Adeladie Fringe. Presented by Live and Let Die. The Big Slapple. 25 Febr 2014.
The 48 Lounge in the Convention Centre is an impressive venue, and it was decked out to set the scene for a night of 007, but it was a disappointment.
Singers Grant Pearson and Jacqui Yeo were joined by a three piece band (bass and lead guitars, drum kit) as well as a backing tape which filled in the requisite orchestral strings, brass and woodwind that give the customary richness to the theme songs from Bond movies. They were also accompanied by numerous video projections of the teaser openings to each of the films they featured.
The projections were a constant and dominant feature of the concert and at times over took musicians and singers, and in the case of Pearson this wasn’t altogether a bad thing. Yes he can sing with substantial power, and yes he can (over) sustain very long notes, but these are akin to party tricks and do not make a singer. Unfortunately he was frequently off pitch and off tempo, and his treatment of vowel sounds would make Professor Higgins turn in his grave. Perhaps there were problems with the fold back?
Yeo however fared much better and her versions of ‘Skyfall’ and ‘License to Kill’ were a highlight. She has powerful voice, knows how to use a microphone and has excellent breathing, but her performance did not always reach the heights of the two aforementioned songs originally recorded by Adele and Arethra Franklin. Much of the problem was the backing arrangements, which too often inappropriately dominated and ‘smeared’
the vocal line.
The concert was like the curate’s egg – it had good bits and not-so-good bits.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: The Big Slapple
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Marianna Grynchuk. Pilgrim Uniting Church. 23 Feb 2014
With the afternoon sun streaming through the stained glass windows of the Pilgrim Uniting Church, a capacity audience was treated to a superb all-Chopin concert by pianist Marianna Grynchuck.
Playing with the confidence of someone much older, Grynchuck amply demonstrated why she has often been named South Australia’s most promising pianist. She has excellent technique and plays with strength, accuracy and authority. The program she chose was varied and generous, and included the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brilliante Op.22 (the solo piano version, no orchestra), Sonata No.2 in B flat minor (aka the ‘Funeral Sonata’), and the opus 10 Etudes, all twelve of them.
The joy of Chopin lies in the beautiful melodies, usually in the right hand, and the inventive but robust accompaniment and embellishment in the left hand. The temptation is to over pedal and lose the delicateness in the upper registers. This was the fate of the Andante Spianato and the bold Grand Polonaise Brilliante which should be introduced with much gusto, but was placed at a disadvantage and could only survive by being played louder and louder. However, as is often the case, it all comes down to personal taste, and Grynchuck played it with flair and passion surpassing her years.
The B flat minor sonata is sometimes accused of lacking cohesion. It is stormy, lyrical, melodic, funereal, and virtuosic. It needs to be played with attention to all these things, and Grynchuck did just that. Perhaps the first movement was again over-pedalled, and the occasional ‘sforzando piano’ was more ‘forte’ than ‘piano’ but Grynchuck extracted the full measure of gravitas from the third movement funeral march. The unrelenting parallel octaves of the final movement were delivered with constancy and controlled power. Impressive.
The twelve etudes are not often programmed as a complete set – some come across more as ‘exercises’, which indeed they are. Others are instantly recognisable as concert encores, such as No.3 in E major (aka ‘Tristesse’ or ‘L’Adieu’), in which Grynchuck was most successful in drawing out the beautiful melody.
This young lady has the potential to go a long way
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Pilgrim Uniting Church
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Mark De Raad. Elder Hall. 21 Feb 2014
Sally Whitwell is an ARIA award-winning pianist, and it is plain to see why. Not only is she a talented musician who plays the piano extremely well, she also has a persona that gives her an additional dimension – she is an actress, but not in the conventional sense.
On a stage filled with pianos and more than two dozen standard lamps (lighting by the acclaimed Nigel Levings), Whitwell ‘pipes’ herself slowly onto the stage playing a melodica. She sits at the piano and delivers up Philip Glass superbly. She is never tempted to over pedal and her forearm strength is beautifully controlled yielding sensitive dynamics. The warm acoustic of the Elder Hall is used to perfection. The music of Elena Kats-Chernin follows and then Yann Tierswen which is punctuated with majestic arm crossovers – almost arrogant but pregnant with understanding. Whitwell is a joy to watch. In between pieces, an unseen voice expressively recites extracts from Alison Croggon’s poem ‘Divinations’. The readings fit hand in glove with the music, and demand attention, and Whitwell also plays miniatures on a toy piano and the melodica.
This is a musical event, but it doesn’t get close to preparing you for the program that follows the interval, when Whitwell is joined by acclaimed South Australian born dramatic soprano Marie Angel in an Australian premier performance of Michael Nyman’s ‘8 Lust Songs: I Sonetti Lussuriosi’, which he wrote for her. The songs are settings of 16th century poems that were banned at the time by the Catholic Church because of their eroticism. Sung in Italian, the songs tell of the sexual desires of a man and a woman, and Angel’s demonstrable acting skills bring them to life. She is at times lude, lurid, voyeuristic and always uninhibited. Initially many audience members did not know how to react and clearly felt uncomfortable and squirmed in their seats. Mission accomplished. Whitwell, who was now dressed in a petite black dress and a scarlet red corset, played Nyman’s score with authority but never detracted from Angel. They were partners, not competitors. The first three songs almost seemed not to suit Angel’s tessitura, but she was truly impressive in the fourth and fifth songs with their contrasting percussive and legato effects. In a stroke of directorial genius, the Stage Manger was located on stage and assumed the (silent) role of the man. Throughout the cycle he was looking at a laptop and viewing images of what one assumes were of her. One’s attention was increasingly drawn to him as he reacted to the songs – a subtle but captivating performance.
