music is not often heard in concert halls, except perhaps at the Elder hall. It was performed there in 2021 by The Dorrit Ensemble at a lunchtime concert, which included two of the members of Ensemble Lumen, namely Elizabeth Layton and Edith Salzmann. In today’s performance, Layton, King and Salzmann exposed the joy, lightness and humour inherent in the piece. It’s uncomplicated music, but it demands finesse and meticulousness, which the three performers provided in spades!
Yurayura for solo horn by contemporary Japanese composer Dai Fujikura requires the performer to produce a throng of interesting sounds that sound anything like a horn. At its very start, the half-depressed valves make it sound like a gently playing clarinet, and later like a small string ensemble reaching a crescendo and then waning into breathlessness. Perhaps the likening of the piece to a dancing candle flame is apt after all.
Libby Larsen is a contemporary American composer and her composition Trio Noir for clarinet, cello, piano received its Australian première at today’s concert. Collins begins the piece with a foreboding sequence of rising chords before Salzmann enters with a sustained rising two note phrase that reaches higher and encourages Van’t Hoff to settle the feelings of presentiment. But the colour changes and the mood constantly shifts; variously ominous, portentous, spirited, optimistic.
And then to the major work of the program. Erno Dohnányi’s Sextet in C Major Op. 37 is a substantial composition and involves all members of the ensemble, except for Goldsworthy. The instrumentation is uncommon and therefore the piece does not find its way into concert halls all that often. (Maybe Ensemble Lumen was created with Dohnányi’s Sextet in mind?) The aural effects are diverse, lush and jazz infused at times. The writing is both dramatic and introspective. The composition is infused with enjoyable melodies, but none are destined to become ear worms: they are light, humorous and interesting. There is a strong sense of development throughout the four movements as various instruments take the lead, and the sound seems bigger than it should be because of the interesting and commanding horn line. And then comes the final movement: it’s jazzy, fun, chaotic, and climaxes with a false finish (which trapped this reviewer!) before finally ending in a tutti flourish.
Ensemble Lumen are a tight outfit and have shone a probing light onto some seldom played gems of the repertoire. Long may their light burn brightly.
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Feb
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Light Room Bar at ILA. 26 Feb 2025
Aidan Jones is a pianist, and a comedian. There have been others before him who have successfully paired the two ‘disciplines’, such as the iconic Victor Borge, but Jones is an altogether different proposition. His show, Chopin’s Nocturne, is an homage to Chopin’s much-loved Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2. Audience members of a certain type and of more mature years would recognise the tune as the theme from the 1956 film Eddy Duchin Story starring Tyrone Power and Kim Novak. Younger members of the audience who are students of the piano might remember it as a Grade 8 examination piece for piano. Regardless, it is a beautiful piece of music, and Jones extolls its virtues as he dissects and questions it, and muses how it appeals to his thinking mind and what Chopin might have been thinking about as he composed it.
For fifty fast-paced minutes he trots out oh-so-funny anecdotes about his first job (as a shelf stacker in a supermarket), through to his failed audition as a piano student at the Elder Conservatorium of music (he chose not to learn the all the required pieces – instant fail), and his desire to be a comedian. During the lock-down years early in the COVID pandemic he set himself the task of learning the Nocturne, and succeeded, although when he finishes the show with an almost full performance of it, it is clear that he is still a maverick and he doesn’t quite follow the score as originally written, but it’s fun! As Jones quipped, “Sometimes you just say f**g stuff” and that’s what he does throughout his performance, and the one liners come thick and fast. Even Goya the artist slips in. You have to be there to see how it fits with the narrative about the music.
His dissection of the piece would enrage a musicologist – oh so offhand – but he demonstrates passionately to the audience what he has personally found in the Nocturne and what it means to him. It’s almost a theory lesson in music – chord structure, phrasing, voicing etc - but it’s not at the same time. What it is, is funny, very funny! And the audience laps it up.
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Feb to 8 Mar
Where: The Light Room Bar at ILA
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au