ADRIAN STROOPER – A WINDOW INTO SONG
Opera Queensland Studio, 140 Grey St. South Bank
Friday December 6 at 7 pm
As its last gasp for the year, our state company presents Australian tenor Adrian Strooper accompanied by Alex Raineri in a program that currently (early November) is completely unknown/unspecified. But it will include operatic arias (not surprising, considering the singer’s substantial European career and residencies, including a decade at Berlin’s Komische Oper) and lieder – which does come as a surprise as that art form doesn’t feature significantly in Strooper’s biography. But it’s always a pleasure to hear any local artist of this vocal type, although good tenors are not as rare as they used to be, say, 30 years ago. Adults can get in for $65, with a lousy concession rate of $59 (which also applies to students); as far as I can see, there’s no booking fee. Still, I can’t find any indication as to the recital’s length.
This program will be repeated on Saturday December 7 at 2 pm
BACH’S CHRISTMAS ORATORIO
Queensland Conservatorium Theatre, Griffith University
Saturday December 7 at 7:30 pm
All is not as it seems here. The QSO and Brisbane Chamber Choir won’t be presenting all of the Bach collation but only four of the usual six cantatas that make up this magnificent seasonal celebration. I must confess to being spoiled with regard to the Christmas Oratorio, having heard the Australian Chamber Orchestra perform it (twice, I think) with a very lively band and a chorus made up of soloists who turned the chorales into musical bliss. Tonight, we get to hear Part 1, Jauchzet, frohlocket!, which is festive Christmas music streets above all the rest; Part 2, with that miraculous double of Und es waren Hirten with the soul-stirring Brich an, o schones Morgenlicht chorale to follow; then a rush to Part 5 and the bouncy joy of its opening Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen chorus; and Part 6 to finish in a blaze of affirming D Major at both ends, the final revisiting of the O Haupt voll Blut chorale reworked into a musical image of Christ’s life and work encapsulated with consummate art. Conductor Benjamin Bayl is in charge and, with his big reputation in period performance, we’re likely to get the oboes d’amore that feature across these four cantatas, as well as the oboes da caccia that feature in Part 2’s opening sinfonia as a four-part ensemble and stay that way across this cantata up to the final pastoralization of the Von Himmel hoch tune. Also, we can but hope for a trio of brisk Baroque trumpets. Bayl’s soloists are soprano Sara Macliver, mezzo Stephanie Dillon, tenor/Evangelist Paul McMahon, and baritone Shaun Brown. The only tickets left are sight-restricted in the Con theatre’s gallery and their full cost is $119 with concessions available for the elderly, students and children. Wonder of wonders, there’s no booking fee because (I assume) this event is being held in Griffith University.
BRISBANE SINGS MESSIAH
Brisbane City Hall
Sunday December 8 at 3 pm
Here comes your annual dose of Handel being presented at the wrong time of year, but who cares? For reasons beyond rationality, Messiah is trotted out in this country’s state capitals as a matter of course around December. For this one, TQC director Kevin Power again leads his own choir, the Sinfonia of St. Andrew’s and a quartet of soloists – soprano Leanne Kenneally, mezzo Shikara Ringdahl, tenor Sebastian Maclaine, baritone Leon Warnock – in the memorable oratorio. Well, I’ve got it pretty much by heart after too many years of exposure, staying awake through many performances only by following the score – especially for the choruses where you can delight in the non-existent alto line or the disappearing tenors. To make this performance even more involving, members of the public have been encouraged to join the Choir, presumably having given prior evidence of ability as well as having attended rehearsals. It’s very democratic and might even bring some useful performance experience to a young generation. Or perhaps not. Stalls tickets range between $15 and $60; sitting further away in the balcony costs you between $20 and $70. There’s a $1.25 fee added on, which is not as irritating as the much larger charges required by other organizations but still makes you wonder what you’re being squeezed for. The performance is scheduled to last for 2 hours 45 minutes which, with an interval, is about right for the usual Part the Third-truncated readings.
CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD
Christ Church, St. Lucia
Sunday December 8 at 5 pm
It will last only an hour but that’s enough (apparently) to perform a universally applicable Christmas celebration. The Chorale will work under its music director Emily Cox with Christopher Wrench, inevitable and indefatigable in support on the Christ Church digital organ. Their program is going to be multicultural, which is itself a promise of joy in this increasingly blinkered world now blighted even further by the prospect of another four years of Trumpian moral mayhem. We’ll have a welcome infusion of multicultural community carols, which will be a source of aesthetic balm after the usual cultural domination in enterprises like these. overwhelmed year after year by Anglican content. Further, we are assured that refreshments will be provided; presumably at extra cost. Patrons are also asked to bring a gift, pre-wrapped, to the event with intended gender and age group attached. As for the ticket prices, these range from full adult of $35 to $30 for Seniors and Concession Card Holders to $15 for students. Even with a limited knowledge of Brisbane’s geography, I know that St. Lucia is outside the central city area but it does have the advantage of being the University of Queensland’s suburb and it’s only 8 kilometres from the CBD.
PARALLEL PLAY
FourthWall Arts, 540 Queen St..
Friday December 13 at 1 pm
As anticipated, the final events in this calendar come from Alex Raineri‘s chamber music festival that illuminates the closing months to each serious music year in Brisbane. This final slew of seven recitals begins with a duo recital by flautist Lina Andonovska and pianist Raineri. They open with Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata in Andonovska’s own arrangement; what she’s done with the quadruple and triple stop chords will be revelatory, I’m sure. But this work takes up half the recital’s allotted hour length, so the remaining four works must be rather brief. First comes the Australian premiere of American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider‘s 2019 duo that gives this recital its title. Then a world premiere in an as-yet unnamed new work by Judith Ring; could it be her All You Can Do Is Hang On For Dear Life which is the solitary flute/piano duet in her catalogue and dates from this year? After the Dublin composer’s offering, we hear a new work, still unnamed, and another Australian premiere from Mark Mellet (or is it Mellett?) who could be another Irish writer but he’s difficult to source, as they say. Unlike the last name on this program – Paul Dean – whose 2015 Falling Ever Deeper enjoys a resuscitation after Raineri’s previous 2021 performances with Johnathan Henderson. Tickets remain at $25 with the usual $1.99 surcharge for computer science classes (for whom?) and, out of nowhere, a GST add-on of 20 cents; you pay $27.19. And that’s progress.
This program will be repeated on Saturday December 14 at 6 pm.
THE DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED
FourthWall Arts, 540 Queen St.
Friday December 13 at 6:30 pm
A real rarity, Janacek’s 1920 song-cycle is a big ask for its tenor, a doddle for the alto and easy pickings for the three female voices that pop up (off-stage?) for two songs in the middle of operations. The only performance I can vaguely recall is one featuring Tyrone Landau during one of the Musica Viva festivals held at the Domaine Chandon winery many years ago. This time, the tenor is Brenton Spiteri whom I have probably heard in Melbourne but whose talents have not remained in the memory. His alto beloved will be sung by soprano Katherine McIndoe and the three females come from the ranks of that distinguished ensemble, The Australian Voices, which puts them in patriotic company with Spiteri, while McIndoe comes from New Zealand. Their piano accompaniment is undertaken by Alex Raineri, the impossibly hard-working festival artistic director. On either side of the Janacek are two settings of Um Mitternacht: the first that of 1901 by Mahler from his Ruckert-Lieder, which could be sung by either McIndoe or Spiteri; the second by Britten from 1959 and a setting of Goethe’s poem. This will go to Spiteri, I should think, although I remain ambivalent about what sort of voice it requires – a tenor, perhaps a baritone; certainly, a male. But it brings the event to a sombre ending, which is just right, given the program’s other content. Tickets can be bought for $25, with an added impost of $1.99 going towards books for schools, and a 20 cents GST, which I haven’t noticed in previous festival recital charges from Humanitix.
This program will be repeated on Saturday December 14 at 2 pm.
ORPHEUS
FourthWall Arts, 540 Queen St.
Friday December 13 at 9 pm
Alex Raineri is taking on the great Greek myth as pianist and composer, performing his own new temples in your hearing – a world premiere – as well as three pieces by female composers to give us the Euridice viewpoint, I expect. His other collaborator is visual artist Eljo Agenbach who will provide materiel to satisfy the eyes. Samantha Wolf‘s Life on Earth was first performed by Raineri in 2022 at a Brisbane Music Festival recital (also named Orpheus) and apparently revised for this re-presentation. Another revenant will be Jane Sheldon‘s Ascent: soft, uncertain and without impatience. Besides these reconstructions, patrons will be treated to Natalie Nicolas‘ Descent which is offered without revision but also featured in that 2022 first appearance of Orpheus. Festival aficionados will be pleased to reacquaint themselves with this event featuring four Australian writers which proposes a contemporary take on the tale of all-too-human love that ends in disaster, ignoring with ridicule the deus ex machina intervention by Gluck’s Amor, and forgetting the poet’s eventual dismemberment by those maddened precursors of rock’s female devotees, who also can whip themselves into hallucinatory states with a little help from their friends. Admission costs $25, the usual $1.99 impost to be spent on books for schools; not forgetting the 20 cent GST which somehow applies to the non-booking fee rather than the ticket itself.
This program will be repeated on Sunday December 15 at 10 am.
ARAGONITE
FourthWall Arts, 540 Queen St.
Saturday December 14 at 10 am
Aragonite is a mineral that forms in fresh or salt water environments. Melbourne-based musician Thea Rossen‘s new work, here enjoying its world premiere, utilises ceramics, corals and metal instruments to construct its aural world, one that is intended to suggest deep oceans. Or it might be intended to focus our attention on the properties of the night’s honoured mineral, although that might be a rather dry (please) exercise and not a La mer for our times. Rossen herself will play percussion, as will Rebecca Lloyd-Jones. Possibly the festival’s omni-present Alex Raineri will assist on piano. Three woodwind artists could also participate – flute Lina Andonovska, flute Tim Munro, bass clarinet Drew Gilchrist. But, as I can’t find out any specifications regarding Aragonite, the whole compositional complex might just feature the percussionists, particularly since Rossen is an expert in this field. the others could just be hanging around for American composer Terry Riley‘s In C, a historically important 1964 essay in aleatoric minimalism for an unspecified number of participants and lasting anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour. Tickets still only cost $25, with the $1.99 fee going towards books for schools, while the 20 cents GST will end up God knows where.
This program will be repeated on Sunday December 15 at 6 pm.
WAYS BY WAYS
FourthWall Arts, 540 Queen St.
Saturday December 14 at 1 pm
Here is a new trio ensemble – flute Tim Munro, percussion Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, piano Alex Raineri – and it’s called Ways By Ways, but let’s not get started on the possible modifications of that name. Setting their bar on a personal level, the musicians begin with a collaborative new work called (wait for it) Ways By Ways which I suppose will outline the ensemble’s performing/aesthetic/polemical agenda. Chilean-born composer resident in Perth (last I heard) Pedro Alvarez will at last hear the world premiere of his Fosforesciamo from 2012; the four-section piece (we know it’s glowing in the dark??) that investigates block chords and their assemblage is written for harpsichord solo. Then we experience Irish composer/academic Ann Cleare‘s 2010 unable to create an offscreen world for piccolo and percussion, which I’ve only heard in its electronic manifestation; the experience didn’t make much of a positive impression because of its suggestion of industrial burps. I can’t tell whether or not Jodie Rottle was born here or in America, but she spent a decade on the new music scene in Brisbane before settling down in Melbourne this year. She is represented by blueprint in shades of green (where did this e e cummings fad come from?) of 2022, an obsessive 7-minute gem which is written for flute, alto flute (I think) and assorted percussion (Lloyd-Jones played in the first performance). Finally, we hear Irish composer Jennifer Walshe‘s Thelma Mansfield from 2008, written for Ways By Ways’ actual combination and which takes its name from an Irish TV presenter who became a painter in a worthwhile career change. Tickets are $25, with the $1.99 extra fee going towards computer science classes. And don’t forget the 20 cent GST – keeping the whole country economically stable.