At the conclusion the large audience were deservedly generous in their applause. It was an intriguing event. If you are into minimalist piano music and art songs, then this one is for you.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Festival Theatre. 14 Feb 2014
This year’s season opening gala was an all Russian program (apart from the encores) about love inspired music. After all, it’s Valentine’s Day. But, when is a concert a gala performance rather than just a concert? When it’s an event of course!
Exactly one year ago to the day I wrote a review of the 2013 ASO season opening and said, “So, what makes a gala concert? Is it just the musical programming: important but popular compositions played well by a large orchestra? I think not and I hope that the ASO management might give some thought to this. Future ‘gala’ concerts might be marketed differently. For example: patrons could be encouraged to dress up in their finery; to enjoy food and wine before, during or after the performance (special deals with restaurants around town?); a souvenir program that is fundamentally different to what is normally available; having the conductor speak to the audience from the podium; having mini musical ‘events’ in the foyer before the concert starts, and during interval, and at the end; and having the bar open when the show is over!”
Well, I don’t resile from any of that and so it was pleasing to see that the bar was open after last night’s season opening; that there was live music in the foyer and there was a little bit of repartee on stage from Vincent Ciccarello, the ASO’s new Chief Executive, and from Guest Conductor Garry Walker. But it’s still not enough – it’s still not an event and with tonight also being the opening of the Fringe Festival Adelaide audiences are definitely in event mode.
However, what did make the concert special was the dynamic personality and athletic pianism of Alexander Gavrylyuk, and especially his encore of the spectacular Concert Paraphrase on Mozart’s ever-popular Rondo alla Turca composed by contemporary Russian piano virtuoso Arcadi Volodos. Gavrylyuk’s performance was dazzling, and when he arched his back with the final flourish it was almost as if he was channelling the first ever pop star Franz Liszt!
Gavrylyuk and the ASO also performed Rachmaninoff’s emotionally charged Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, and throughout Gavrylyuk almost treated the piece as if it was a piano version of the Kama Sutra! He joyfully played and toyed with the score; he teased and caressed the keyboard and urged the music to heights of passion and then sat back and let it all calm down before inextricably driving it to crescendo. (Have I taken the imagery too far?) His phenomenal technique, timing and treatment of the dynamics and phrasing was just first rate, and he was expertly assisted by Walker who skilfully ensured that the piano was always the focus and never dominated by the orchestra.
Walker’s re-positioning of the brass to centre upstage and well away from the double basses, who were now able to stretch out in a single rank rather than two, seemed to facilitate precision synchronising of the brass and winds with the rest of the orchestra – not always easy in the Festival Theatre – but it did seem to smudge some of the individual instrumental ‘textures’ in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, which began tentatively.
The program concluded with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, a masterpiece of orchestral colour. Walker handled the ever-changing rhythms skilfully and the exoticness of Arabia took flight. The winds, brass and horn were in exceptional form especially in the final section, which depicts a shipwreck. Guest Concertmaster Elizabeth Layton musically embodied the Princess Scheherazade with her understated but delicately controlled and phrased violin solos. Walker is also quite athletic on the podium, and demands to be watched. This was most evident in the orchestral encore of Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances that rounded off a musically very enjoyable evening, even if it wasn’t a gala!
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Compassion – Songs with Orchestra. Adelaide Festival Theatre. 7 Feb 2014
Playing to a near capacity Festival Theatre audience (and that’s no mean feat), Lior demonstrated in spades why he is one of Australia's most successful singer-songwriters. Backed by his own three piece band (they were excellent) and the musical might of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under the passionate baton of Nigel Westlake (one of Australia’s best composers and arrangers), Lior bared his soul and showed us why the very best songs are those that are driven by sincere and meaningful lyrics.
His songs have the ability to touch every single member of his audience in quite personal ways. The most poignant was about his grandfather, but my mind filled with fond and distant images of my own. The power of a good song.
Lior is of Middle Eastern heritage, and the spirit of both Jewish and Arabic cultures (interesting bedfellows!) seasons his music and his poetry, but it does not dominate. His musical structures are still very much part of the western tradition, and he accompanied himself on guitar, which he clearly plays well. Able to sing over three octaves with little vibrato and equal sureness and strength in both the upper and lower registers, the result is quite stirring and always appealing, although bordering on being tonally and metrically repetitive to a western ear that is not accustomed to eastern influences.
Lior was joined for several songs by oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros. The combination of oud and guitar was musically deeply satisfying. It was East meets West.
The major work of the concert was ‘Compassion’ – a cycle of seven songs written by Lior and orchestrated by Westlake. They drew on range of religious and philosophical texts and were all sung in Jewish or Arabic. They were hypnotic and Lior’s performance was hand in glove with the Adelaide symphony. The second and fourth songs, which were about the getting of wisdom and the nature of compassion, drew heavily on the expanded percussion section in the orchestra and had you on the edge of your seat. For those of you who are ‘into’ Mahler (a strange comparison I hear you say), imagine the hammer strikes in the last movement of his mighty sixth symphony being amplified ten score times and filled out with all manner of other percussive instruments time and time again. The rhythms were compelling, and Lior’s voice sailed gloriously through it all. Full marks to the audio engineer - although I’m not sure the orchestra needed as much amplification as it received, especially in songs that featured broad and sweeping melodies from the strings. At times the orchestral sound was at risk of having much of its texture removed.
This collaboration of Lior and Westlake is pure genius. It is sublime.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed