Musica VivaInternational Concert Season 2019

Natalie Clein& Katya Apekisheva

Musica Viva is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Musica Viva is assisted by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

ADELAIDEADELAIDE TOWN HALL THURSDAY 7 MARCH, 7.30PM Pre-concert talk, 6.45pm (Prince Alfred Room) CD signing after concert

BRISBANECONSERVATORIUM THEATRE, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY, SOUTH BANK TUESDAY 5 MARCH, 7PM Recorded for delayed broadcast on 4MBS FM Pre-concert talk, 6.30pm (Boardroom) Meet the Artists after concert

CANBERRALLEWELLYN HALL, ANU SCHOOL OF MUSIC THURSDAY 14 MARCH, 7PM Pre-concert talk, 6.15pm (Athenaeum [foyer]) CD signing after concert

MELBOURNEELISABETH MURDOCH HALL, MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE TUESDAY 26 FEBRUARY, 7PMRecorded for delayed broadcast on ABC Classic Pre-concert talk, 6.15pm (Boardroom, Level 2) Meet the Artists after concert

SATURDAY 16 MARCH, 7PM Pre-concert talk, 6.15pm (Boardroom, Level 2)CD signing after concert

NEWCASTLEHAROLD LOBB CONCERT HALL, NEWCASTLE CONSERVATORIUM THURSDAY 28 FEBRUARY, 7.30PMRecorded for delayed broadcast on 2NUR FM Pre-concert talk, 6.45pm (Room 118 – entry via foyer)CD signing after concert

PERTHPERTH CONCERT HALL MONDAY 11 MARCH, 7.30PMPre-concert talk, 6.45pm (Corner Stage Riverside, Terrace Level) CD signing after concert

SYDNEYCITY RECITAL HALL SATURDAY 23 FEBRUARY, 2PMRecorded for delayed broadcast on Fine Music 102.5 Pre-concert talk, 1.15pm (Function Room, Level 1)Meet the Artists after concert

MONDAY 4 MARCH, 7PMPre-concert talk, 6.15pm (Function Room, Level 1)CD signing after concert

NATALIE CLEIN & KATYA APEKISHEVA

Natalie Clein cello Katya Apekisheva piano

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ADDITIONAL ACTIVITYNatalie Clein and Katya Apekisheva will perform in Hobart Town Hall at 8pm on Saturday 2 March as part of Musica Viva’s Regional Touring program.

Natalie and Katya will present the following masterclasses during the tour:Sydney (Natalie): Monday 4 March, 10am–12 noon, Sydney Conservatorium of MusicAdelaide (Natalie): Inside the Music, Wednesday 6 March, 6–7pm, St Paul’s Creative CentrePerth (Katya): Sunday 10 March, 2–4pm, Richard Gill Auditorium, Western Australian Academy of Performing ArtsMelbourne (Natalie): Friday 15 March, 3–5pm, Australian National Academy of MusicMelbourne (Katya): Friday 15 March, 6–7.30pm, Music Auditorium, Monash University

For further details, please visit musicaviva.com.au/masterclasses

The Musica Viva Masterclass program is supported by principal patrons Stephen Johns & Michele Bender, Wesfarmers Arts (Western Australia), Anonymous Donor (South Australia) and the late Mary Turner OAM (Newcastle).

FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

CARL VINE aoARTISTIC DIRECTOR MUSICA VIVA AUSTRALIA

Born in the United Kingdom, Natalie Clein first drew widespread attention at age 16 by winning both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians in Warsaw. She is currently a Professor at the Royal College of Music (London) and the Music Academy Rostock, having recently been Artist in Residence and Director of Musical Performance at Oxford University. For this debut national recital tour Natalie has devised two distinctive programs to showcase her incredible range and the extraordinary finesse of her musical partnership with pianist Katya Apekisheva.

From the classical elegance of Beethoven’s fourth and fifth cello sonatas, Natalie draws us through the roiling music of the early 20th century: Rachmaninoff’s tempestuous romanticism, Kodály’s brilliant Sonatina, and Bloch’s striking first suite for unaccompanied cello followed by his deeply personal From Jewish Life.

Of special note in the second program is the cello sonata of Rebecca Clarke. Clarke was one of Britain’s first professional female orchestral musicians; she composed little after the 1950s and much of her catalogue remains unpublished today despite a brief surge of interest during her 90th birthday year in 1976. She originally composed this sonata for herself to play on viola, but the cello version has attracted more interest and Natalie has become a passionate advocate.

As a perfect counterpoint to the Clarke, Australian composer Natalie Williams has composed a new sonata for this tour, The Dreaming Land, generously commissioned for Musica Viva by Catherine Brown-Watt. The work is a musical journey with two protagonists, cello as narrator and piano as companion, traversing a vast imaginary (Australian) terrain of contrasting ideas of time, place and meaning in three movements. Williams has crafted this idealised sense of Australian-ness specifically for this marvellous British cellist and gifted Russian pianist.

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FROM THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERMusica Viva exists to make Australia a more musical place. To do this, we present concerts, nurture the country’s next generation of artistic leaders and bring live music into schools across the country.

In all of these activities, we have a commitment – above all else – to quality. Audience members know that they will hear the best chamber music on our stages. Teachers know that we will provide the highest quality of artists, materials and support. Musicians know that they will be managed professionally when attending our artistic development activities or performing in one of our concerts.

As I assume my new role at Musica Viva – succeeding the wonderful Mary Jo Capps AM

whom I consider both an inspiration and a mentor – I am fortunate that today’s team at the organisation is an excellent guardian of this long tradition of quality. The challenges of educating the world about the importance of music education and of developing the next generation of artists await us as we design an exciting future for chamber music.

I am also mindful of – and grateful to – my predecessors, my colleagues and the volunteer committees and Board members who guard, perpetuate and enliven our mission.

But I am particularly grateful to you.

Without an audience, the intimate conversation between musician, composer and listener that creates great chamber music would be impossible. You play a vital role.

For the first people of this country, music and ceremony are a central part of life, practised for millennia and continued today. Musica Viva’s founders, Jewish refugees from a world gone mad, brought chamber music to their new home because they could not imagine life without it. Our future, bright with possibility, will be informed by these connections as we continue to make Australia a more musical place.

Welcome to our 74th season.

HYWEL SIMSCHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER MUSICA VIVA AUSTRALIA

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MEET THE ARTISTSNATALIE CLEINDescribed by The Times as ‘mesmerising’ and ‘soaringly passionate’, British cellist Natalie Clein has built a distinguished career, regularly performing at major venues and with orchestras worldwide.

