O'Connell the Music

RACHMANINOFF’S RHAPSODY

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Saturday February 7 ay 7:30 pm

No, it’s not the composer’s Russian Rhapsody of 1891 for two pianos but – as you’ve anticipated – the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, written in 1934 and these days the most popular of his works for piano with orchestra. To foreground the Australian Chamber Orchestra‘s excursion into this spiky score, Dejan Lazic comes back to work with Richard Tognetti and his gifted players. In keeping with recent ACO practice, the orchestra will be reduced, in this case confined to strings and percussion. It’s improbable that any arrangement will make up for the missing 20 wind players; we’ll all just have to adjust our levels of disbelief. Stravinsky, who was remarkably non-catty about his fellow-exile, also appears on the program with his Concerto in D for strings of 1946 from just about when the composer had become a freshly-minted American citizen. Proceedings open with an ACO commission – Horizon – from the committed environmentalist American John Luther Adams. As a counterweight to all this Americana, home-grown and imported, we hear Lithuanian composer Raminta Serksnyte‘s early work for strings from 1998, De Profundis. It’s a searing, aggressive (for the most part) score of great passion and rigour; just the sort of music that attracts this group which is here playing its Australian premiere. Ticket prices range between $30 for a student to $175 for an adult top seat; you have to add on the excessive ‘handling fee’ of between $7 and $8.50, depending on what your delivery mode is.

This program will be repeated on Sunday February 8 in Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne at 2:30 pm and again on Monday February 8 in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre at 7:30 pm.

SYMPHONIC CELEBRATION

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Sidney Myer Music Bowl

Tuesday February 10 at 7:30 pm

Some traditions hold fast and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra‘s free concerts at the Myer Bowl still flourish, I see, even if the format has altered since I last sweltered into the venue along with half of Melbourne. Tonight’s conductor will be Leonard Weiss, the organization’s Cybec assistant conductor (although he doesn’t appear as such on the MSO website); he has an impressive list of accomplishments and engagements here, in New Zealand, and across Europe. His main task tonight will be infusing novelty into Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 – still in C minor, as one curmudgeonly British critic once wrote. Eventually completed in 1808, it remains one of the composer’s most striking and accessible compositions and concludes with the mother of all C Major codas. The program’s soloist is the MSO’s principal trumpet, Owen Morris, who premiered Sydney composer Holly Harrison‘s Hellbent back in April 2021: ten minutes of jazz-style inflections for the soloist and written by someone who can actually play the instrument. Pleasing us all with its familiarity comes Grieg’s publication of 1888, the Peer Gynt Suite No. 1: Morning Mood, The Death of Ase, Anitra’s Dance, and In the Hall of the Mountain King. This appeared in one of the MSO’s first programs (way back with Zelman’s Albert Street Conservatorium Orchestra?) and satisfies for its emotional canvas and satisfyingly balanced phrase lengths. To begin, the voice of a Cybec (how that organization gets around) Young Composer in Residence is heard in a specially commissioned Fanfare. This is Andrew Aranowicz who has proficiency in this field, having contributed to the fifty fanfares written on commission for the Sydney Symphony in 2022, his brass decet Pride a jaunty, well-crafted sample of the form. We can only anticipate similar.

AUSTRALIAN YOUTH ORCHESTRA

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Sidney Myer Music Bowl

Wednesday February 11 at 7:30 pm

Rather than putting themselves out, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is giving up one of its Bowl nights to the Australian Youth Orchestra. I haven’t heard this group for many years, long enough for the personnel – both players and administrators – to have changed completely. Anyway, tonight they begin with American writer Anna Clyne‘s This Midnight Hour of 2015: a 12-minute complex that the Australian National Academy of Music performers aired last March at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Next comes Daniel Nelson‘s Steampunk Blizzard, a 2016 fanfare by the American-born Swedish resident whose composition lasts a little over 7 minutes and sets some nifty rhythmic puzzles for young players, mainly to do with dotted quavers. It’s racy and highly atmospheric, especially if you’re into the industry-heavy side of steampunkery, while its progress shows influences of Bernstein and, at one luminous passage, Janacek’s Sinfonietta finale. Then comes Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite from 1945, rearranged so the always-thrifty composer wouldn’t miss out on his American copyright cash. There are three pantomime interludes between the first four dances but, even with this expansion, the score lasts barely half an hour. So, from what I can see, this all adds up to less than an hour’s music, a quick concert – unless there’s going to be a lot of talk. The evening’s conductor is Christian Reif from Germany, currently chief conductor of Sweden’s Gavle Orchestra, his predecessor in that post being Jaime Martin . . . which just goes to show that what goes around, goes around. As usual, this is a free event.

BAROQUE MASTERS

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Thursday February 12 at 7 pm

Opening its Melbourne operations for this year, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra gets back to basics with a fully Baroque program: Handel, Bach, Vivaldi and Pachelbel. As well, the concert’s soloists come from the Brandenburg ranks – all local talent. Nevertheless, much of the content relies on the ensemble’s strings with artistic director Paul Dyer regulating everybody’s input from his centrally-positioned harpsichord. To begin, a Handel concerto grosso from the seminal Op. 6 published in 1739: the first one, in G. Then come the middle two of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos – No. 3 in G for strings and No. 4 also in G which asks for a front group of solo violin and two recorders. As we all know, these were presented to the idiot Margrave in 1721 and five of them disappeared from public notice. I don’t know what’s happening in this version of No. 4: Melissa Farrow is down to play baroque flute, but Adam Masters is listed as performing baroque oboe. Concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen will probably take on the solo string line which has just as much work to do, if not more, than the two wind players. Then we’ll have a break from G Major and hear the one Pachelbel piece that everyone knows: his Canon in D for strings which you can encounter at many a wedding or funeral in this country. To end, Vivaldi’s 1705 Trio Sonata Op. 1 No. 12 which is a set of 20 variations in D minor on that useful progression, La Folia. It also involves two violins and a continuo part but I sense that its original modesty in personnel demands might take a turn for overkill. The ticketing is an administrative saga. Full adult prices move from $45 to $167; concession card holders inexplicably fall between $54 and $105. If you’re a senior, your range is $77 to $151; a full-time student sits anywhere for $20; an Under 40 only gets into A Reserve at $36. I won’t carry on about the individual price for groups of 10+ but will excite you with the news that prices vary between this and later performances. A constant is the $4-$8.50 fee exercised by the Recital Centre if you book online or by phone; the grifters we have always with us.

