Upcoming concert featuring Dr Jeanell Carrigan AM and Sirius Chamber Ensemble.
Dutch/Australian composer Meta Overman was one of the foremost contributors to musical cultural life in Australia in the middle of the twentieth century. The music of Meta Overman is innovative, individual, sometimes humorous, expressing amazing creativity and powered by strong visual imagery. Her prolific output includes seventeen works or sets of works for piano solo, five for orchestra, six sets of songs, five choral works, eleven operas including one three act opera, four ballets and twenty-four chamber works, some of which are for two pianos. Overman was a composer who was very influenced by the circumstances of her life when she composed. Her compositions therefore fall into very defined categories and time periods which relate to the situations she found herself in and many of her compositions are the direct result of her life experiences.
Margaret Sutherland, now often referred to as the ‘matriarch’ of Australian composition, struggled during her life to find time to compose and to have her compositions realized in publication. She fought for the acceptance and recognition of Australian music and for the young composers of Australia and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Music from University of Melbourne and an OBE for her contribution to Australian music. Despite her personal struggles to have Australian music accepted Sutherland worked tirelessly for other composers especially Meta Overman.
The majority of compositions by Meta Overman, in particular works for winds, strings and piano have been recently published by Wirripang. Most compositions by Margaret Sutherland have been published since her death with the exception of the Quartet in G minor (also known as the “House Quartet”). Despite many researchers trying to find the score and parts it appears that the only remnant in existence was a manuscript complete of the first three movements, yet only the sketch of the final movement, preserved in the archives at Monash University Library, Melbourne. Earlier this year a complete version of this quartet has been published, based on the recording Sutherland herself performed in 1943.
To celebrate the friendship of these two amazing Australian women composers our artistic collaboration will feature works never previously recorded for combinations of winds, strings and piano.
Notes by Jeanell Carrigan, August 2024.
Concert performance on Saturday 26 October, 7:30 pm
Program:
- Sutherland Sonata for clarinet and piano
- Overman Sonata 1 for flute and piano
- Meta Overman Charivari Variations for piano
- Overman trio for violin, viola and cello
- Overman Sonata for clarinet and piano
- Overman ‘Metaborphoses’ – six pieces for two flutes
- Sutherland Quartet for clarinet, viola, cello and piano
Guest performers: Dr Jeanell Carrigan (piano), Jennifer Taylor (violin), Lucy Carrigy-Ryan (viola), and Henry Liang (flute).
Sirius Chamber Ensemble: Melissa Coleman (flute), Ian Sykes (clarinet), and Clare Kahn (cello).
Venue: St Columba Uniting Church (Uniting Heart and Soul), Cnr Forth & Ocean Street, Woollahra NSW 2025
Tickets: TryBooking
Download the program notes here.
sirius chamber ensemble 