She records regularly with Hyperion, including the two Saint-Saëns Cello Concertos, Bloch’s Schelomo and Bruch’s Kol Nidrei with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and a solo album of works by Bloch, Ligeti and Dallapiccola. She has previously released three discs for EMI.

The 2017/18 season saw Natalie Clein appear as part of the Utzon Music Series at the Sydney Opera House, as well as performances of Haydn’s D major Cello Concerto with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists in Brazil and the Recreation Orchestra Graz, Elgar’s Cello Concerto with Collegium Musicum Basel, the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Insula Orchestra and Laurence Equilbey for International Women’s Day 2018. She was a judge in the 2018 BBC Young Musician competition, and performed in a special BBC Prom celebrating the competition’s 40th anniversary. She also toured South America with Sergio Tiempo, and recorded her latest disc for Hyperion, featuring sonatas by Frank Bridge and Rebecca Clarke.

Other recent highlights include appearances at the Norway’s Stavanger Chamber Music Festival and the Cello Unwrapped series at London’s Kings Place; Bloch’s Schelomo with Benjamin Shwartz and the NFM Symphony Orchestra in Wrocław; the world premiere of John Tavener’s Flood of Beauty at the Barbican Centre with the Britten Sinfonia, and concerts with the Hallé Orchestra, the Bournemouth, City of Birmingham, Montreal, St Petersburg and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, Orchestre National de Lyon and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires. She has performed with conductors including Mark Elder, Roger Norrington, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Leonard Slatkin and Heinrich Schiff.

A keen recitalist and chamber performer, Natalie Clein has recently performed Bach’s complete Cello Suites in London, Southampton and Oxford, and has curated a series of four concerts for BBC Radio 3 at LSO St Luke’s.

She regularly collaborates with artists including Sergio Tiempo, Håvard Gimse, Anthony Marwood and Leif Ove Andsnes, and has also worked with Martha Argerich, Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside, Imogen Cooper, Lars Vogt and Isabelle Faust. She is the artistic director of her own chamber music festival in Purbeck, Dorset.

Natalie Clein works regularly with contemporary composers such as Thomas Larcher and Brian Elias and has also curated and been involved in cross-disciplinary projects with the dancer Carlos Acosta, writer Jeanette Winterson and director Deborah Warner amongst others.

In 2015, Natalie Clein was appointed Artist in Residence and Director of Musical Performance at Oxford University for four years, taking a leading role in concert programming, developing new artistic projects, and introducing new modes of teaching. A Bach project began in the autumn of 2016, along with visits from a number of leading contemporary composers.

Natalie Clein came to widespread attention at the age of 16, when she won both the BBC Young Musician of the Year and the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians in Warsaw. As a student she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship by the Royal College of Music. She completed her studies with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna.

Natalie Clein is a Professor at the Royal College of Music in London. She plays the ‘Simpson’ Guadagnini cello of 1777.

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Katya Apekisheva is one of Europe’s most renowned pianists, in demand internationally as both a soloist and as a chamber musician. Since becoming a prizewinner in the Leeds International and Scottish Piano Competitions and accumulating awards such as the London Philharmonic ‘Soloist of the Year’ and the Terence Judd Award, she has been marked out as a pianist of exceptional gifts, performing with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London, Moscow and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, the Philharmonia and Hallé Orchestras, the Jerusalem Symphony and the English Chamber Orchestra, working with conductors such as Simon Rattle, David Shallon, Jan Latham-Koenig and Alexander Lazarev.

As a recording artist, Katya Apekisheva has received widespread critical acclaim for her interpretations. Her 2008 recording of Grieg solo piano works (Quartz) was chosen by the UK’s Classic FM as CD of the week and featured by Gramophone magazine as Editor’s Choice and Critics’ Choice, further receiving a Rising Star Award in International Piano magazine. In 2012 she released a CD of works by Mussorgsky and Shostakovich (Onyx); she has also collaborated on several recordings with violinist Jack Liebeck, including a Classical BRIT-winning CD of works by Dvořák and a disc of Kreisler arrangements for Hyperion. A solo CD of Impromptus by Chopin, Faure and Scriabin was released on the Champs Hill label in 2017.

Her intense artistry and delicacy makes her a most sought-after collaborative pianist, working with artists such as Janine Jansen, Natalie Clein, Guy Johnston, Maxim Rysanov, Jack Liebeck, Boris Brovtsyn, Alexei Ogrintchouk and Nicholas Daniel. In this capacity she is a regular guest at major chamber music festivals around the world. Katya Apekisheva also has a highly successful and personally rewarding piano duo partnership with Charles Owen, performing regularly at festivals worldwide. Their CD Stravinsky: Piano Ballets was released in 2016 to great critical acclaim.

Born into a family of musicians in Moscow, Katya Apekisheva studied at the Gnessin Music School under Ada Traub and Anna Kantor (the teacher of Evgeny Kissin); at the age of 12, her performance

of Mozart’s Concerto no 17 with the Gnessin School Orchestra was recorded for Moscow Classical Radio. She continued her studies at the Rubin Music Academy in Jerusalem with Irina Berkovich, where she won an America–Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship and was awarded second prize at the Young Talents Competition in Jerusalem. She then moved to London to study with Irina Zaritskaya at the Royal College of Music, where she was the recipient of the President’s Rose Bowl, presented to her by HRH the Prince of Wales, for whom she has been asked to perform on a number of subsequent occasions.

Recent season highlights include performances at the Utrecht, Ancona, Elverum, Leicester, Oxford, Lincoln and City of London Festivals, and in the Berlin Spectrum Concert Series; an acclaimed Bach solo recital at Kings Place; concerto debuts in Poland with Jerzy Maksymiuk (Bialystok and Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestras); a concerto tour of South Africa; and concerts with the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiesbaden Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Mexico’s OFUNAM Orchestra, collaborating with conductors Jan Latham-Koenig, Paul Watkins, Emmanuel Siffert and Jason Lai. She has continued a collaboration with the Belcea Quartet at Wigmore Hall, and with the Aviv Quartet, performing piano concertos in chamber reductions.

Katya Apekisheva is Co-Artistic Director of the London Piano Festival, and a Professor of Piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

This is the first national recital tour by Natalie Clein and Katya Apekisheva for Musica Viva Australia.