This program will be repeated on Saturday February 14 at 5 pm and on Sunday February 15 at 5 pm.

50 YEARS OF ABC CLASSIC

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Sidney Myer Music Bowl

Saturday February 14 at 7:30 pm

In a burst of patriotic fervour, this program from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra celebrating a pivotal national radio station (and the rest) comprises Australian music only; as far as I can tell, all the soloists are well-known locals. Let’s see what sort of crowd this program attracts, although it strikes me that you could play a night of Berwald alongside Hovhaness and the place would be packed. No, it’s not just because it’s free, but that helps. Benjamin Northey conducts works by ten writers covering a wide range. He opens with Nigel Westlake‘s Cudmirrah Fanfare of 1987: a two-minute jubilation. Then we hear selections from Westlake’s Antarctica Suite, extracted in 1991 from music written for a documentary and tonight featuring guitarist Slava Grigoryan; obviously, we won’t get all four movements. An up-to-the-moment effort comes from Ella Macens with the world premiere of her My Heart on Yours about which nothing is known – yet. A nod to the recent elders with Sculthorpe’s nostalgic Small Town for chamber orchestra of 1963, inspired by D.H Lawrence’s antipodean saga, Kangaroo. A vital contrast comes with the last movement of Ross Edwards‘ Maninyas Violin Concerto, written in 1988 – a voice that can’t be mistaken for anyone else’s and tonight featuring as soloist the MSO’s concertmaster Natalie Chee. We wouldn’t be complete without an Elena Kats-Chernin contribution, and here it’s her 2021 Momentum involving lots of woodwind throughout its seven minutes. As we’ve arrived at the statutory female part of the night, we’ll hear from the mainly expatriate writer Peggy-Glanville Hicks through the Promenade first movement from her Etruscan Concerto of 1954 which also calls for chamber orchestra only and will feature pianist Aura Go. A better-known blast from the past arrives in Miriam Hyde and her Andante tranquillo reworked from the Piano Concerto No. 2 of 1935 and which you’d have to assume will also be delivered with Go as soloist. James Henry, the MSO’s Cybec First Nations Composer in Residence, is contributing his Warrin (Wombat Season for the Wurundjeri, lasting from April to July), written in 2022 for string orchestra. To finish, here come the co-composing Tawadros brothers, Joseph and James on oud and req respectively, with a trio of numbers, all from their 2014 album Permission to Evaporate: first Constantinople, then Bluegrass Nikriz, and the title track to finish. It’s exciting music to experience in person and makes an affirmatively multi-cultural end to this night which has almost exclusively spoken a single if unequivocally imported tongue. Entry is free, of course, and the Bowl gates open, as usual, at 5 pm.

BRAHMS WITH JACK AND KRISTIAN

Kristian Chong & Friends

Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

Tuesday February 17 at 7 pm

You can’t ask for a recital more direct in its material than this one. Pianist Kristian Chong is collaborating with violinist Jack Liebeck, the British-German musician who is currently artistic director of Townsville’s Australian Festival of Chamber Music. These artists are working through all three of the Brahms violin sonatas: the meltingly fine G Major of 1879, the direct-speaking A Major from 7 years later, and the D minor, strikingly sombre and aggressive, finished after a long gestation in 1888. Thanks to an old friend, violinist Andrew Lee, I gained early knowledge and affection for all these scores and can’t think of a finer way to spend listening time than with this music. Liebeck has already given ample evidence of his abilities in these sonatas, having recorded them to some acclaim with pianist Katya Apekisheva for Sony in 2010. As for Chong, he’s an unfailing expert in chamber music operations, being one of the few pianists I can think of who’s aware of his function and responsibilities throughout intimate, confessional works like these. Tickets are $20 for students, $45 for concession holders, $55 full adults. Never forgetting the sliding scale fee from $4 to $8.50 if you book online or by phone; the trouble is, you have to or you could miss out because of the small holding power of the Centre’s Salon.

STARBURST

Omega Ensemble

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Wednesday February 18 at 7 pm

Beginning its Melbourne operations for 2026, the Omega Ensemble travels down the Hume (or its aeronautical of XPT equivalents) to perform a demanding program bookended by contemporary compositions. The evening begins with American violinist-composer Jessie Montgomery‘s 2012 work for string orchestra (at least, you have to assume this is the format we’ll hear) that gives a title to this event. It’s quick: listen hard or it will pass you by. Then David Rowden, the Omegas’ artistic director and founder, plays solo in Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto of 1949 about which British critics have made extravagant claims regarding value and cultural merit. We’ll see. To follow, the Omega resident pianist Vatche Jambazian and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s principal trumpet David Elton go for the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1, with the composer at his enthusiastic best in that happy year of 1933, just before the Soviet apparatchik-generated dung hit the Stalin-generated fan over Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. To conclude, an Australian work enjoys its premiere: Lachlan Skipworth‘s A Turning Sky brings everyone together in a 2025 score for clarinet, trumpet, piano and strings. According to the quality of your chosen seating position, Under 30s prices range from $39 to $114; the rest of us pay between $64 to $139, concession card holders getting their tickets for $10 less. You can circumvent the Recital Centre’s $4 to $8.50 surcharge by not booking online or by phone; just turn up on the night.

GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BY J. S. BACH PERFORMED BY ERIN HELYARD

Pinchgut Opera

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Thursday February 19 at 7:30 pm

Here’s a commendable move by Sydney’s trailblazing opera company: sponsoring a performance of Bach’s brilliantly focused masterwork for keyboard, to be performed by Erin Helyard, our home-grown William Christie. It helps, I suppose, that he is Pinchgut’s artistic director and co-founder, but he became a familiar face here through his role as artist in residence at the Recital Centre in 2022 and his assumption of the same role with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra through 2024. Hence, I assume, the gamble of having him expound the Goldberg Variations in the Murdoch Hall rather than in the more rewardingly intimate (for him and for us) Primrose Potter Salon. Reassuringly, the performance is scheduled to last for about 70 minutes – which means that he’ll be observing all the repeats, or so you’d have to guess. Still, it’s a solid, fulfilling progress to the performer’s climactic repetition of the fulcrum theme and Bach’s organizational skill is still dazzling today, getting on for three centuries since the work’s initial publication in 1741. It’s fortunate if you’re under 35 as you can get a poor-to-not-bad seat for $35. If you’re older, you have to shell out between $55 and $140, with concession holders paying between $3 and $6 less – a demonstration of appalling niggardliness, especially when you have to accommodate the Transaction Fee imposed by the Recital Centre of between $4 and $8.50 if you book online or by phone.

GHOSTS MAKING FORM

ELISION

Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

Friday February 20 at 7 pm

This presentation from the contemporary music ensemble ELISION falls into three sections, the first pair being a ‘normal’ division of the entertainment into two halves. Then there’s an extra bit into which you can opt: a postlude billed as a Special Post-Concert Show. As far as I can tell, the whole recital is special: most of the composers are names I’ve never come across, although I can’t say that about the first one. Liza Lim has been a significant presence on this country’s modern music scene for many years and she begins this evening with her 2024 construct for cello (Freya Schack-Arnott) and piano (Alex Waite), written for a pair of Norwegian musicians which gives this program its title; then comes her brief Ming Qi, composed in 2000 for oboe (Niamh Dell) and percussion (Aditya Bhat or Peter Neville). Speaking of Scandinavia, a piece by Iceland-born writer Einar Torfi Einarsson follows: his Zone of proximity: (and the weakly interacting particles) from 2024 uses the forces of recorder (Ryan Williams) and cello (Schack-Arnott), here enjoying its premiere hearing. Victor Arul is currently Ph. D.-ing at Harvard after time in Perth and here; he is presenting new work from 2023 for the quartet of oboe (Dell), clarinet (Carl Rosman), trumpet (Tristram Williams) and piano (Waite). But he leaves us in a quandary: is this new work a ‘new work’ despite its dating from three years ago? Or is it actually called new work? Anyway, the first half of this exercise ends with Serbian-born Milica Djordjevic‘s 2022 Transfixed for bass clarinet (Rosman), trumpet (Williams), percussion (Bhat or Neville, or both), piano (Waite) and double bass (Rohan Dasika). We come back after a break for American musician Aaron Cassidy‘s 2021 E flat clarinet solo (Rosman, who commissioned it) 27. Juni 2009, taking a Gerhard Richter overpainted photograph as its stimulus. German composer Hakan Ulus is represented by a ‘new work’ but it dates from 2025 so he may not yet have decided on a title; in any case, it’s scored for cello (Schack-Arnott), piano (Waite) and percussion (Bhat/Neville). Amor, a vehement duet for flute (Paula Rae) and oboe (Dell), was written by John Rodgers in 1999, well before disastrous ill-health struck; a Queensland-born musician of high versatility, he died near Christmas 2024. To end this half, Cat Hope is represented by Goddess from last year, written for harp (Marshall McGuire), tam-tam (either Bhat or Neville, probably not both), and double bass (Dasika). The extra bit at the end of the concert proper features music by Lim, Mary Bellamy and Julio Estrada; these pieces will probably last about half-an-hour. Full-time students and concession card holders are charged $45, everybody else $55. And you also have to cope with the Recital Centre’s sliding transaction fee of anywhere between $4 and $8.50: an inimitable silliness that should preclude anybody from ordering online or by phone.

CHINESE NEW YEAR

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Saturday February 21 at 7:30 pm

These concerts have become a regular part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra‘s annual presentations and this observation of the Year of the Horse promises a heady mixture of East and West with five works thrown together without concern for relevance or juxtapositioning. Conductor Li Biao is also an expert percussionist which may give him extra insight to cope with Beethoven’s three-quarters-bouncy A Major Symphony No. 7 of 1812. He also leads the orchestral support for Saint-Saens’ flamboyant Cello Concerto No. 1 of 1872, with American 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition winner Zlatomir Fung as soloist. As for the Chinese content, we’re hearing the last of Wang Xilin‘s Yunnan Tone Poems of 1963, the Torch Festival. Then Mindy Meng Wang takes centre stage with her guzheng for the 1959 Butterfly Lover’s Concerto by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao; it was originally conceived as a violin concerto and I don’t know how it will sound on a zither. Anyway, the night ends with a piece by Julian Yu: an orchestral setting of Jasmine, that haunting Chinese folk song used by Puccini in Tudandot to moving effect on its first appearance in Act 1 when the boys start singing La, sui monti dell’Est. Tickets range from $75 to $127, with concession prices $5 cheaper; hooray. You have to stump up a $7 transaction fee if you order your ticket/s; pretty unavoidable as this event is very popular. God rot all money-grubbers.

MARKIYAN MELNYCHENKO AND RHODRI CLARKE

The Weiland Project

Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Cntre

Sunday February 22 at 5 pm

The second violin/piano recital inside a week and with a similar bent. Where Jack Liebeck and Kristian Chong are playing all the Brahms violin sonatas on February 17, this evening/gloaming violinist Markiyan Melnychenko and pianist Rhodri Clarke are presenting four sonatas by Douglas Weiland, the British composer who was a foundation member of the Australian String Quartet and who was fortunate enough to find in one of his colleagues there, William Hennessy, an indefatigable promoter of his music. The Violin Sonatas 1, 2 and 3 are concentrated in a particular few years of Weiland’s creative life. The first, Op. 26, was first performed in January 2000, the second, Op. 28, (which is originally listed for violin and harpsichord) in July 2000, and the third, Op. 29, in December 2001. Added to these scores, which come in at a bit over 45 minutes in performance, Weiland, who will be present, has recently written a work for Melnychenko based on Ukrainian themes in support of that nation’s struggles with a Stalinist revenant. Ticket prices are $75 full adult, $65 concession with the usual $4-$8.50 transaction fee added if you buy online or by phone. But then, it’s risky fronting up to the box office on the night because the Salon capacity is small and you tempt non-admission.

BARTON & BRODSKY

Melbourne Recital Centre

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Wednesday February 25 at 7:30 pm

With didgeridoo master William Barton as their guest, the Brodsky Quartet members – violins Krysia Ostostowicz and Ian Belton, viola Paul Cassidy, cello Jacqueline Thomas – are treading a fine line between their traditional fare and the most ancient music I know still to be heard. I’m assuming that Barton won’t take part in certain segments of this program: Purcell’s Fantasia on One Note in Three Parts of about 1680 (or is it his Fantasia in Three Parts upon a Ground ca. 1678?) and Fantasia in D minor also from about 1680, Janacek’s Intimate Letters String Quartet No. 2 of 1928, and Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet (finished in 1914 but not published for eight years) although the advertising material suggests that Barton will be participating in this last. You can be fairly sure that he’ll be there for Peter Sculthorpe’s 1990 String Quartet No. 11, Jabiru Dreaming, which has an optional part for his instrument. He’ll also participate in Brisbane composer Robert Davidson‘s Minjerribah (2012?) depicting North Stradbroke Island and performed by Barton and the Brodskys in Auckland during March 2024. I doubt if there’s a role for him in Salina Fisher‘s 2017 Torino for string quartet alone and imitating sounds generated by the versatile Maori putorino instrument. Andrew Ford‘s Eden Ablaze String Quartet No. 7 of 2020 refers to the NSW township menaced by the 2019 bushfires and it was written for Barton and the Brodsky group. I can’t see much room for the digeridoo in the Irish tune She moved through the fair and hope that there’s none to distract from that superb lyric. But Barton himself wrote the final piece on this program: Square Circles Beneath the Red Desert Sand of 2020 which was partly commissioned by the Australian String Quartet. If you’re under 40, you can get a poor or middling seat for $49; full adult prices range from $79 to $139, concession holders paying $79 or $99 for a B Reserve or A Reserve. Everybody has to cope with the online/phone booking fee of between $4 and $8.50, depending on how much you’re prepared to pay for your place. Can’t advise on this one: don’t know how popular Barton and/or the Brodsky Quartet are.

FLEXIBLE SKY

Melbourne Chamber Orchestra

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Thursday February 26 at 7:30 pm

Something of an odd collection here. The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra plays under the customary direction of Sophie Rowell and its guest soloist will be guitarist Slava Grigoryan; all well and good so far. Proceedings begin with a new work by Joe Chindamo; well, there are plenty of those flying around (see ELISION above) and this is a welcome MCO commission. It could involve Grigoryan, or it might confine itself to the core string ensemble. The next does require him: Vivaldi’s Guitar (Lute) Concerto in D of 1731 with its moving central Largo of a mere 17 bars. Then comes a true deviation from the norm in a transcription of Beethoven’s Moonlight Piano Sonata No. 14, published by Polish arranger Jakub Kowalewski in 2014 and transposing all three movements up a semitone; the third movement has a laugh a minute. Reason is restored with Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances in an orchestrated version, though probably not the composer’s own of 1917 which involves pairs of woodwind and horns. At last, we reach the title work, more or less. It was composed by Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, the original recorded in 2017 by Grigoryan and the Australian String Quartet. This is a Redux version which was, like the Chindamo, commissioned by the MCO and so the original quartet will be swollen somewhat. Finally, as we opened with an Australian work, so we close – with Matthew Hindson‘s Song and Dance, composed in 2006 and giving you exactly what it says – a song (largo) and a dance (allegro), in this instance for string orchestra. I don’t know why but the seating prices for this event are extraordinarily complicated. Full adult prices range from $75 to $150; concession and senior entry is somewhat less – from $55 to $135; full-time students and children pay a flat $30; Under 40s can get a poor or middling spot for $40; and groups of 10+ will front up anything between $60 and $120 each. Also, you know that the Recital Centre has its claws out for your $4-to-$8,50 transaction fee if you book online or by phone.

This program will be repeated on Sunday March 1 at 2:30 pm.

FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT – GLORIA!

Ballarat Organs & Fine Music Festival

St Patrick’s Cathedral

Friday January 9 at 7 pm

It’s all different up the Western Freeway since I’ve been away in the north. This festival has undergone a name change as well as a revamp in administration with long-time artistic directors Sergio di Pieri and Judith Houston gone, replaced by gamba exponent Laura Vaughan. As well, the time-line has been compressed so that it now runs for half of its previous length. And the geography has closed in so that events are limited to the city of Ballarat, with two day-time events in both Clunes and Creswick – nothing to the south. And the number of concerts/recitals has shrunk to 12, with the Festival al fresco Breakfast continuing as an extra-numerary. As usual, we have a celebratory opening event which this year involves the Consort of Melbourne, Consortium of viols, Unholy Rackett, with Donald Nicholson playing harpsichord and Nicholas Pollock on theorbo; Steven Hodgson, the Consort’s director, seems to be in charge of this amalgamation. No specifics are available but the names of Schutz, Hassler and Praetorius are being bandied around, with the promise of multi-choral polyphony. The concert lasts for 70 minutes, promising an early night for everybody – a welcome relief for this largely local audience. Students pay $10, concession holders $35, adults $45; if you want the post-concert supper, it’s $10 extra. The booking fee ranges for 75 cents to $1.88 – so why is this impost so cheap in the country and so monstrously expensive in Melbourne?

THE SINGING PIPES – MUSIC OF HANDEL, BACH, HAYDN & BEYOND

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

St. John’s Anglican Church, Creswick,

Saturday January 10 at 11 am

This recital is being given on the church’s Fincham and Hobday instrument by Rhys Boak, resident music genius in St. Michael’s Uniting Church, Collins Street. The organ was relocated from the Wesleyan (Uniting?) Church, Barkly St., Ballarat in 2016 and has a solid range of stops for its two manuals and pedal board. Boak is committed to five definite works in his hour-long program: the Overture to Handel’s Occasional Oratorio of 1745-6 without the original trumpets and drums; Bach’s towering Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV 543 from the Weimar years 1708-13; Haydn’s Eight Pieces for Musical Clocks from anywhere between 1772 and 1793; Mozart’s Minuet in D – possibly K. 355/576b from possibly 1789/90; and contemporary Hungarian Zsolt Gardonyi‘s 1995 jazz-inflected Mozart Changes based on the final movement to K. 576. As well, pieces by J. K. F. Fischer, John Stanley, and Theodore Dubois are promised which fleshes out some odd corners very neatly. Tickets follow the opening concert’s lead – $10, $35, or $45, depending on your age and/or career stage.

