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
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 14 Feb 2025
What a cracker of an opening to the ASO’s 2025 season! Almost every seat was occupied in the expansive auditorium of the Adelaide Town Hall and the audience was brimming with excitement and anticipation. In the words of guest conductor Tito Muñoz (who was just terrific), the program featured some real ‘crowd pleasers’ and he wasn’t wrong! The audience reaction to the entire program was overwhelmingly joyful and positive, although some appreciated Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov’s interpretation of Beethoven’s much loved Piano Concerto No.4 less than others.
As has become traditional, and perhaps a tad wearying (musically speaking), the program begins with the musical Acknowledgement of Country, composed by Jack Buckskin and Jamie Goldsmith, and arranged by Mark Ferguson. Section principal percussionist Steven Peterka begins the piece by tapping two boomerangs together with a steady beat. He is de facto conductor. It is certainly an evocative piece but runs the risk of becoming ‘part of the furniture’, which, according to some is the ultimate distinction in some fields of human endeavour, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing regardless of its purpose. For this reviewer, having the conductor take the lead, as opposed to letting the orchestra get on with it, adds interest.
British composer Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour is a remarkable piece. It is a single movement composition lasting about twelve minutes, and in that time it takes the listener on an exciting musical journey with thrilling orchestrations and lush and changing melodies. It is almost cinematic in scope. It debuted in France in 2015, and although it takes its inspiration from specific poetry, Clyne has suggested that audience should create their own mental scaffolding to appreciate the piece, rather than assuming it is ‘programmatic’. What a liberating idea!
Tito Muñoz exacted exquisite precision from the orchestra, with meticulous shaping of pulsating phrases, especially in the strings. The lush romantic sections in the Clyne were never schmaltzy. Of course, we expect superb musicianship and technical mastery from a professional orchestra such as the ASO, but it’s always a joy to experience it, nonetheless.
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4 in G, Op.58, is one of the monuments in piano literature. Surprisingly, it begins with the piano outlining its unassuming principal melodic theme, and Pavel Kolesnikov delivers it with clarity and simplicity, although there is little that is unassuming in his, at times, flamboyant style. In some ways he channels the legendary pianist Glenn Gould, with his propensity to express his deep connection with the music by giving the appearance of mouthing sounds or seemingly talking to himself (although nothing is audible) and by almost conducting himself with his left hand when the right is working alone on extended runs up and down the keyboard. Regardless of any such eccentricities, Kolesnikov’s music making is immensely appealing and musical. The ASO’s violinists, almost to a person, can be seen intensely watching Kolesnikov’s hands as he takes the complexity of the concerto’s cadenzas in his stride. There was spontaneous applause at the end of the first movement.
Many interpretations of the concerto might be described as ‘muscular’, but Kolesnikov delivers something that is more lyrical bordering on impressionistic. The strong pulsating strings in the second movement contrasted starkly with the almost dreamy piano. He elicits sweet bell like tones in the third movement that imbue the piece with a coloratura feel.
Kolesnikov’s interpretation was not loved by everyone in the audience, but the vast majority enthusiastically applauded and cheered, and there were even wolf whistles. They experienced an interpretation that was personal, and heart felt.
The second half of the program is a lesson in more can be better! The orchestrations of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Respighi’s Pines of Rome both demand large orchestras, and the stage is full to overflowing. It is exhilarating to experience the might of a fully charged orchestra under the direction of a conductor who knows how to marshal such diverse musical forces.
Unlike the Clyne, the Tchaikovsky is programmatic, and the intensely romantic nature of the overture is not lost on the Valentine’s Day audience. Muñoz maintains the drama of the piece (particularly in the sumptuous romantic theme) and hints of what is essentially some melodic material from Tchaikovsky’s fifth and sixth symphonies come through clearly. Again, the orchestra plays with superb articulation and synchronisation, and the percussion and brass sections are especially at the top of their game.
The orchestra enlarges for Respighi’s Pines of Rome, with the use of more winds and horns, piano, pipe organ (yes, the ‘big’ one!), harp and celesta. Throughout this remarkable (programmatic) work, the trumpets, trombones and other brass unmistakeably draw the focus at key times, and they are grand and aurally imposing. The deep pedal notes emanating from the magnificent Walker & Sons pipe organ are as much felt as they are heard, and the frenetic bowing of the violins in the fourth and final section renders the whole experience majestic.
Again, what a cracker of an opening to the ASO’s 2025 season! The flagship Symphony Series has gotten off to a wonderful start – something for everyone!
Kym Clayton
When: 14 Feb
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 6 Dec 2024
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s final concert for the year was GF Handel’s almighty Messiah. Of course, the ASO has performed it many times before, but this performance was one of the best.
