Astra concerts continue in 2009 through the help of many generous private supporters, following the loss of most government funding for this year. The season retains Astra’s characteristic mixture of old and new, choral and instrumental music – presented on a reduced scale, but including a guest concert at the Australian National Academy of Music, as well as two programs from younger contemporary performers.
Download Astra's original 2009 colour brochure (PDF, 627 KB).
NB Due to the constantly evolving nature of Astra programming, some details from the original brochure have changed. See below for latest information.
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Concert 1
5 pm, Sunday 17 May
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Middle Park
corner Richardson and Wright Streets
friedrich rückert / william blake
Richard Strauss CREATION AT REST (Deutsche Motette) (1913)
Bo Holten from THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL (1995)
with
Ockeghem
MISSA CUIUSVIS TONI (15th cent.)
Hufschmidt
OCKEGHEM CONTRAFACTUR (1973)
Mahler, Schumann, Dorian Le Gallienne, Cindy John
The Astra Choir and soloists Merlyn Quaife, Hana Crisp, TImothy Reynolds and Jerzy Kozlowski conducted by John McCaughey
Astra's 2009 season opens in the spectacular acoustic space of the restored Carmelite Church in Middle Park, where recent and older settings of William Blake and Friedrich Rückert provide a visionary context for a 15th-century Ockeghem Mass and its contemporary re-working.
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Concert 2
6 pm, Saturday 30 & Sunday 31 May
Eleventh Hour Theatre, Fitzroy
170 Leicester Street
NEW VOICES IN 2 x 2 HANDS (I)
peter de jager / peter dumsday
pianos, harpsichords
ACTIONS AND REPERCUSSIONS:
Louis Andriessen,
Andrew Byrne first performance, Bach
arr. Reger, De Jager first performance,
Frescobaldi, Planet X arr. Dumsday first
performance, Prokoviev, Bach, Radiohead arr. O'Riley
The first of two concerts offering the opportunity to hear performers of a new generation, each presented over two days in the intimate environment of Eleventh Hour Theatre in Fitzroy. Two pairs of pianists/keyboardists engage in a dialogue of repertoire and new material, reinterpreting the culture of their instruments.
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Concert 3
5 pm, Sunday 30th August
Lithuanian House
44 Errol
Street, North Melbourne
miwako abe, violin / michael kieran harvey, piano
with Craig Hill, clarinet
Martin Friedel DISTANT FOLKSONGS - four environments
(2009) first performance
Allan
Walker SONGS AND DANCES (2009) first
performance
Stefan Wolpe SECOND PIECE FOR VIOLIN ALONE (1966)
Keith Humble
SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (1951)
THREE FOLIOS FOR PIANO (1953-67)
Alban Berg ADAGIO from
CHAMBER CONCERTO
(1925)
The coming Astra concert at Lithuanian House brings together two of Australia’s distinguished contemporary performers, violinist Miwako Abe and pianist Michael Kieran Harvey. New compositions for violin and piano from Melbourne and Canberra by Martin Friedel and Allan Walker are set against a wider historical background of earlier Australian works by Keith Humble and classic 20th-century works by Stefan Wolpe and Alban Berg.
Martin Friedel has a successful international career as a film composer in addition to his output of choral cantatas and chamber music. His ‘environments’ for violin and piano create open musical spaces where snatches of distant multicultural park music can be heard. Allan Walker’s Songs and Dances refer to mythical elements of a stone formation found in England, and also form a musical homage to the late Australian composer-pianist Keith Humble.
Humble’s early Sonata for violin and piano (1951) creates a special point of interest in this concert, simultaneously being launched as a published score in the ongoing edition of Kim Bastin. Michael Kieran Harvey plays the three early Folios for solo piano, which appeared in Astra’s publication series in late 2008.
Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto likewise was based on direct personal references to his teacher Schoenberg and colleague Anton Webern. The Adagio movement itself forms a kind of mini-opera, arranged by Berg as a highly original piece of chamber music, with the addition of clarinet to violin and piano. Outstanding clarinetist Craig Hill joins the two other performers for this concluding work.
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concert 4
6 pm, Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 September
Eleventh Hour Theatre, Fitzroy
170 Leicester
Street
NEW VOICES IN 2 x 2 HANDS (II)
joy lee / sonya lifschitz
pianos, organs
CELESTIAL AND EARTHLY:
Bach, George Crumb,
Faenza Codex, Donald Martino, Martinu,
Messiaen, Frederic Rzewski
The second of two concerts offering the opportunity to hear performers of a new generation, each presented over two days in the intimate environment of Eleventh Hour Theatre in Fitzroy. Two pairs of pianists/keyboardists engage in a dialogue of repertoire and new material, reinterpreting the culture of their instruments.