BAAZ AVAZ – ON THE SILK ROAD

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

Creswick Town Hall

Saturday January 10 at 2 pm

So it’s off to Persia and a recital involving music, dance and story-telling during which, somewhere along the hour-long expedition, we’ll doubtless meet up with the cry of the falcon mentioned in the event’s title. Four participants present this amalgam: Vahideh Eisaei contributing vocal work as well as playing the qanun or large zither; Dong Ma on erhu or Chinese two-stringed fiddle which may have links to the (more topical for this recital) rehab; Elnaz Sheshgelani covering the stories and the dance components; and Yang Ying on pipa or Chinese lute which came to that country along the Silk Road. This is one of those occasions where you enter a world unfamiliar to most of us; my experience of Persian music has been confined to an Adelaide Festival recital many years ago from an ensemble playing court music – or so it was claimed. That’s the sort of cultural ignorance that a presentation like this seeks to remedy; it’s not all Omar Khayyam and Hafez or the AliQapu restaurant here in Kew. If you’re a student, you can get in for $10 plus a piffling booking fee of 75 cents; concession card holders ($35) and adults ($45) have to go on waiting lists because their allocations are sold out.

VERSAILLES IN LOVE

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Bakery Hill

Saturday January 10 at 6 pm

Quite a lot of promises made for this non-specific 60-minute program which features a quintet of musicians, some of whom I know. Soprano Myriam Arbouz, baroque violinists David Rabinovici and Tim Willis, baroque triple harpist Hannah Lane, and theorboist Nicholas Pollock presumably combine and re-congregate in small groups to take us through works by Lully, his father-in-law Michel Lambert, and his student Marin Marais. Two specific forms are designated: the air de cour and chamber music – which is telling us nothing, except that the songs preclude the three composers named who all wrote airs of a different colour. As for the other, these musicians have a wealth of rich, magnificently mannered material from which to select; a pity they haven’t let us into their confidence about what we’d be paying for. Speaking of which, prices follow the usual pattern: $10 for students, $35 for concession holders, $45 for adults with a maximum booking fee of $1.63 and a minimum of 75 cents – almost seems pointless to charge it.

TELEMANN PARIS QUARTETS

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

Ballarat Performing Arts Centre, Soldiers Hill

Sunday January 11 at 2 pm

These works are being presented by the Coomoora Ensemble, apparently headed by baroque violin Lizzy Welsh (she writes on Instagram about ‘my delightful Coomoora Ensemble’, which strikes me as a pretty obvious statement of ownership. She’s accompanied on her sojourn into Telemann by Alison Catanach on baroque flute, Edwina Cordingley on baroque cello, and Ann Murphy playing harpsichord, as is her wont. It’s not clear if the ensemble can get through all twelve of the Paris quartets – six Quadri published in 1730, and six Nouveaux quatuors printed in 1738. In fact, I doubt if they could, given their recital’s 60 minutes time-span. I suspect that they’re attempting the latter, given that they refer to works composed during Telemann’s visit to the French capital in 1737-8. But then, all of them were written before he hit Paris, so they may be attempting a mixture. Whatever the case, this hour (possibly longer) will cost you $10 a student, $35 a concession holder (but not Seniors’ Cards, apparently), and $45 full adult, with a negligible booking fee ranging from $1.63 to 75 cents.

O FILII ET FILIAE – ORGAN SPLENDOUR OF THE (MOSTLY) FRENCH BAROQUE

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

St Paul’s Anglican Church, Bakery Hill

Sunday January 11 at 6 pm

Another solo organ recital to balance Rhys Boak’s one on Saturday January 10 in Creswick, this mixed collation lasting an hour is being presented by Donald Nicholson, showing us another side to his musical abilities after he has played harpsichord for the festival’s opening concert. Yet again, details are scant although he is sitting securely in a French gallery by performing works by Couperin, Louis Marchand, Jean-Francois Dandrieu and Nicolas de Grigny. For the first of these, I can find only two organ works, both mass settings; Marchand offers more, some of them formidable elements of the French repertoire; Dandrieu I know only through his Noels but he did write an Easter offertory, published in 1739, based on the plainchant that gives this event its title; de Grigny is celebrated for his only publication – a Premier livre d’orgue from 1699 which has a preponderance of church music in it. Just to offer a change of diet, Nicholson will also play some pieces by Buxtehude to offer a ‘dash of fiery North German contrast’ – just what those French formalists need. Ticket prices follow the usual $10, $35, $45 pattern (student, concession, adult) with a small booking fee too minute to outline, too inconsiderable to make any difference to anybody.

FOUNDATION OF FANTASIE

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Clunes

Monday January 12 at 11 am

For this excursion to the book-driven town of Clunes, lutenist Rosemary Hodgson and organist Jack Stacey are attempting to draw some parallels between Renaissance architecture and the period’s music. Terrific, and good luck with that. Their 60-minute presentation centres on the works of Alonso Ferrabosco the younger who performed for Elizabeth I and Hodgson is playing all seven of the composer’s extant fantasias, leavening this core with side-steps to vocal intabulations, passamezzi and pavans. An intriguing venture, although the fantasias look to me as being more suited to a chest of viols than a lute, mainly because of some sustained notes that a soloist (apart from an organist) can’t manage. You’re invited to find similarities between the cleanness of form and structural balance of a building from this time in the clarity and formal integrity of the Elizabethan viol composer’s works. As I read things, Stacey is to provide a solo on the church’s organ at the start of the recital but I can’t find anything by Ferrabosco for that instrument; in this case, a Hamlin & Son rarity that sits in remarkably close relationship to the church’s acoustic properties, as I remember from over a decade ago – since which time (2018) the instrument has been restored extensively. The usual entry costs apply: $10 a student, $35 for concession holders, $45 an adult, all with small booking fees that probably won’t put patrons off.

REEDS & RESONANCE – MUSIC FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE BASSOON