In his excellent book An Insiders History of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, recently published by Wakefield Press and an excellent Christmas gift (available from the ASO’s headquarters on Hindley Street), Paul Blackman notes that “In April 1859, the first really ambitious musical project in South Australia took part in White’s Assembly Rooms [where the Commonwealth Bank on King William Street is now situated], a Handel Festival marking 100 years since the composer’s death. Linger conducted a performance of Messiah… There were 20 players in the orchestra and 70 choristers… Messiah proved so successful that a repeat performance took place the following week… Prior to the festival, a letter appeared in a local paper, from a person more used to the London music scene. He felt it his duty to point out to the colonial rabble that certain practices at sacred performances should be avoided. This included clapping between each aria or chorus, and calling out for encores; however, the audience should stand during the Hallelujah Chorus.” According to Blackman’s research in his highly entertaining and information book, the concert received a highly favourable review.
Tonight’s performance featured a much larger orchestra, a much smaller chorus, a conductor who knows the piece inside out, and four soloists at the top of their game.
Canadian born musician, conductor and teacher Ivars Taurins is the founder and director of the excellent Tafelmusik Chamber Choir, and he is in high demand throughout Canada as an expert conductor of choral works. He has a string of accomplishments to his name, and he has conducted Messiah more than 200 times! (He knows the piece).
In tonight’s performance with the ASO, Taurins was joined on stage by the outstanding Adelaide Chamber Singers, and four superb Australian singers, all with noteworthy international careers: soprano Samantha Clarke, mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell, tenor Andrew Goodwin, and bass-baritone Andrew O’Connor. Between them all, Handel’s Messiah was in very good hands, and the diverse audience, which included young children, Messiah (and art music) ‘newbies’, the curious, and seasoned concertgoers, were gripped by the majesty and theatre of humanity’s most loved and most performed choral masterpiece.
Messiah is a Christian oratorio in three parts: the first part focusses on Old Testament prophesies and the birth of Christ; the second part depicts Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection; the third on Christ’s eternal glory and the salvation of humanity. The sung text consists entirely of quotations from the Bible with some modifications for musical reasons, but it is much more than a medley of quotations. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, it is hard not to be moved by the visual and aural spectacle that is Messiah. Whether it be the sight of a chorus being summoned to stand and sing, or trumpeters playing from the balcony at the command of the conductor, or additional musicians coming on stage to augment the orchestra at various times, or a trumpeter rising to his feet to accompany a soloist, or soloists striding to centre stage and commanding our attention with their luxurious voices, the Messiah oozes theatre, and Ivars Taurins knows it and uses it.
Andrew Goodwin has a glorious tenor voice: robust, pure of tone, excellent breath control and exquisite articulation. His voice miraculously emerges out of the instrumental accompaniment in the first aria and his rendition of Comfort ye my people borders on the sublime. Goodwin also clearly delights in Messiah: he’s a picture of studied concentration throughout, whether it be observing his fellow soloists with encouraging smiles, or closely observing and listening to the chorus when they sing in response to one of his arias, or mirroring maestro Taurins’ exhortations by discreetly tapping his knee.
Samantha Clarke’s soprano voice is also strong and pure, with the gentlest of vibrato when required. Adelaide audiences have heard fine soprano voices on our stages before, but Clarke’s voice is one of the best. She is equally at home in the lower register, as she is at the very top, with clean tonality and sweet potency across the range. Her Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion was an exuberant highlight. Throughout, Clarke sings almost effortlessly.
Mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell is perhaps the busiest of the soloists, and she sings O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion with joy and and deceptive lightness. Her He was despised and rejected of men was almost reverential in the upper register. Quite something.
Andrew O’Connor is an imposing man with an even more imposing voice. His smile is a picture of contentment and gentleness, and it almost fills the stage. His voice is an exquisite instrument: mellifluous honeyed tones easily emerge, and the expanse of the Adelaide Town Hall auditorium resonates with warmth. His For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light were a revelation: strength and sweetness across the full range of his voice.
Trumpeter David Khafagi was excellent in The trumpet shall sound, and Andrew Penrose on timpani was delighted to keep beating his mallets for what felt like an exaggerated finale at Ivars Taurins’ direction.
The only sour note in the whole evening was a full forty-five second pause fifteen minutes into the performance at the end of the chorus And the glory of the lord and before Goodwin’s first aria Thus saith the Lord to allow a bevy of latecomers to enter the hall and take their seats. The performers patiently waited, but there is no ‘suitable break’ for such intrusions.
The ASO have had a marvellous season and now go on a deserved break before resuming in 2025 with the celebrated Mark Wigglesworth as new Chief Conductor.
Kym Clayton
When: 6 Dec
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 29 Nov 2024
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s final Symphony Series concert was ….. titanic! The drawcard on the program was Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D, known as the “Titan”, but there was much other glorious music on offer as well.