This program will be repeated on Sunday December 15 at 4 pm.
HOLD YOUR OWN
FourthWall Arts, 650 Queen St.
Saturday December 14 at 4 pm
You don’t come across solo cello recitals that often, unless somebody wants to work through several or all of the Bach suites. Gemma Kneale is treading a new path here by playing eight works, all of them by women composers, three of them undergoing their Australian premieres. More to the point, I’ve heard none of these scores and am only vaguely aware of the output of one of the writers; a sad state, of course, and all too typical of my antique generation and a damnable witness to a lifetime of undeveloped exposure. Kneale begins with the afternoon’s oldest music in Anna Clyne‘s Fits + Starts of 2003 for amplified cello and tape; this is, as far as I can see, the British-born composer’s first composition. Jump forward twelve years to Gemma Peacocke‘s Amygdala which explores feelings of anxiety; a malfunctioning part of the brain, then, depicted by this New Zealand composer who is based, like Clyne, in the USA. We move to Missy Mazzoli, who is a native-born American and issued her A Thousand Tongues in four different versions; we’re hearing the one for cello and electronics written (like all the other three interpretative choices) in 2011. Molly Joyce, another American (born in the let-us-down state of Pennsylvania) studied with Mazzoli and wrote It has not taken long three years ago; it is also written for cello and pre-recorded electronics. Melbourne-based Australian composer Zinia Chan wrote In Transition in 2018. It concerns an individual’s journey through space towards the unknown – which applies to most of us, I suppose, except for the space bit. The work involves cello and tape but also a flute (piccolo); I suppose someone will step in to lend a helping hand. Next is Australian Kate Neal‘s A Game from A Book of Hours, written last year and originally a composition for a quartet (flute, cello, piano/harpsichord, percussion) and screendance; doubtless this extract will be reduced in scale here. We’re back to the once-great republic for Brooklyn-born Nathalie Joachim‘s Dam Mwen Yo of 2017 which brings us back to cello+tape territory, even if the recorded content strikes me as uninspired. Finally, it’s full steam ahead into Scottish writer Anna Meredith‘s brief Honeyed Words, written in 2016 and bringing to an end a solid sequence of cello-and-electronics compositions. Entry costs $25, with the usual $1.99 compulsory contribution dedicated to books for schools, and add on that irrational 20 cents for GST.
This program will be repeated on Sunday December 15 at 12 pm.
IN PLATONIA
FourthWall Arts, 540 Queen St.
Saturday December 14 at 8 pm
Bringing this year’s festival to a crashing New Complexity conclusion, director-pianist Alex Raineri partners with clarinet/bass clarinet Drew Gilchrist in three contemporary works, the first by Melbourne (or is it Ballarat?)-based writer Chris Dench which gives this event its title. My limited research has led me to believe that platonia is a type of tree, rather than a physical space dedicated to the Greek philosopher. But that turns out to be useless information/fantasy. Dench has, in fact, based his 12 capsules on insights by British physicist Julian Barbour concerning the immense number of instants that make up our existential and temporal planes and which he calls Platonia. This piece was written to suit Gilchrist (bass clarinet here) and Raineri who have featured (and will continue to perform) Dench’s compositions. Michael Finnissy‘s one-movement Clarinet Sonata of 2007 is here given its Australian premiere by Gilchrist and Raineri, the latter having much to do with the British composer’s use-in-reversal of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 110 across his 20-minutes-or-so construct. Finally, the duo takes on Welsh composer Richard Barrett‘s Flechtwerk, written between 2002 and 2006. This is impossibly difficult music to synchronise for the clarinet in A and the piano, thanks to its subdivisions of tempo and virtuosic leaps across the instruments’ compasses. But the title, as I read it, means an interlacing and you can’t deny the relevance while you’re listening to it . . . or trying to take in its brushes with comprehensibility. Admission costs $25 base price, with an additional $1.99 for Humanitix’s charitable endeavours in providing literacy skills (for whom, we’re not told) and a 20-cent dollop that’s meant to cover GST – somehow.
This program will be repeated on Sunday December 15 at 2 pm.
O'Connell the Music 