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

Clunes Town Hall

Monday January 12 at 2 pm

This hour-long entertainment brings back some of the opening concert’s contributors: Nicholas Pollock resumes his theorbo and adds a Baroque guitar, while the Unholy Rackett group is identified as Simon Rickard, Brock Imison and Jackie Newcomb, all manipulating curtals and their namesake instrument. Also involved is triple harpist Hannah Lane, returning after her Love in Versailles participation on January 10 and the festival’s director Laura Vaughan consorting with her gamba. And this is one program where you know exactly what is being presented: a Sonata for four trombones from the Op. 22 collection of 1655 by Biagio Marini; two pieces from the Canzone, fantasie e correnti of 1638 by Bartolome de Selva y Salaverde in the soprano and bass song Vestiva hi colli passaegiatto and a canzon for two tenors (trombones?); a set of variations on La Folia by Antonio Martin y Coll from Volume V of his 1706 Flores de musica; Giovanni Bertoli’s 1645 Sonata settima that one would assume was for the bassoon, which was his instrument; Kapsberger’s Tenore del Kapsberger from the 1604 Volume 1 of his Intavolatura di chitarone, plus the Bergamasca and Canario from the Intavolatura Volume 4 of 1640; from Il primo libro de balli of 1578, Giorgio Mainiero’s La lavandera/Caro ortolano, probably for a rackett; the 1609 setting of Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen by Praetorius; two anonymous songs in Vos senora, a maltratada and the Portuguese Renaissance lyric/laugh Nao tragais borzeguis pretos, both played on curtals by the Racketts; Machado’s Dos estrellas le siguen which I have come across as a four-part chorale-type invention from the Cancionero de la Sablonara of 1624/5; finally, Daniel Speer’s first (only?) two Sonatas for two violas published in 1697 and hisSonata for three bassoons (C Major or F Major?) which I believe comes from the same year. Anyway, tickets follow the usual costings: students $10, concession $35, adults $45 plus a nonsensical booking fee of minute proportions, although still a nuisance to fork out.

DARKNESS AND DELIGHT – JERRY WONG

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

Ballarat Mechanics’ Institute, Sturt St.

Monday January 12 at 6 pm

A 60-minute recital from the Head of Keyboard at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music is a singular surprise in this festival line-up. Jerry Wong hasn’t detailed what he is going to present, like so many contributors to this enterprise, but he opens a pretty wide door by introducing certain names as contributing agents. There’s Bach, Beethoven, Liszt – and Miriam Hyde, as a kind of satisfaction for our nationalistic yearnings. But the evening’s title gives an immense scope, as all of these composers have dealt with both the highs and lows of human experience. Still, it’s always worth your while listening to an artist of Wong’s calibre and, if the names strike you as promising, then you can get in for the usual fee: adults $45, concession holders $35, students $10, and the small booking fee that nevertheless nags like an itch in the middle of your spine.

MEDITERRANEAN – ELISABETTA GHEBBIONI

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

Loreto College Chapel

Tuesday January 13 at 11 am

Starting the festival’s final day comes Italian harpist Elisabetta Ghebbioni, a veteran performer at this festival and a professor at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice. As is characteristic of so many performers in these Ballarat days, her program is unknown, even if her publicity refers to a few names: Albeniz, Saint-Saens, Einaudi ‘and others’. The first of these will probably involve an arrangement because I can’t find any harp works by Albeniz. Saint-Saens has a solo Fantaisie from 1893 and a 1918 Morceau de concert but nothing else relevant or practicable (apart from more arrangements). As for Einaudi, I assume this artist will be playing pieces from his album Stanze of 1992, although he has endorsed arrangements of some piano works for the harp. By the way, Einaudi is visiting Melbourne next month, playing at the Myer Bowl. Still, what information there is on this recital seems – even in this context – a bit vague, while Ghebbioni’s screed in the festival bumf is too brief to be of much use to anyone. Tickets for this event will be the same as all the others at the centre of this festival: $10 a student, $35 a concession holder, $45 full price, with the nugatory booking fee attached, increasing slightly as your price goes up. But, doing dutiful research, I couldn’t get on to the booking site – Error 404 made its entry for no apparent reason.

SUITES & SONGS

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Bakery Hill

Tuesday January 13 at 2 pm

Cellist Josephine Vains is at the centre of this recital, although Jack Stacey is again going to preface proceedings with a solo on the church’s J. W. Walker organ, and why not? He’s this church’s organist. You’d have to assume that we’re going to hear at least part of a Bach cello suite; it’s also possible that we’ll hear all or part of one of the three Britten suites written for Rostropovich. Also mentioned in the publicity material is Gabrieli, whose cello works escape me; perhaps Stacey will kick in with some support here for – what? Then another one of the festival’s few dives into the vernacular with Ross Edwards; possibly Prelude & Laughing rock from 2003, or perhaps Monos I from 1970. As well, we’re to hear some Casals, who wrote a fair few works for cello, as you’d expect, but they all involve piano accompaniment; the Song of the Birds from 1941 might enjoy a sentimental visit. It’s all up in the air but tickets run through the familiar format: students pay $10, concession holders $35, and full adult tickets cost $45, all with a handling fee, which I assume only applies if you book on line.

FESTIVAL CLOSING CONCERT – SONGS OF LIGHT & DEVOTION

Ballarat Organs and Fine Music Festival

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Tuesday January 13 at 6 pm

The subtitle to this final program is Life, Death & the Passion of 17th Century Italian Music; you can’t expect more in a concert than enjoying the two great existential fag-ends and, when you add in the Italian Baroque – be still, my beating heart. As usual, nothing specific is set down, nothing as vulgar as a set program, but we have some insinuations. For instance, we will definitely hear some late sacred music by Monteverdi; pieces from the 1641 Selva morale e spirituale, you’d reckon, or some scraps out of the Messa et salmi of 1650. As well, we can expect one (or more?) of the sacred oratorios by Luigi Rossi, with perhaps some extracts from the famous one for Holy Week whose provenance is even now questionable. Also, there will be a psalm setting or two from Giovanni Rigatti; there’s plenty to choose from as he published them across his brief career in 1640, 1643, 1646 and in the year of his death: 1648. Another name is Domenico Mazzocchi, famous for his motets so there should be a couple sung here, like the Videte et gustate published in 1664. Stephen Grant will be directing (as well as singing bass), principally his e21 Consort, but also Stephanie Eldridge and Lizzy Welch on baroque violins, Linda Kent at her harpsichord, John Weretka seated at (probably) a chamber organ, Hannah Lane bringing her triple harp into play for the third time this festival, and overall director of everything during these past days, Laura Vaughan plays both her gamba and a lirone. Tickets are currently unavailable on the usually reliable Humanitix website – not the best of omens. But I’d anticipate that they mirror those for the opening night and everything else – $10 for students, $35 for concession holders, $45 for adults with the by-now traditional small booking fee that seems to be necessarily attached to any event for which you either book online or pay by credit card.