As is now customary, the concert began with Pudnanthi Padninthi – a musical Acknowledgment of Country – and tonight it was performed without the conductor’s oversight. The mighty Adelaide Symphony Orchestra knows this contemporary piece backwards and inside out but continues to imbue it with a sense of freshness. The band doesn’t merely play the notes: the score means something to them, and they have license to exercise their own interpretation. It’s special.
Guest conductor Keitaro Harada then strode to the stage resplendent in black tails, crisp white evening shirt, highly polished black patent leather shoes, and bright red socks. According to his social media, Harada wears the red socks for a solemn reason – to honour of one of his family members who has passed away. Still, the visuals create a sense of expectation and excitement about what is to follow, andthe audience is not disappointed. Harada’s musical interpretations and consequential conducting style is vibrant, sometimes novel, and always exciting.
This reviewer adores Mahler and over the years has enjoyed listening to many recordings and live performances of all the Mahler symphonies and remembers Arvo Volmer’s full cycle with the ASO with much affection. But listening to Harada’s reading of the Titan is like hearing it for the first time, and this is exactly how it should be. In his excellent book “Why Mahler?”, well known music commentator Norman Lebrecht opines that “The first truth in Mahler interpretation is that there are no absolutes, no hard and fast rules”. Indeed, Mahler himself frequently revised his own scores and annotated them with descriptions of how they could/should be interpreted, but these changed. Arguably Harada is of the same mind as Lebrecht, and the result is quite astonishing. The overall duration is ‘about standard’ but one senses some sections are quicker, ‘punchier’ and have more ‘attitude’ than usual, while others are slower and more keenly articulated. For example, the enunciation at the start of the second movement was dramatic, and Harada’s gesture was blatant and as he punched and pushed the air. The string principals in particular confirmed Harada’s intentions, none more so than violist Justin Julian who urged his section with controlled passion and demonstrable attitude. The third movement saw Harada almost outline the steps on his podium to a march as the double basses introduced the thematic material, which is a nod to Frère Jacques. The final moments of the last movement see the full horn section standing with the bells of their instruments unmuted and firmly directed at the audience, with Harada almost defying them to blow down the walls of the packed Adelaide Town Hall. The final note saw the audience erupt into zealous, almost adoring applause which was sustained with foot stamping, wolf whistles and cheering. An art music mosh pit! Just wonderful, and the looks of sheer delight on the faces of the members of the orchestra was heart-warming. Harada was presented with the customary large bouquet of gorgeous flowers from Tynte Flowers, but he gave them to tutti violinist Ann Axelby who is about to retire from the ASO. A fitting and touching gesture. Thank you, Ann!
To this reviewer’s ear, Lebrecht’s “truth” doesn’t apply to the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64, which was the main work in the first half of the program, but Harada initially insisted on a ‘big sound’ in the first movement prior to the sublime cadenza from the soloist Kate Suthers (who is usually the ASO’s concertmaster). Suthers was at risk of being overpowered but it somehow worked. Her performance of the first movement cadenza was just exquisite: beautiful, sweet tones with almost no vibrato to speak of; well thought-out dynamics in the context of the progression of the entire work; almost ethereal pianissimos, and unpretentious fortissimos. The understanding between Harada and Suthers was on show. On occasions they looked intently at each other, a smile here, a quick laugh (almost!) there. At the end of the concerto, they hugged with affection, and the audience lapped it up. Adelaide audiences love it when one of their own is a featured artist, and Suthers was almost drowned in enthusiastic applause. The audience was invited to do so by Harada who, with a clear hand gesture, encouraged them to ‘give it up’ again and again, and he was obliged. Suthers was humbled by the attention – she needn’t be – and simply said ‘thanks’ as she led the principal string players (except the bass) in a sweet lullaby encore.
Early in the concert the audience was treated to an Australian première performance of British composer Ruth Gipps’ Death on the Pale Horse, Op. 25. It was written in 1943, and is a joy to hear, even though it has taken eighty years to be performed by an Australian orchestra. Knowing that the piece was inspired by a famous painting depicting an horrific battle scene, many of its musical phrases – especial on horn and oboe – force one to become contemplative about the waste that is war. The piece should be heard more often.
This reviewer has made much mention of the conductor, and for good reason. Keitaro Harada is young (he’s only forty next February), he’s accomplished and recognised internationally, and he’s exciting. His musical interpretations are distinctive, and although he gives the music primacy, as he should, he’s also an entertainer at heart and is unafraid of being so on the podium. He’s one to watch, and one that the next generation of musicians and conductors can and should learn from.
The ASO’s management and programmers have come up trumps with this concert, and it can be enjoyed again on Friday 14 December on ABC Classic radio. This reviewer will certainly be tuning in.
Kym Clayton
When: 29 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed