Twilight Recital: New Music by Alan Holley

Sirius Chamber Ensemble will premiere two new works by beloved Australian composer Alan Holley – Cicada Songs for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and a new song cycle set to text by celebrated Australian poet Mark Tredinnick. Also on the program is the Australian premiere of Quartet for clarinet, violin, cello and piano by Croatian composer Frano Parac, Chants d’Auvergne by Joseph Canteloube, and Alan Holley’s Zoastra for solo clarinet.

The Australia Council has supported Alan Holley’s music through composer fellowships and numerous commissions. Regularly performed and broadcasted in Australia since the mid-1970s, over the past thirty years his music has become increasingly well known in America and Europe. His compositions include the opera Dorothea (1988), five song cycles, and numerous works for small ensembles and solo instruments. Larger-scale compositions include Chamber Symphony (2003) and The Winged Viola (2004) for solo viola and ensemble. The trumpet concerto Doppler’s Web (2005) written for soloist Paul Goodchild, A Line of Stars (2007) and A Shaft of Light (2015) for oboe and orchestra with Shefali Pryor as soloist were all commissioned and performed in the Concert Hall of the Opera House by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Loaded with Dream (2011) was commissioned by the Sydney Symphony for performance by the Fellows. In 2012 the Seraphim Trio toured his piano trio ‘the estuaries of time’. CDs of chamber and vocal music include Ophelia and Masquerade on the MBS label and Solos and Hammerings on the Hammerings Records label. Four of his trumpet works appear on the Paul Goodchild CD, Mixed Dozen on the 1M1 label. Kookaburra Music now publishes compositions by Alan Holley.

Mark Tredinnick, winner of the Montreal Poetry Prize (2011) and the Cardiff Poetry Prize (2012), is the author of The Blue Plateau, Fire Diary, and nine other acclaimed works of poetry and prose. He lives in the highlands southwest of Sydney, Australia. According to Judith Beveridge, Mark Tredinnick is “one of our great poets of place—not just of geographic place, but of the spiritual and moral landscapes as well”.

Frano Parac is a professor in the Department of Composition and Music Theory at the Zagreb Academy of Music. His music has won many awards, and does not hesitate to use legible symmetric forms, clear harmonies, short and simple diatonic sequences, thus bringing his music to an interesting point which is both new and familiar. His works include the opera Judita (2000), the ballet Carmina Krleziana (1985), Music for Strings (1982), Sarabande for symphony orchestra (1982) and String Quartet (1996). Parac’s Quartet for clarinet, violin, cello and piano was composed in 1991, at the beginning of the Croatian war of independence, and was inspired by the composition Quartet for the End of Time (1941) by French composer Olivier Messiaen.

French composer and musicologist Joseph Cantaloube (1879-1957) is best known for his collection of folk songs, Chants d’Auvergne, orchestrated for soprano and orchestra or piano (1923-30). Whilst he was remembered for collecting and arranging folk songs, other works by Cantaloube have largely been forgotten such as his operas Le Mas and Vercingétorix, which were performed at the Paris Opera in 1929 and 1933. The Songs of Auvergne evoke images of Cantaloube’s native landscape situated in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southern France. The popularity of these songs have influenced other contemporary composers, including William Walton who incorporated melodic fragments in his film score for Laurence Olivier’s Henry V.

When: Friday 23^rd June 2017, 6pm

Where: Christ Church Lavender Bay, Corner of Walker and Lavender Streets

Performers: Taryn Srhoj (soprano), Ian Sykes (clarinet), Vanessa Tammetta (violin), Clare Kahn (cello), Claire Howard Race (piano).

Tickets: $25 Adults, $15 concession & children.

Tickets available at www.classikon.com or at the door.

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