Ask any seasoned orchestral musician what repertory they most cherish and chances are they will respond, ‘chamber music.’ It’s easy to understand why: each musician is given the agency and individual voice that an orchestral tutti, glorious though it is, cannot provide.
The beautiful idea at the heart of chamber music is the direct and respectful musical conversation between the artists. Our 2027 concert season expands this principle, fostering artistic collaborations between artists of shared vision across seas and time zones, between outstanding international musicians and the cream of Australia’s music-makers.
Where else but on our stages would you find Will Barton playing with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge? Or the French harpsichordist Bertrand Cuiller performing Bach with his old buddy Julia Fredersdorff and her Van Diemen’s Band? Or the luminescent French singing star Lea Desandre premiering Alice Chance’s setting of the Australian poet Verity Laughton’s gorgeous reimagining of Shakespeare’s spirit-filled Tempest? ‘In the water there crawled | A blue and golden star | Quiet in the shallows | Magic | Are you just an exchange of forces?’
Javier Perianes has long struck me as a star in the shallows. There is something exquisite — magical, even — about his colouring, the way he takes a limpid phrase of Albeniz, or a more robust strut of Scarlatti, and proceeds to tell the most beguiling of stories. Long loved by Australian audiences for his concerto appearances, Javier here gives flight to that wonderful imagination in a recital program, one featuring a new work from Australian composer Elizabeth Younan, a contemporary response to Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, which follows almost in the same breath.
It is impossible to imagine a Musica Viva season without at least one of the world’s greatest string quartets at its heart. In 2027 it is a privilege to see once more on our stages two brilliant ensembles, the Esmé and Vision string quartets. Who can forget their previous visits here, the demure elegance of the former, the stunning originality of the latter, each player performing the most complex scores from memory? In 2027 it is a delight to include a complete concert half of the Vision Quartet’s own compositions, a nod to the folk and classical traditions of their upbringing and training.
In the 2010s — right up to last year, in fact — one of the great joys of a new recording from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was the solo clarinet playing of Andreas Ottensamer, the orchestra’s principal. Now a renowned conductor, Andreas here gives us the rare privilege of hearing him in recital, in territory defined and owned by the great Romantics. His partners here are the astounding pianist Dejan Lazić — known to Australian audiences through his longstanding collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra — and the wonderful, musical Australian cellist Sharon Grigoryan. Clarinet, cello, piano: that sounds like Brahms …
It is a season of beguiling artistic encounters. Dig into any of the national tours and you will discover a rich vein of the best music and musicians in the world. We invite you discover it all with us — the musicians you’ve only ever heard on radio, the music you love passionately or will hear for the first time. Be entranced, be transformed, as we step onto the world stage.
Paul Kildea
Artistic Director
