In Tempore Paschali - Review - Sydney Morning Herald

Song Company reviewed by Sydney Morning Herald. Full link here.

The Song Company, St Mary's Crypt

March 30

★★★★½

Song Company - Photo Credit: Simon Gorges

In 1610, after transforming his musical style with what he called the seconda pratica, or "second practice", and creating the first musically significant opera, Claudio Monteverdi had a "retro" moment, composing a six-part Mass of gloriously intricate polyphony in the style of 16th century masters like Josquin and Palestrina.

To clinch the connection, he based it on musical motives drawn from a motet by another 16th century composer, Nicolas Gombert, In illo tempore and it was Monteverdi's Missa In illo tempore and Gombert's motet that formed the central thread of the three parts of The Song Company's radiant presentation in the acoustically miraculous crypt of St Mary's Cathedral under their new artistic director, Antony Pitts.

Standing in a circle on the terrazzo floor under the central vault, the building amplified and echoed the interweaving lines with iridescent resonance, building to a peak of intensity in the elaborate counterpoint that closes the Gloria and Credo of the mass that was quite magical.

The three parts of the concert followed an Easter theme – Tomb, Hades and Throne – and each involved a short piece by Pitts himself and music by English Renaissance composers William Byrd and William Mundy and Australians Elliott Gyger and Alice Chance. Gyger's Creator alme sideru used an old plainchant as the basis for an elaboration in sensitively tonal style which evolved towards densely voiced chords of rich dissonance, using this composer's characteristic sensitivity to vocal capacity.

Chance's piece, And the Lord said, Fiat Lux, sung by a treble subgroup from behind the audience, explored darker sounds and caressing astringent suspended dissonances to create the idea that with the creation of light comes life and pain. Pitts' music expanded classic polyphonic vocal textures to incorporate modern harmonies within a broadly consonant framework and an original and sensitive understanding of the voice.

As new director, Pitts continues and honours The Song Company's special expertise in the glories of the Renaissance under previous director Roland Peelman, while also bringing a distinct and cogent personal perspective. This was a concert of rare and transcendent beauty.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/the-song-company-review-a-concert-of-rare-and-transcendent-beauty-20160401-gnvr0v.html#ixzz46cx5oIxd 

In Tempore Paschali - Review - Limelight Magazine

Song Company reviewed by Limelight Magazine. Full link here.

Song Company in The Crypt of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney

★★★★☆ A three-part polyphonic soothing of the soul for Easter.

St. Mary's Crypt, Sydney
March 30, 2016

In a year 11 maths class, I distinctly recall having an argument with a school peer about whether Tchaikovsky or Beethoven was the greater composer. When I proposed the question “Tchaikovsky or Beethoven?” to my teacher, he replied, “Monteverdi”. Without Monteverdi’s towering figure in Western music, none of the proceeding greats would have been possible. In the Crypt of St. Mary’s Cathedral, the a cappella vocal group The Song Company put on a performance of early music, including Monteverdi, Gombert, Byrd and Mundy, together with works in a polyphonic style by contemporary composers including The Song Company’s own Artistic Director Antony Pitts, as well as Australian composers Elliott Gyger and Alice Chance. Though the long weekend is behind us, this concert is supposed to arouse the drama, majesty and mythic spirit of Easter. Given the holy location, the superb singing and the well thought out programme, it was quite a success. 

The concert was divided into three parts, representing three aspects of Easter: Tomb, Hades and Throne. The sections ran onto one another without applause, maintaining the sense of gravitas and mystery, connected only by a few thespian readings of poems by polymath Pitts himself. Each section incorporated a movement from Monteverdi’s Missa In illo tempore, using and exploring themes and motifs from works by Gombert which in turn featured in the programme. Each section also worked in Thou wast present as on this day from Pitts’ Requiem for the Time of the End. The unifying element was the fluidity of time, the connection between past, present and future and, of course, the musical thread of polyphony that can arouse a sense of the eternal in the hands of a dexterous composer. 