KATYA APEKISHEVA

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Zoltán KODÁLY (1882–1967)Sonatina for Cello and Piano (1922) 9 min

Natalie WILLIAMS (b 1977)The Dreaming Land (2019) 13 min I Voices of the Ancients II The Chanting Walker… III Ethereal Furies

Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSM World Premiere Performances

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)Sonata for Cello and Piano no 5 in D major, op 102 no 2 (1815) 20 min

I Allegro con brio (Fast, spirited) II Adagio con molto sentimento d’affetto

(Slow, with much feeling) – III Allegro (Fast) – Allegro fugato

(Fast, in the style of a fugue)

I N T E R V A L

Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943)Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, op 19 (1901) 35 min I Lento (Slow) – Allegro moderato

(Moderately fast) II Allegro scherzando (Fast, playful) III Andante (At a walking pace, moving

along) IV Allegro mosso (Fast and animated)

PROGRAM ONE (Melbourne 26 February, Sydney 4 March, Brisbane, Perth)

PROGRAM TWO (Sydney 23 February, Newcastle, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne 16 March)

Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872–1958)Six Studies in English Folk-Song (1926) 9 min I Slow (‘Lovely on the Water’) II At a walking pace, sustained

(‘Spurn Point’) III Fairly slow (‘Van Diemen’s Land’) IV Slow (‘The Outlandish Knight’) V At a walking pace, calmly (‘The Lady

and the Dragoon’) VI Fast and lively (‘Spare Me the Life of

Georgie’)

Ernest BLOCH (1880–1959)Suite no 1 for Solo Cello (1956) 10 min I Prelude II Allegro (Fast) III Canzona (Song) IV Allegro (Fast)

Rebecca CLARKE (1886–1979)Sonata for Viola (or Cello) and Piano (1919) 22 min I Impetuoso (Impetuous) – Poco agitato

(A little agitated) II Vivace (Fast, lively) III Adagio (Slow) – Allegro (Fast)

I N T E R V A L

Ernest BLOCH From Jewish Life (1924) 10 min I Prayer II Supplication III Jewish Song

Natalie WILLIAMS (b 1977)The Dreaming Land (2019) 13 min I Voices of the Ancients II The Chanting Walker… III Ethereal Furies

Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSM

World Premiere Performances

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)Sonata for Cello and Piano no 4 in C major, op 102 no 1 (1815) 15 min I Andante (At a walking pace, moving

along) – Allegro vivace (Fast, lively) II Adagio (Slow) – Tempo d’andante (At a

walking pace, moving along) – Allegro vivace (Fast, lively)

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ABOUT THE MUSICPROGRAM ONE(Melbourne 26 February, Sydney 4 March, Brisbane, Perth)

Zoltán KODÁLY (1882–1967)Sonatina for Cello and Piano (1922)Natalie Clein has said that Kodály was the kind of musician she would love to have met: deeply passionate about his cultural identity and dedicated to music education. Like fellow-Hungarian Bartók, Kodály was committed to collecting folksongs from authentic sources. (The 2018 film Cold War begins with a vivid picture, albeit slightly later in history, of what it might have been like, travelling through rural areas, persuading villagers to record their songs.) Clein imagines him ‘spending many hours with his cello trying to recreate the sounds and sights he had experienced on his ethnomusicological travels’.

This is easiest to hear in Kodály’s Sonata for Cello and Piano (1910) with its improvisatory vocal qualities and folk-dance rhythms, and it’s worth seeking out: its history is entwined with that of the Sonatina that we are hearing in this program.

The Sonata was premiered in 1910: in Paris two movements were played, in Budapest all three. But Kodály was unhappy with the first movement and it was soon discarded. In 1922, preparing the Sonata for publication, he composed a new first movement, but, as he later explained, ‘this did not come off. My style had undergone such changes that I was unable to recapture the mood of 1909.’ The new movement survived as this independent Sonatina.

Between 1909 and 1922, Kodály had heard Debussy’s Cello Sonata and something of its influence can be heard in the piano part of the Sonatina. At the same time, a Hungarian flavour is present in the cimbalom gestures of the piano introduction. The cello enters as the lyrical member of the partnership, while the piano shifts between rippling arpeggios

and more emphatic hammering of repeated chords. The intensity builds and the two instruments join for a rhapsodic reprise of the opening ideas.

Natalie WILLIAMS (b 1977) The Dreaming Land (2019)

I Voices of the Ancients II The Chanting Walker… III Ethereal Furies

Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSM World Premiere Performances

Natalie Williams is a composer, academic and orchestrator, born in the Barossa, who after studying and teaching at major colleges in the USA is now resident in the ACT. Critical acclaim highlights the ‘richly expressive’ character of her wide-ranging catalogue of music, written for film, theatre, dance, orchestra and chamber ensembles, including her substantial string octet Saudade, premiered by the Doric and Pavel Haas Quartets at the 2015 Musica Viva Festival and recently named as the winning entry for the 2018 Maggs Award. Natalie has written pieces for most of Australia’s major orchestras, and for soloists around the world.

The composer writes:

The Dreaming Land is a sonata for cello and piano, exploring emotional connections to the physical world. The piece presents a sonic journey across a fictional landscape. The listener is offered the chance to travel

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with the protagonists through an idealised world. The ‘dreaming land’ of the title alludes to the vast terrain of the Australian continent as the piece traverses ideas of time and place in three movements.

A strong connection with the physical land is a universal human behaviour. Our immediate environment has a profound effect upon our lives as much as past locations and geographies shape our sense of self and existence. A sense of attachment or belonging to a land or terrain is shared by many, with a particular affinity for where we spend our childhood years. Our past environments indelibly shape our present and future identities and our sense of self is, in part, linked to the places where we have existed. The geographies and lands in which we live, and the memories we create there, form our sense of connection to the world and meaning for our lives.

This work embodies those dual ideas of physical landscape and emotional memory.

The sonata form is recast as a musical journey portrayed by two protagonists, a narrator (cello) and a companion (piano). Together they walk through a sonic story of the vast environment of an ancient land. The solo cello embodies the journey itself and sings in multiple voices throughout the piece, switching between a background storyteller and the foreground characters presented in each movement. As the characters travel, they dream of an idealised world against the backdrop of their actual surroundings. Their journey encompasses past memories and present existence.

Like the landscape depicted in the title, the solo cello is capable of boundless instrumental and sonic techniques. The depth and height of its pitch range, the strength and gentleness of sound quality and the violent and tranquil possibilities in articulation render the cello a dynamic narrator and a spirited musical character.