RARE SUGAR

Omega Ensemble

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Tuesday December 2 at 7 pm

For the last Melbourne appearance for the year from this mobile group, we’re to hear three works over a 90-minute stretch with no interruptions. To begin, members of the Omega Ensemble present Bartok’s Contrasts of 1938: a trio for violin, clarinet and piano in three movements and based on Romanian and Hungarian folk tunes. Well, you can infer them from melodic shapes and rhythms but you can’t expect anything accessible to hit you over the head because the piece is not simple in any sense and its transformation of material is sophisticated. In the middle comes a new score from Ella Macens, Through the Mist; I can’t find any details about its requirements but suspect they won’t be lavish, given the pretty consistently modest scoring of her previous chamber works. To end, we hear the recital’s title work by Nigel Westlake. Written in 2007, this was a commission celebrating a University of New South Wales academic whose research field was rare sugars chemistry. It calls for clarinet, piano and string quintet. Who’s playing? David Rowden‘s clarinet will grace the Bartok, as will violin Veronique Serret and pianist Vatche Jambazian. Emma McGrath violin two, Neil Thompson viola, Paul Stender cello and Harry Young double bass join in with this Bartok group for Westlake’s score . Top price tickets are $119; then the Murdoch Hall’s three main sections cost $89, $69, and $49 with concessions $10 less in each area. If you’re under 30, you pay $39 for any one of the three divisions. You have to cope with the MRC’s moveable Transaction Fee of between $4 and $8.50 if you book online or by phone – so don’t; show up and buy at the door, then listen to the gnashing of the accountants’ teeth as you slip through their grasping talons.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

Opera Australi

Regent Theatre

Tuesday December 2 at 7:30 pm

This sounds awfully like the production of Gluck’s opera that I saw at the end of 2019 in Brisbane from Opera Queensland, which also involved the Circa ensemble directed by that body’s artistic director, Yaron Lifschitz. The acrobats made a mobile setting for the main singers, Eurydice and Amor were sung by the same soprano, and Orpheus was given to us in countertenor mode. Even the promotional shots bring back memories of that version from six years ago. Of course, it may have been re-imagined for last year’s Sydney Festival that the Opera Australia bumf is keen to single out as the production’s sole genesis – but I doubt it. The company has Iestyn Davies in the male lead role and he’s an English artist well worth attention; his version of Purcell’s An Evening Hymn (which you can hear on YouTube) is the best I’ve come across from a countertenor. He’s partnered by Australian Samantha Clarke in the Eurydice/Amor double; some of the advertising claims that she’s making her debut in these roles which means she couldn’t have been part of last year’s blockbuster success in Sydney. Dane Lam conducts, as he did in Brisbane. Of course, it’s all done in one fell swoop; 80 minutes, the publicity tells us. Still, it’s an artistically unfamiliar step up from the two main components of this ‘season’ – The Barber of Seville and Carmen. The worst seats tonight cost $79 adult, $71 pensioner and student, $39 child; the best cost $295 adult, $265 pensioner and student and child. On top, you can add a well-overblown ‘order fee’ of $9.80 to that, no matter where you sit.

This performance will be repeated on Wednesday December 3 at 7:30 pm, Thursday December 4 at 7:30 pm and Friday December 5 at 7:30 pm.

NOEL! NOEL!

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Saturday December 5 at 5 pm

Expect anything and everything. These seasonal celebrations from Paul Dyer and his Australian Brandenburg Orchestra are notable for mixing the best of Christmas music with the tackiest, carrying audiences along in the general festive frenzy. It has a touch of the Carols by Candlelight about it, although nowhere near the spectacular vulgarity of the Myer Bowl celebrations. The artists on stage always include the Australian Brandenburg Choir, as well as the instrumentalists, so you can be assured of a firm choral backing for the audience-involving numbers like O come, all ye faithful or Hark! the herald angels sing. This year’s guests are a real-life couple: mezzo Maria Eugenia Nieva and guitarist Andrew Blanch who have taken to touring for duo recitals here and in the United States. No idea what they’ll contribute to this event; perhaps some Christmas music from the singer’s native Argentina, possibly the original scoring for Silent Night. Dyer and Co. proclaim that their aim is to have a party rather than recreate the atmosphere of the Nine Lessons and Carols: to which oddly similar end, the concert lasts 80 minutes without an interval. Tickets range from $20 to $196 with variations too numerous to detail, but the good thing is that there is no additional booking fee to be added on to your basic price.

The program, whatever it is, will be repeated at 7 pm.

DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS LIVE IN CONCERT

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Friday December 5 at 7:30 pm

You can rail all you like at the sentimentality, including a feel-good finale, but this Ron Howard film of 2000 has lasted in popular affection longer than many of us would have expected. You won’t find much original in the story which has a vague similarity to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but lacks that masterpiece’s narrative layers and sparkling characterizations. But, for those who need reassurance, the film has all the necessary ingredients of an American cautionary tale with a brace of central personalities that stay well within the bounds of Central Casting. Can’t say I’m familiar with James Horner’s score but he produced an impressive catalogue of soundtracks for Hollywood in his lifetime, cut short tragically in his 61st year. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will perform his work for this film with its habitual zeal under Cybec Assistant Conductor Leonard Weiss who is a new face to me in a role I’ve associated for years with Nicholas Buc and Benjamin Northey. Standard tickets range between $49 and $134; concession card holders and children get in for $5 less – and they say the spirit of Scrooge has disappeared in our modern age. You also have to add on a $7 transaction fee if you order online – and you have to, if you want to be assured of a seat at events like these which all too often sell out.

This program will be repeated on Saturday December 6 at 1 pm and at 7:30 pm.

BAROQUE CHRISTMAS 2025

Australian Chamber Choir

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park

Saturday December 6 at 3 pm

After a few out-of-town tryouts in Terang and Macedon, the Australian Chamber Choir brings its Christmas music to near-Melbourne Central. Unlike the Brandenburgers and the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, artistic director Douglas Lawrence is quite specific about what his singers will be presenting at this large and airy church. He and Elizabeth Anderson will control (separately, I guess) the choir in a mixed double for In dulci jubilo with the outer verses by Bach (pre-1750, which is not helpful)) and the inner two from Johann Walther (pre-1570, which is just as useless), before Gabrieli’s Hodie Christus natus est (1615) for 8 lines. Three Saxon motets follow: Eccard’s Resonet in laudibus (1597), and Praetorius’ Es ist ein ros entsprungen plus Singt und klingt (both 1609). Most of this would be known to Baroque fans but then come two Australian premieres in Raffaella Aleotti’s Facta est cum angelo of 1594, and Mikolaj Zielencki’s 1611 motet, Reges Tharsis. Break forward a couple of centuries for some Southern Star, that nine-section collaboration from 2004 between Michael Leunig and Christopher Willcock which asks for SATB choir and harp, here provided by Katia Mestrovic. Lawrence and his forces wind up with some of their signature dishes: Bach’s demanding Jesu meine freude motet (1735?), and a Hammerschmidt jubilation in the four-line Alleluja! Freuet euch, ihr Christen alle (1649/50?) with Machet die Tore weit (1670) as a six-part sorbet. The only seats left are non-premium, starting at $21.50 for students, $46.50 for pensioners, and $71.50 for adults/seniors, to which add on a piddling $1.50 ‘processing’ fee.