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guest concert
in association with the Australian National Academy of Music
8 pm, Thursday 29th October
ANAM, SOUTH MELBOURNE TOWN HALL
210 Bank Street
haydn / ligeti
chamber and choral music
Josef Haydn STRING QUARTET, op. 20, no. 2
(1772)
CHORAL
SONGS and CANONS
(1790-1800)
György Ligeti
BAGATELLES FOR WIND QUINTET
(1953)
HÖLDERLIN
FANTASIES (1986) 16-part choir
FOLKSONGS and CANONS (1946-1956)
Ligeti, arr. Julian Yu CHORAL BAGATELLES (1994)
Musicians from the Academy
The Astra Choir
with Kim Bastin (piano) conducted by John McCaughey
Josef Haydn and György Ligeti: two composers separated in time, form a special dialogue throughout 2009 at the Australian National Academy of Music. Each of them explored new and inventive styles in his own era, drawing on a variety of energies – both popular and sophisticated. Haydn and Ligeti scores are addressed not only to the audiences of their time, but also to the performers themselves, who are called upon to be individual and ‘playful’ with the musical material.
This combined concert with ASTRA and ANAM brings together instrumental ensembles from the National Academy with the Astra Choir, in a dialogue of choral and chamber music from Haydn and Ligeti. It forms part of a wider week of concerts in which all six Haydn String Quartets Op.20 will be heard, in a changing kaleidoscopic environment.
Haydn’s six Op.20 String Quartets have been described as an explosive moment, when the 40-year old composer re-invented his style, giving the individual string players more varied and changing roles, and experimenting with original forms in each movement. In this concert the C Minor quartet is set against unusual choral works by Ligeti, as well as Haydn’s own little-known canons and choral songs, composed at the end of his life.
Ligeti became famous for a web-like style of many overlaid musical voices, often noted for its use in films. However, his earlier pieces for choir and winds show how much his music was anchored in the motives and characters of Eastern European folk music. In this concert Ligeti’s early Bagatelles for woodwind show both the virtuoso brilliance of a new instrumental style and a special kind of folk energy. They are heard both in their original form and in choral arrangements by the Australian composer Julian Yu. Made with Ligeti’s blessing, Julian Yu’s arrangements take the music into extended expressions, including a Chinese folk poem applied to one of the wind bagatelles in its choral form.
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concert 5
6 pm, Sunday 13 December
Northcote Town Hall
corner High Street and
Westbourne Grove
a choirscape around liszt
Franz Liszt ESZTERGOM CREDO (from Missa Solemnis) (1856)
Arnold Schoenberg DE PROFUNDIS (1950)
Johannes Brahms NENIA – SONG OF LAMENT
(1871)
Andrew Byrne BACH IN THE BARRIO (2009) first
performance
with music by
Thomas Tallis, JS Bach, Stefan Wolpe, Donald Martino, Will Ogdon
and Keith Humble
Miwako Abe (violin)
The Astra Choir and soloists with
instrumental ensemble
conducted by John McCaughey
For its final concert for 2009, the Astra Choir returns to the spacious acoustics of Northcote Town Hall, one of Melbourne’s finest concert halls.
The expressive and theatrical Credo from Franz Liszt’s little-known Missa Solemnis is the centre of a kaleidoscopic choral-instrumental landscape in this program. Works of Tallis, Bach, Brahms and Schoenberg form a varied continuity with more recent music of Stefan Wolpe, Donald Martino, Will Ogdon and Andrew Byrne.
Dark and celebratory elements are brought together in choral works spanning from Hebrew-language psalms by Schoenberg and Wolpe to poetry of Walt Whitman, Herrick and Brecht in 20th-century American settings. The concert also marks the 250th anniversary of Friedrich Schiller with Brahms’ late setting of the great poem of lament Nenia.
JS Bach’s legendary Chaconne is performed by outstanding violinist Miwako Abe. New York-based Australian composer Andrew Byrne draws another perspective on Bach in the concert’s premiered work Bach in the Barrio for instrumental ensemble: ‘a summer evening, somewhere in South America... a milonga band is heard in the distance.’
BOOKINGS & ENQUIRIES:
Astra office on 9326 5424 or info@astramusic.org.au
TICKETS: Full $30 + Concession $15
Concession includes students, low-income earners, arts workers and seniors.
BOX OFFICE: opens 30 minutes prior to the performance at 5.30pm, and please note cash only / no cards.
VENUE: NORTHCOTE TOWN HALL is at 189 High Street and on the corner of Westbourne Grove, Northcote.
PARKING: plenty of parking along High street – but can be busy.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Route 86 on High St at stop 31.
REFRESHMENTS: cafes and bars on High Street.