The brightness of its voice is shown in the opening measures as it sings a song of ancient voices. The darkness of forgotten memory is depicted though the low drones and attacks of the Chanting Walker material in movement two. The spirit and vivacity of the dance of life is depicted through the furiously virtuosic final movement.

In the first movement, Voices of the Ancients, the players appear amidst a timeless landscape, floating in memory. They gradually reveal interjecting voices from the past as the movement transforms into a slow hymn from eternity, dissipating into the echoes of the past.

In the second movement, The Chanting Walker…, the cello personifies a lone traveller walking steadily across a flat landscape, trudging slowly through time. The low bass punctuations in the piano ground the traveller on the earth as the walker chants in time with each footstep, while wandering across the land.

Narrator and companion are forced into a battle with the land and the elements in the third movement, Ethereal Furies, as they dance across the limitless earth, navigating the furious expanse of time, life and the eternal.

© Natalie Williams 2019

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)Sonata for Cello and Piano no 5 in D major, op 102 no 2 (1815)

I Allegro con brio (Fast, spirited) II Adagio con molto sentimento

d’affetto (Slow, with much feeling) – III Allegro (Fast) – Allegro fugato

(Fast, in the style of a fugue)

Kodály’s Sonatina was not only his last work featuring cello but his last major chamber work. Similarly, Beethoven’s opus 102 was his last chamber music with piano and the last of his five cello sonatas. The sonatas

ABOUT THE MUSIC

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represent the three periods of Beethoven’s life: op 5 from 1796 (a pair of sonatas in F major and G minor); op 69 from 1808 (a sonata in A major); and op 102 (1815), heralding Beethoven’s late period.

The two op 102 sonatas are evidence not only of a new style – ‘remarkable and strange’ – but of Beethoven’s emergence from a creative hiatus that had begun in 1813. In their form and expressive character they make a contrasting pair. The C major sonata (performed in Program Two of this tour) is a ‘free’ sonata, ideas spilling from one section to the next. The D major sonata is in three distinct movements, and its finale signals the interest in fugue that was to dominate Beethoven’s late period. On the one hand spontaneity and freedom, on the other cerebral discipline.

With his op 5, Beethoven had defined a new instrumental genre. Instead of the basso continuo shorthand of the 18th century, his cello sonatas had fully composed piano accompaniments, embracing the ideal of equal partnership. Indeed, at times the piano is more equal than the cello! Opus 102 added a practical novelty, noted with approval by an 1818 critic (and now standard music printing practice): ‘It would be even more difficult for both players had the publisher not added to the piano part the cello part in small notes on a separate stave, thereby facilitating our understanding and making the perfect ensemble of the musicians much easier to achieve.’

The op 102 sonatas challenged performers, and listeners too. They were dedicated to the Countess Anna Maria Erdödy, a pianist, and she probably performed them with the cellist Joseph Linke, who’d entered her employment after Count Razumovsky’s quartet was disbanded. But the only documented performance in Beethoven’s lifetime was given by Linke and Carl Czerny in 1816. The sonata (it’s unknown which one) was reported to be ‘so original, that no one could understand it when hearing it for the first time’.

In outward form the D major sonata is conventional: three movements, fast–slow–fast. It begins boldly in the piano with a motif of four quick notes followed by a leap to a held note, immediately repeated with an even more audacious leap. So important is this motto that it threatens to become an earworm.

The Adagio (‘with much feeling’) is the only full-scale slow movement in Beethoven’s cello sonatas; it stands out, too, for its emotional power. This heartrending movement ends poised on a harmonic question mark before launching into the fugue finale, with its subject based on a simple ascending scale.

In the Allegro fugato there is gravitas (from the strict and monumental character of the fugue technique) and wildness (from the complexity of its independently weaving lines). The effect is both uncompromising and exultant, and the triumphant conclusion surely reflects the mood of a composer emerging from crisis.

Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943)Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, op 19 (1901)

I Lento (Slow) – Allegro moderato (Moderately fast)

II Allegro scherzando (Fast, playful) III Andante (At a walking pace, moving

along) IV Allegro mosso (Fast and animated)

The story of Rachmaninoff’s own creative hiatus is well known. In 1897 he was enjoying every possible success, then the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony and resulting lambasting from the press plunged him into deep depression. Although he found an outlet in conducting, he composed nothing new until 1900, when a course of hypnotherapy – and possibly the effects of an Italian holiday – saw him emerge from this fallow period to embark

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on the much-loved Second Piano Concerto. The Cello Sonata soon followed, together with a suite for two pianos, as Rachmaninoff rallied with a flush of inspiration.

Strictly speaking, it shouldn’t be referred to as a ‘cello sonata’. It was published as ‘Sonata for piano and cello’ and, as Rachmaninoff told the cellist Nadia Reisenberg in 1942, the work ‘is not for cello with piano accompaniment, but for two instruments in equal balance’. If anything, the balance sometimes tips in favour of the piano, which has a challenging part tailor-made for Rachmaninoff’s virtuosity. On the other hand, the cello part is saturated with expressive, heartfelt melodies in its intensely vocal tenor range.

Rachmaninoff wrote the sonata for his friend Anatoly Brandukov and the two men performed it together many times after giving the premiere in December 1901. Brandukov was noted ‘for his stylish interpretations, his refined temperament and his inspired playing’ – all qualities that emerge in the music.

The sonata is grand in scale – more than half an hour long and organised in four movements – and seems orchestral in conception. One writer has described it as a ‘chamber-music version’ of the Second Piano Concerto, an impression encouraged by the presence of a piano cadenza in the first movement as well as musical ideas reminiscent of the concerto.

At the centre of the sonata are two shorter movements. The brilliant Allegro scherzando pairs a restless and menacing main theme with a memorably lyrical second subject, and features not one but two trios. The first of these is repeated; the second, even more exquisite, is heard just once. The Andante functions as the slow movement – dreamy and reflective with the character of a barcarolle – and although the piano introduces the themes, it is the cello that soars.

In the fourth movement the roles are reversed and it’s the cello that introduces the themes. Meanwhile the piano provides the fireworks. Rachmaninoff had originally intended the sonata to end with a subdued epilogue – thrumming piano chords under introspective cello phrases – and the dates on the score suggest that this is what was heard in the first performance. Soon after, Rachmaninoff added the lively coda, restoring the movement’s celebratory mood and virtuoso spirit.