HANDEL’S MESSIAH

Royal Melbourne Philharmonic

Melbourne Town Hall

Sunday December 7 at 5 pm

Nice to see that these old traditions are being maintained right across the country, even if it’s a dubious one in this case. Messiah has been associated with Christmas for many years now, mainly because of the opening which deals with the Bethlehem scenes in luminous detail. But Handel’s oratorio premiered in Dublin around Easter 1742. Mind you, it didn’t matter to the composer when his work was performed as long as it got into a concert hall, got heard, and he got paid. As usual, you can presume that people will still stand for the Hallelujah! Chorus even though it’s unlikely that George II ever heard the work, let alone decided to stretch his legs at that particular point. Yet the work rarely fails to move the listener because of its chain of matchless arias and choruses, and the wonderfully satisfying sense of satisfaction at its final Amen chorus. Conducting the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra will be the RMP’s long-time director Andrew Wailes (currently enjoying a 30-year association with the body). His soloists are soprano Sara Macliver, mezzo Fiona Campbell, tenor Kyle Stegall, and bass David Greco. On harpsichord and chamber organ will be Stefan Cassomenos, while another chamber organ and the Town Hall’s monster will be played by Andrew Bainbridge. At time of writing, only balcony seats are left ranging from $65 to $95. You have two distinct extra charges for this concert: a ‘ticket’ fee of 50 cents and a ‘processing’ fee of $2.38; well, it could be (and usually is) worse.

ON CHRISTMAS MORN

Australian Boys Choral Institute

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Saturday December 13 at 5 pm

The Australian Boys Choral Institute seems to be a corporate name under which the Australian Boys Choir falls. For this event, we’re to hear the ABC, The Vocal Consort, with participation from some training groups of the Institute and the Kelly Gang who are senior members of the ABC. As for conductors, we have the body’s director, Nicholas Dinopoulos, and long-time staff member Naomi Heyden. Eventually, we come to the details of what is being sung and the ABC does not differ from most of its peers in keeping this information to itself; the exercise is ‘an unmissable traditional festive gala event’, so the door is partly open, especially with that cover-all adjective ‘traditional’ – in other words, no surprises. The recital’s title suggests the full English, complete with holly, ivy, snow and mid-winter; I may be wrong and it could be all-Australian and celebrate oysters, barbecues, Crown Lager and wattle-tree bowers. Tickets cost from $35 for B Reserve student to $60 for A Reserve adult tickets, with $10 of for concession card holders. As far as I can see, there’s a flat $7 transaction fee if you’re booking online or by phone but this will doubtless disappear when the Recital Centre goes completely AI.

HANDEL’S MESSIAH

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Saturday December 13 at 7 pm

The second reading of Handel’s great oratorio in a week; nothing signals my return to Melbourne more than this doubling-up. Tonight, the work will be performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Swedish choral expert Sofi Jeannin who has been chief conductor of the BBC Singers since 2018 and has an impressively wide repertoire. Her soloists will be soprano Samantha Clarke (fresh from her Eurydice/Amor double for Opera Australia), mezzo Ashlyn Tymms, tenor Andrew Goodwin, and baritone Morgan Pearse – all of whom are either resident or have Australian connections. I’ve not heard the MSO Chorus for well over seven years but am assuming a solid continuity of output, thanks to the continued presence over that time of chorus director Warren Trevelyan-Jones. As far as I can see, the MSO administration is being unusually lean on performance details but it’s doubtful that this reading will go the full period hog with Baroque bows, valveless trumpets and twenty-or-so choristers. I’d expect that the interval will come after the His yoke is easy chorus concluding Part 1 and that Part 3 will suffer its usual truncation with the alto recitative, the alto/tenor duet and the soprano’s If God be for us aria all left by the wayside. Standard tickets range from $81 to $139, concessions are $5 cheaper and you’ve got a $7 transaction fee added to test your Christmas spirit.

This program will be repeated on Sunday December 14 at 5 pm.

CAROLS IN THE CATHEDRAL 2025

Royal Melbourne Philharmonic

St. Paul’s Cathedral

Friday December 19 at 8:30 pm

Once again, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir has the last say for the year with this agglomerated program. Of course, the RMP singers will provide the performance’s backbone under their long-time director Andrew Wailes. But spare ribs will emerge, like the National Boys Choir of Australia, the Box Hill Chorale and the University of Melbourne Choral Society. As for instrumental forces, we will hear soloists from the RMP Orchestra, the RMP’s Brass and Percussion Consort, and the City of Melbourne Highland Pipe Band. Soprano Helena Dix leads the vocal soloists – well she’s the only one, really, while he have duo pianists in Stefan Cassomenos and William Schmidt. Andrew Bainbridge discourses from the cathedral organ and actor/author Roland Rocchicchioli will probably declaim from the pulpit. The terms ‘magnificent’, ‘spectacular’ and ‘glorious’ are tossed around the promotional material for this celebration, even if it sounds very much like the same end-of-year concerts that the RMP was presenting a decade ago. As for the program itself, there’ll be carols along the lines of Once in royal David’s city and Hark! the herald angels sing, alongside contemporary works by the American master Morton Lauridsen, Norway’s own Kim Andre Arnesen (some of The Christmas Alleluias of 2015?) and Ola Gjeilo, British-born Donald Fraser and another American in Dan Forrest. As you can see, the whole exercise is ecumenical in every sense. Ticket prices range from $35 (back and side aisles) to $99 (central pews); all seats are unallocated. And the RMP asks for a 50 cent ‘ticket’ fee and a $2.38 ‘processing’ fee; slim pickings that make you wonder about everybody else.

This program will be repeated on Saturday December 20 at 2 pm and at 7 pm.