The singing throughout was precise and unforced, the vocalists taking advantage of the Crypt’s natural amplification. Pitt’s direction from within a circular arrangement ensured a tight relationship between vocalists, as well a democracy of the six singers. There was some thoughtful choreography, such as in the Byrd, where the soprano solo circled the other singers, as the sun moves around the sky, the homophony drawing out the theme of light banishing darkness. The contrast of plainchant and homophony against more daring and dissonant lines in Gyger’s and Pitts’ works was striking but soothed by the ultimate resolution in the form of Monteverdi and Mundy – again highlighting the fluidity of time and composition. Though all singers played their part, Andrew O’Connor was notably strong and full-bodied in a number of the items, particularly the Gyger. The arrangement of Thou was present as on this day in the final section (Throne) was notably resonant through a series of sustained, clashing high notes before giving way to Mundy’s promise in In aeternum of salvation through belief in God’s precepts.

- See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/live-reviews/review-tempore-paschali-song-company#sthash.FAtBtATl.dpuf

Where the red dust stirs...

It is no secret that one of my favourite times of the year is our time in north west NSW, assisting with the Moorambilla Voices project.

Song Company has been an artistic partner with Moorambilla every year since 2013, and this year we have expanded our involvement (thanks to the generous support of the St George Foundation) to include a week of skills tours as well as the residencies in August and September. We will also be performing with Moorambilla Voices at both Parliament House and Government House in June.

Mark Donnelly, Hannah Fraser, and Andrew O'Connor on the road with Song Company just outside Lightning Ridge. 

If you haven't heard about Moorambilla Voices I urge you to visit their website here, but I will try and sum up its important work in a couple of sentences.

Moorambilla represents the opportunity for hundreds of children exploring their previously untapped artistic potential, in an environment that connects them to the land that surrounds them. They explore the narrative and rich history of this lands first peoples via some of Australia's finest composers, musicians, choreographers, and regional artists. The program strives to make them proud (sometimes for the first time) of their talents and help them recognise how art can define, nourish, and sustain them as individuals.

Education is one of the cornerstones of Song Company's mission. We believe that every child deserves to know and hear the magic of song, and understand the joy of music making. This is one of the key objectives we share with Michelle Leonard and her Moorambilla Project.

We belong to a continent whose first peoples use songlines, dance, and stories to pass knowledge and culture from generation to generation. The Moorambilla Voices project, now in its eleventh year, connects thousands of students to music, music literacy, and music making each year. At best guess, Michelle guesses that at least 12,000 students have been engaged in these workshops over the past decade, and at least 2,000 of those have been directly involved in Moorambilla Voices or the MAXed Out Company. This is an amazing achievement.

Java Jive! Song Company (when we were four with Susannah Lawergren) on tour with Moorambilla Voices Artistic Director, Michelle Leonard. 

 In our week of skills workshops we worked with children from:

• 27 Primary Schools
• 13 High Schools
• 1 Distance Education School

These children, some of whom we will see again at the Moorambilla camps in August and September came from:

• Dubbo
• Wellington
• Narromine
• Gilgandra
• Coonamble
• Gulargambone
• Carinda
• Wallget
• Bourke (via Satellite)
• Lightning Ridge
• Goodooga
• Collarenebri

Sunrise in Coonamble, NSW. Desert skies really are unbeatable. 

Michelle then continues her journey (she's still on the road at the time of writing) and visits schools in:

• Brewarrina
• Bourke
• Cobar
• Nyngan
• Girilambone
• Warren
• Trangie
• Coonabarabran
• Binnaway
• Baradine
• Dunedoo
• Mendooran
• Coolah

As you can imagine, this is no small feat!

I want to extend my personal thanks to the St George Foundation who allowed Song Company to join Michelle, and her team (Dayle, Annie, Beth, and Karen) who are an organisational force to be reckoned with. Their support allows us to do this valuable artistic work.

Who says learning can't be fun? Making music (Playschool style) at Bourke-Walgett School of Distance Education. 

Now. Back to the music.

Some of you might be wondering: What does this type of skills workshop looks like? How do you make 100+ kids sing for you when they've never met you before? What did you sing for the kids? The answers might surprise you.

A typical day involved back-to-back workshops in different schools, sometimes separated by hundreds of kilometres. We became very quickly accustomed to a packed lunch which we'd hurriedly eat between schools!

Here's a fly-over of our time in regional NSW.