PROGRAM TWO(Sydney 23 February, Newcastle, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne 16 March)

Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS(1872–1958)Six Studies in English Folk-Song (1926) I Slow (‘Lovely on the Water’) II At a walking pace, sustained

(‘Spurn Point’) III Fairly slow (‘Van Diemen’s Land’) IV Slow (‘The Outlandish Knight’) V At a walking pace, calmly (‘The Lady

and the Dragoon’) VI Fast and lively (‘Spare Me the Life of

Georgie’)

This suite of miniatures functions as a gentle prologue to the concert and the clue to its character is in the title. These are studies not in the sense of a musical study or étude – a technical exercise – but rather in the sense of an artist’s study: exploring the material, testing ideas with deft sketches.

Vaughan Williams bases each study on a traditional English melody (often from his own collections), using it as a springboard. But he doesn’t name the songs in the score and perhaps with good reason: his loving treatment of the material – hovering between arrangement and original composition – exploits melodic and harmonic possibilities rather than dramatising the original song texts.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

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The fourth study, for example, is based on The Outlandish Knight. The ‘outlander’, that is, one from Scotland, attempts his seventh kidnapping and murder only to be outwitted by pretty Polly. But despite the drama of the tale, the music continues the pensive and nostalgic vein established in the preceding studies. Similarly the tranquil spirit and sweeping beauty of the fifth study is at odds with the excitement of elopement and battle in its inspiration, The Lady and the Dragoon. Only in the final study (Spare Me the Life of Georgie, in which a wife gallops to plead clemency for her husband) does Vaughan Williams adopt a jaunty character.

The suite was composed for the cellist May Mukle, who gave the premiere with her sister Anne at the English Folk Dance Society Festival in 1926.

Ernest BLOCH (1880–1959)Suite no 1 for Solo Cello (1956)

I Prelude II Allegro (Fast) III Canzona (Song) IV Allegro (Fast)

Bloch is famous for Schelomo, his Hebrew rhapsody for cello and orchestra, which was premiered in 1916, not long after he’d moved from his native Geneva to the United States. This was the first in a series of programmatic pieces featuring the cello and Jewish subjects. But when he composed this suite in 1956, returning to the cello for the first time in 20 years, he chose a more ‘abstract’ approach, adopting Classical forms.

Motivation came from the Canadian-born cellist Zara Nelsova. Asking Bloch if he’d write her an unaccompanied sonata, she played him some of Kodály’s solo sonata by way of example. His reaction: ‘No, no, that’s not my style!’ ‘Nothing would please him,’ she recalled, but soon after Bloch wrote announcing he’d begun a suite.

As it turned out, he wrote three suites for her. The first is like a Baroque suite: an

exploratory Prelude in the spirit of Bach, a fierce Allegro, a sweetly singing Canzona, and a skipping Allegro, a gigue in all but name. One of the earliest reviews, by William Klenz, described it as ‘a triumph of unrestrained ingenuity applied to simple materials in the service of a vital expressive intention’.

Rebecca CLARKE (1886–1979)Sonata for Viola (or Cello) and Piano (1919)

I Impetuoso (Impetuous) – Poco agitato (A little agitated)

II Vivace (Fast, lively) III Adagio (Slow) – Allegro (Fast)

In this concert, music by Bloch frames the Clarke Cello Sonata. (Natalie Clein calls it a ‘cello sonata’ just as Clarke ‘did when it was played by a cellist’.) This is apt programming, for herein lies a tale.

In 1919 the American arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge sponsored a $1,000 prize for a work for viola and piano, to be performed in her Berkshire Festival. The competition attracted 72 entries from around world, each submitted under a pseudonym. The English-born violist and composer Rebecca Clarke – then touring the United States – had responded with a sonata; also among the entries was a suite by Ernest Bloch.

The six judges were split between Bloch’s suite and Clarke’s sonata, and Coolidge – who knew their identities – cast the deciding vote in favour of Bloch. The judges demanded to know the name of the other composer. ‘You should have seen their faces,’ Coolidge told Clarke, ‘when they saw it was by a woman!’

Although not the winner, Clarke’s sonata was performed in the festival, bringing her favourable attention. Even the patronising critic for Musical America could not deny the sonata’s enthusiastic reception and, like Bloch’s suite, it was welcomed into the repertoire by grateful violists.

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It was published in 1921 as ‘Sonata for Viola (or Violoncello) and Piano’. The publisher was probably seeking to increase sales but Clarke may have been thinking of her chamber music partner, the cellist May Mukle. In Mukle there’s a circumstantial link between the sonata and the Six Studies that begin the concert. But there’s a musical connection as well. Rebecca Clarke belonged to the generation of English composers that followed Vaughan Williams and her love of English modality and folksong-inflected melody is evident, especially in the mysterious pastoral moment that interrupts the finale.

Even more apparent is the influence of the latest works of Ravel (the scherzo of his 1914 Piano Trio is a model for the Vivace) and Debussy, in particular his Cello Sonata (1915). Then there is the acknowledged influence of Bloch, and the impassioned, declamatory character of Jewish-infused pieces such as Schelomo lies in the background of Clarke’s bold, rhapsodic opening.

At the top of the score is a couplet from Alfred de Musset’s Nuit de mai (May Night):

Poet, take up your lute; the wine of youth this night is fermenting in the veins of God.

An intoxicating, nocturnal flavour is implied and the music doesn’t disappoint, but the atmosphere shrouds a tightly wrought structure. That boldly leaping opening gesture, for example, turns out to be a motto theme for the whole sonata. Introducing a contrasting second theme, hushed and more languorous, Clarke follows the convention of traditional sonata form with its concepts of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’.

The second movement is a elfin scherzo, rhythmically exciting and glittering with plucked strings, swooping slides and bell-like tones.

The long third movement begins with an Adagio – essentially the sonata’s slow movement – which leads into the fast Allegro section via a recitative from the pianist, who then re-introduces the cello’s opening gesture from the beginning of the sonata. This is then

developed and transformed in a finale of great vitality and emotional power.

Ernest BLOCH From Jewish Life (1924)

I Prayer II Supplication III Jewish Song

Schelomo was not only one of the earliest works in Bloch’s ‘Jewish cycle’, it also established his association of the cello with Jewish themes. It was followed by Méditation Hébraïque and From Jewish Life (subtitled ‘Three Sketches for cello and piano’), and by Voice in the Wilderness, a symphonic poem for cello and orchestra.

In these pieces Bloch avoids quoting Hebrew material. It’s not, as Natalie Clein explains, the ethnomusicological approach adopted by Bartók and Kodály or even Vaughan Williams. ‘With the Jewish identity it’s partly fictional, it’s partly personal – Bloch drew inspiration from reading the Old Testament, and it’s really subjective what he’s talking about. There’s a great source of creativity involved.’

Bloch himself, in a letter to the critic Philip Hale, said: ‘It is not my purpose, not my desire, to attempt a “reconstitution” of Jewish music, or to base my work on melodies more or less authentic. I am not an archæologist. I hold it of first importance to write good, genuine music, my music. It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible… It is all that I endeavour to hear in myself and to transcribe in my music: the venerable emotion of the race that slumbers way down in our soul.’

What is it, then, that is so recognisably Jewish in Bloch’s Three Sketches?

There’s a melodic freedom, with the cello as ‘cantor for the concert hall’. Towards the end of Prayer, for example, the cello goes into a free recitative. Then, at the very end, a sobbing quarter-tone inflection. There are many more of these ‘out of tune’ grace notes in Jewish Song, creating a semi-improvised,

ABOUT THE MUSIC

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vocal character. Supplication contains lively rhythms suggestive of Hassidic dances. And Bloch builds his melodies from synagogue modes such as Ahava Rabbah with its distinctive flattened second note of the scale, which is heard in all three movements and dominates the coda of Prayer. Beyond the stylistic markers, however, is that ‘venerable emotion’: poignant and often despairing.

Natalie WILLIAMS (b 1977)The Dreaming Land (2019)

I Voices of the Ancients II The Chanting Walker… III Ethereal Furies

Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSM World Premiere Performances

See page 7.

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)Sonata for Cello and Piano no 4 in C major, op 102 no 1 (1815)

I Andante (At a walking pace, moving along) – Allegro vivace (Fast, lively)

II Adagio (Slow) – Tempo d’andante (At a walking pace, moving along) – Allegro vivace (Fast, lively)

See page 8 for background on Beethoven’s op 102.

Sonata form in music embodies a Classical concept of drama achieved through thematic contrasts and, above all, harmonic conflict and resolution. Rebecca Clarke used sonata-form structures only twice in her mature works: in the Viola (Cello) Sonata, which we heard earlier in this program, and her Piano Trio – both, as it happens, composed for chamber music competitions. The scholar Liane Curtis speculates that in stepping ‘outside her usual feminine identity’ and adopting a ‘sweeping authoritative stance, a grand public voice’, Clarke was both seeking to be competitive and emboldened by the anonymous format.

In adopting sonata form, Clarke was also embracing the formidable legacy of Beethoven, for whom this way of composing was almost a default. ‘Almost’ is an important qualification here, because Beethoven frequently steps outside convention, and the C major Cello Sonata is an instance of this.

Although it was discarded before publication, the original title of the C major sonata was ‘freie Sonate’ – a free sonata – and nothing is quite as expected. Departing from customary three- or four-movement designs, Beethoven organises the sonata in two movements, each one effectively a long, slow introduction followed by the movement proper in a fast tempo. He then unifies the whole by briefly returning the opening Andante in the middle of the second movement.

Harmonically, the music is just as surprising. Beethoven lulls the listener into security by beginning the Andante in the home key of C major. But instead of ending this tender ‘slow introduction’ with the musical equivalent of a rising inflection in speech, thus propelling the music into the following section, he closes it in the home key and audaciously takes off in a key for which we are completely unprepared, A minor. And so this shattering Allegro vivace comes across as a sonata-form ‘first movement’ in a ‘foreign’ key. The contemplative and wandering slow introduction (Adagio) of the second movement does nothing to reorient us – its role is transitional and, after quoting the main theme of the opening Andante, the music launches into the final Allegro vivace with what sounds like it could be a fugue subject. That had been Beethoven’s intention at first, but he reserves a fugue proper for the finale of the second sonata in this opus. Instead there is another short but fully worked out sonata-form movement, brought to a brusque conclusion quite unlike Beethoven’s usual prolonged endings.

Yvonne Frindle © 2019

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TRIBUTE

A dental practitioner and a fine pianist, Dr Steven Kinston was one of a number of European immigrants whose contribution to Australia’s artistic life in the 1950s and 1960s helped transform the soul and face of the nation.

When he and his younger brother, Paul, arrived in Brisbane in 1938 as Jewish refugees, they found a place where the arts were struggling to gain a foothold in a relatively new nation. Over the next decade, Dr Kinston contributed substantially to the development of Brisbane’s artistic life, founding the Brisbane branch of Musica Viva Australia.

Born in 1908 in the small town of Kolomea, Romania, Steven Kinston grew up in Czernowitz (Cernau,ti), where anti-Semitism and discrimination marred his childhood. Although possessing high intelligence and musical ability, he was barred entrance to any local university. He travelled to Italy, where anti-Jewish feeling was less pronounced, and was welcomed into both the University of Florence and, simultaneously, that city’s Luigi Cherubini Conservatorium of Music. In 1933 he graduated with an unprecedented two degrees: one in medicine, with a speciality in dentistry, and another from the Conservatorium, where he also won a national piano competition.

At this time it became obvious to Dr Kinston that his family needed to find a new life and a new country if they were to survive Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler. He was granted refugee status by Australia, and before emigrating, returned to Romania to say farewell to his parents. The Romanian government immediately conscripted Dr Kinston into the army and prevented his leaving the country. Only a series of undercover arrangements allowed him and his brother to cross the border to freedom.

After his arrival in Brisbane he auditioned for the ABC and was accepted on its roster of soloists. He also established a successful dental practice.

When business and personal commitments necessitated the family’s move to Sydney many years later, Dr Kinston remained a passionate supporter of Musica Viva and of the arts in general. His achievements were made possible through the support and encouragement of his wife, Lena. Throughout their 53 years together, he was intensely devoted to her and to their two children.

His lifetime commitment to his adopted country was epitomised by one of his favourite sayings: ‘The soul of a country is expressed in its art.’

DR STEVEN KINSTON (1908–1996)The Brisbane concert on 5 March is presented in memory of Dr Steven Kinston.

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Musica VivaInternational Concert Season 2019

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DR STEVEN KINSTON (1908–1996)The Brisbane concert on 5 March is presented in memory of Dr Steven Kinston.

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INTERVIEW WITH NATALIE CLEIN

While she may describe her own musicality in humble terms, Clein’s ability to represent such different composers’ stories undoubtedly speaks to her fluidity as a player. It’s a necessary quality for those who attempt to carve their careers in cello – an instrument Clein argues has a relatively limited repertoire when compared to others, such as the piano.

‘Right from the beginning, we have to be versatile,’ she says. She compares the cellist to the pianist, the latter of whom can perform the music of a single composer ‘almost for their whole life because there’s so much’.

Still, there exists a fundamental connection between all works Clein chooses to embrace: ‘It’s human expression – and human expression doesn’t change. It’s just interesting to see what different things are said at different times throughout history.’

Passion. Story. Emotion.

You might have found a sense of intrigue in these Musica Viva descriptions of Natalie Clein when you booked your tickets to this event. But for the British cellist, they are qualities inherent in the music she plays – not only a method of revealing the talent for which she’s so often praised.

‘I’ve always thought that the music was much more interesting than me,’ Clein remarks. ‘I always feel that I’m putting my music on the stage, and I am the channel through which the music goes. Of course, where the person stops and music starts is impossible to say – because it’s my interpretation and my reaction to the music.’

Clein joins pianist Katya Apekisheva on this Musica Viva Australia tour, in which they present music from Beethoven to Bloch; Clarke to Kodály; Vaughan Williams to Natalie Williams.

© N

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Making new music history on her first Australian tour, Clein will present the world premiere of The Dreaming Land by Natalie Williams. It was Musica Viva’s idea to combine the talent of these two artists, and Clein ‘absolutely jumped at the chance’.

‘I love working at new music, and I’d heard such good things about her,’ the cellist says of this Australian composer. She first met Williams in London, where they discussed their approaches to cello composition. They also discovered just how much they each had in common.

‘We had a really nice glass of wine together and talked about music. She talked about why she writes – her impetus to write,’ Clein recalls. It’s a musical drive they share, and it stems from ‘feeling passionate about expressing something that’s meaningful and real’.

That was the last time the two met in person to discuss music. ‘The next thing,’ Clein announces, ‘I received this sonata in the inbox! I’m sure that Australian audiences are going to be fascinated by hearing what one of their best composers has produced for us.’

While Clein will also perform works by well-loved composers such as Rachmaninoff and Beethoven – which she feels are ‘part of my DNA’ – it’s The Dreaming Land she hopes will move audiences in a new way. ‘It’s an honour to be playing these notes for the first time, and to be understanding what Natalie wants to say through the music.’

Though, it’s not only about these musicians’ experiences of the work. It’s about challenging you, too. ‘To get the brain cells working in a new way is important.’ Whether you feel tension or elation upon listening to the world premiere, your reaction can only be a good thing. Clein feels every response has its role to play: ‘It opens the discussion to ideas about things like harmony or melody or memories.’

Clein’s view is an important one. Because it acknowledges that you, as a member of her audience, are not submissive to her

performance. You are here to be moved, to think, and to learn. ‘When you’re listening to live music-making, you have to engage with your mind and your emotions to get the most out of the experience.’ For Clein, it’s the responsibility of music-makers and programmers to create for concertgoers ‘a sense of trust that what you’re going to bring them – even if they don’t know it – they’re going to enjoy’.

This wisdom has evolved through her countless successful performances. At 16 years old, Clein was named BBC Young Musician of the Year, and won the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians. Her talent was royally recognised through the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship by the Royal College of Music – an institution at which she now shares her knowledge as a professor.

As Clein worked to forge her performance path in cello, Moscow-born pianist Katya Apekisheva was building her own career, too – picking up accolades such as the London Philharmonic Soloist of the Year and the Terence Judd Award along the way. Now based in London, Apekisheva is a professor of her instrument at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

She joins the cellist on this tour; the two have made music together for about a decade. ‘She’s a fantastic colleague,’ Clein smiles. ‘She’s a very fluent pianist – her technique is old Russian school, in the best sense. And yet, she also has an inquiring musical mind and a light touch.’

It’s safe to say Clein would enjoy it if you bring along your own inquiring mind when you listen to their performance. You might discover something new – about the premiere, the playing, and yourself.

Stephanie Eslake © 2018

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MUSICA VIVA FESTIVAL ACCOMMODATION OFFER

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Create the fi nest music with us!Through the generosity of donors, Musica Vivacontinues to commission exciting new musicfrom Australia’s leading and emerging composers.

New compositions feature strongly in MusicaViva’s concert programs, and we are proud of ourextensive history of supporting fi ne music fromAustralian composers.

Natalie Williams’ The Dreaming Land (2019),commissioned by Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSMand receiving its world premiere on this tour,is one of many exciting commissioned works thatenrich our programs and performances every year.

To learn more about commissioning new music atMusica Viva, please contact Amelia Morgan-Hunn:Amorgan-hunn@musicaviva.com.au or call 02 8394 6616.

Photo: Natalie W

illiams

MUSICA VIVA FESTIVAL ACCOMMODATION OFFER

5 STAR ACCOMMODATION AT RADISSON BLU PLAZA SYDNEY 

Complete your Musica Viva Festival experience by staying walking distance

from the Festival.

With traditional heritage architecture, the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in the heart of Sydney welcomes you to experience a

luxurious stay.

Musica Viva Festival subscribers can access an exclusive 10% off Best Available Rate*.

Simply quote "MUSIC19" when booking. *T&C's apply.

For reservations, please call 02 8214 0000 or email res.sydplaza@radisson.com

*Terms & Conditions: Subject to availability. Exclusion dates apply. Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel Sydney reserves all rights.

Create the fi nest music with us!Through the generosity of donors, Musica Vivacontinues to commission exciting new musicfrom Australia’s leading and emerging composers.

New compositions feature strongly in MusicaViva’s concert programs, and we are proud of ourextensive history of supporting fi ne music fromAustralian composers.

Natalie Williams’ The Dreaming Land (2019),commissioned by Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSMand receiving its world premiere on this tour,is one of many exciting commissioned works thatenrich our programs and performances every year.

To learn more about commissioning new music atMusica Viva, please contact Amelia Morgan-Hunn:Amorgan-hunn@musicaviva.com.au or call 02 8394 6616.

Photo: Natalie W

illiams

20

MUSICA VIVA PATRONSWe thank the generous individuals and families who make an important contribution to our activities each year. Every gift is important, ensuring that Musica Viva remains at the forefront of artistic excellence and that our award-winning education program continues to reach children who would otherwise have no access to the inspirational experience of live music. To make a gift to Musica Viva, please contact the philanthropy team on (02) 8394 6619 or philanthropy@musicaviva.com.au

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The Amadeus Society exists to help bring the excitement and inspiration of the world’s most extraordinary musicians to Australian audiences. This year, the Society will support the national tour of the Emerson String Quartet. To learn more about the Amadeus Society and how you can help bring some of the world’s leading international artists to Australia, please contact Amelia Morgan-Hunn on (02) 8394 6616 or amorgan-hunn@musicaviva.com.au

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Paul Tyrrell

Anonymous (5)

$500 – $999Peter AllanJoanna BaevskiAdrienne Basser Jann Begg Lin Bender AM

Suzie Brown oam & Harvey BrownPam CaldwellElise CallanderFrederick & Mary Davidson, in memory of Richard Gill AO

Kathy & George Deutsch Geoffrey & Mary Gloster The Glynn Family Prof. Andrea Hull ao

Dr Anthea Hyslop Nola JenningsAngela Kayser Mr Karl NelmsNan & Jim PatersonGreg J Reinhardt Jacques & Susan Rich Eda Ritchie am Marysia SeganMs Wilma SmithDr Charles Su & Dr Emily Lo Dr Mark & Mrs Anna Yates Anonymous (8)

WA$2,500 – $4,999Zoe Lenard & Hamish Milne Mrs Frances Morrell Anonymous

$1,000 – $2,499Michael & Wendy DavisAlan Dodge & Neil ArchibaldIn memory of Raymond DudleyRussell Hobbs & Sue Harrington

Ms Helen Hollingshead & Mr John HollingsheadRobert LarbalestierAnne Last & Steve Scudamore M E M Loton oam Mr Graham Lovelock & Mr Steve Singer Mrs Mary O’HaraPrichard & Panizza FamilyRobyn Tamke Simon WatsonPeter & Cathy Wiese Anonymous (4)

$500 – $999David & Minnette AmbroseMarion & Michael BatemanFred & Angela Chaney Dr S CherianRodney ConstantineDr Penny Herbert, in memory of Dunstan Herbert Megan Lowe Marian Magee & David Castillo Jenny Mills, in memory of Flora Bunning John Overton Ellie Steinhardt Elizabeth Syme Ms Pearl Tan & Mr Michael Welsh Christopher Tyler Anonymous (4)

If you have any questions about this list, please contact Johanna Rosenthal on 1300 786 186 or jrosenthal@ musicaviva.com.au

This list is complete as at 8 January 2019.

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MUSICA VIVA CONCERT PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNER GOVERNMENT PARTNERSMusica Viva is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Musica Viva is assisted by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

HOTEL PARTNERS ARTS & HEALTH PARTNER

SERIES AND TOUR PARTNERSPerth Concert Series Morning Concert Series

BUSINESS PARTNERS

Law Firm Partner Chartered Accountants Partner Piano Partner

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER MUSIC COMPETITION PARTNERSPrincipal Partner Strategic Partners Hotel Partner Wine Partner

Untitled-1 1 8/02/2018 1:10 pm

Grand Prize Partner Prize Partners Car Partner

WINE PARTNERS

VIC

WA

Champagne Partner

NSW & QLD SA

FUTUREMAKERS PARTNERS

Berg Family Foundation

Lead Partner Education Partner Residency Partner

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MUSICA VIVA EDUCATION PARTNERSMUSICA VIVA IN SCHOOLSNational

QLD TAS

ACT NT

Linnell / Hughes Trust Anonymous

SA WA

Aldridge Family Endowment Carthew Foundation

Day Family Foundation FWH Foundation

Lang Foundation Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation

Coopers Brewery Foundation

Hamer Family Fund

In memory of Anita Morawetz

Ballandry (Peter Griffin Family) Fund

The Marian & E H Flack Trust

NSW VIC

Godfrey Turner Memorial Music Trust

National Rural Schools Program supported by Marion Newman

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STORIES TO INSPIRE

Helen Carroll, Manager of Wesfarmers Arts, says, “It’s impossible to underestimate how profoundly inspiring it is for these students to be able to hear and learn from the world’s best musicians – up close and personal. This kind of experience is vitally important for students of music in Australia – it connects our aspiring young musicians to the world’s musical community in ways that are individually revelatory, but also open doors for Australian

Wesfarmers Arts inspires music students to reach for the stars

As Perth music students prepare for the start of a new year, they can look forward to another music-filled year with free Musica Viva concert tickets generously provided by Wesfarmers Arts.

Every year, Wesfarmers Arts enables up to 100 students from the University of Western Australia, the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and St George’s College to attend Musica Viva’s International Concert Season at no cost. Wesfarmers makes it possible for them to witness the virtuosity of some of the biggest names in chamber music such as Angela Hewitt, Ray Chen and Tafelmusik, year after year.

“It’s been an amazing opportunity to see so many talented musicians perform – something I would never have been exposed to without Musica Viva. The concert talks and allocated seats just added to the experience and made these concerts a high point of my year as a university student.” – Olivia, St George’s music student.

The students are also given the unique chance to learn from world-leading musicians, touring as part of our International Concert Season, at our masterclass series held at participating universities. In 2019, Perth students will be treated to professional advice and support by Katya Apekisheva, and members of the Emerson Quartet and Nevermind.

This program has become a vital part of their music learning and a key source of inspiration for many. Ariel, a second-year viola student at WAAPA, says, “All of the Musica Viva concerts I attended this [past] year inspired and encouraged me, as they showcased the product of hard work and phenomenal talent amongst international musicians that Musica Viva brought to Perth. Thank you so much to Wesfarmers!”

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music much more widely. Musica Viva brings the best of the world to Australia, and the best of Australia’s bright young talent to the attention of the world.”

Since 1997, Musica Viva Australia and Wesfarmers Arts have worked together to deliver high-quality music programs to Perth communities far and wide. For the last 20 years, Wesfarmers has demonstrated long-term commitment to the Musica Viva Perth Concert Series as well as increasing access to music education for disadvantaged primary

school students through the Musica Viva In Schools program. This long-term support has allowed Musica Viva to reach more than 800,000 people over this period, which has seen growth in audiences at concerts in Perth and increased student participation.

Interested to inspire your local communities with high-quality music experiences?

Contact Alice Enari, Development Manager at aenari@musicaviva.com.au or call 02 8394 6672.

Clarinettist Sabine Meyer with masterclass participants from the University of Western Australia, March 2018

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Connect with us online for more chamber music news!

At every International Concert Season concert, we present Pre-Concert Talks as well as a selection of CD signings, Meet the Artists, and a variety of other interactive events and experiences.

musicaviva.com.au/insights

@MusicaVivaAU@MusicaVivaAustralia

When performance is your passion

Queensland Conservatorium continues to produce performing arts professionals of the highest calibre.

Find your place on the world stage.

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