We flew out of Sydney at 7:25am on Tuesday morning (looking glamorous in our new t-shirts) and arrived in Dubbo with just enough time pick up a car, order a coffee, and make for our first school. The sessions begin with a brief musical introduction from Song Company (Java Jive as made famous by Manhattan Transfer) before Michelle gave them a crash course in basic music literacy and notation. What normally can takes weeks in a classroom, can take fifteen minutes with the right tools. With a little help from Song Company, a small splash of silliness, and a system that ties score reading to the human body, children can read music in treble clef within fifteen minutes. Proof that music is an innate language if we give children the right tools.

We would then usually jump straight into more singing. We began our week with a quartet of singers (Susannah, Hannah, Mark, Andrew) but sadly we lost Susannah to illness on the first day. Already due to be 161km away by the second day, we had no choice but to send Susannah home to rest, and battle on with three. Sometimes that's what life on the road is like!!

In the remaining workshop time (sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes less) children would learn (entirely by ear) Stephen Leek's Ngana, and Alice Chance's Palapalaa or Andrew Howes' Yanaya - the latter two being works composed for Song Company and Moorambilla Voices. We'd teach these pieces by breaking the works down into their musical parts.

Ngana is a buzzing and energetic three part canon (in our adaption for three voices) that illustrates the concepts of syncopation, the harmonic language and modality of much of Leek's music, the strength of rhythmic and harmonic unison, or the sonic effect of a three part canon, usually performed from three points in the room for full surround sound effect.

Palapalaa contrasts this with two beautifully lyric call and response themes, a modal soprano theme, contrary motion bass line, and a soaring syncopated tenor line. This was our most popular piece of the week, and became a favourite of Hannah, Mark and myself. This was due in no small part I'm sure to the text, a local indigenous story (told to Alice and Michelle by Aunty Brenda, a member of the language nest from Lightning Ridge) which tells the story of a butterfly (from Coocoran Lake) whose wings were captured and set into stone when she flew too far away from home, and was frozen on the ridge of the Warrumbungles. The colours melted from her wings when she thawed in spring, and flowed downstream into the rocks and stones near her home. Which stones? The world famous Black Opals of Lightning Ridge. Remember this story the next time you look at an opal! It made so much sense to bring this piece back to the landscape which inspired it. That's one of my favourite things about the entire Moorambilla project - its connection to the Australian landscape in all its rugged beauty.

Yanaya was reserved for our workshops at Lightning Ridge High School, Coonamble High School, and the Dubbo Regional Conservatorium (where we had extended sessions to also work on dance, composition, and body percussion) and draws inspiration from the nearby Narran Lakes. Usually sung with chamber orchestra and piano, the flowing rhythmic underlay supports the arc of the main melody, and partners with other derivative tunes from the same material. Composed for the MAXed Company (the high school arm of Moorambilla) it was particularly useful when Mark and I were modelling the adult male voice to our teenage participants.

There is great power (and a sense of pride) in being able to model singing to children (of all ages) and having them respond. Singing is so much about physicality, and as any singing teacher will tell you, once a student connects their voice to their physicality (or their brain to their voice) there is sudden and huge improvement. Seeing this 'penny drop' moment in our workshops is always inspiring, and reminds us of why we choose to spend our lives singing. We, the singers of the Song Company, were all that student once. Being able to pass on some of our experience is a very valuable thing indeed.

At this point I must also acknowledge the true impact of this program, in that the children (or young adults) who have been selected for the Moorambilla program bring their knowledge, leadership, discipline, and skills home with them. This region of NSW is geographically and politically isolated, removed from the usual 'artistic' opportunities of the city,  and some children face disadvantages and hardships that we often take for granted. I won't begin to describe the difference between a 'Moorambilla Kid' and a 'Non-Moorambilla Kid' to you, but needless to say, a child who has had access to this program: who is told that they matter, that they have talent, that they are good - is much more able to adapt to challenges, solve problems, and recall skills. In the world of science and education, we call this Neuroplasticity, and music making is one of the only activities known to man that engages the whole brain, and allows neural pathways to reorganise and adapt. A 'Moorambilla Kid' leaves the program not just with new skill set, but with a stronger stance and a more adaptable mind.

Beyond the music, the landscape in this part of the world is also inspiring. The weathered tops of the Warrumbungles (an ancient volcanic mountain ridge) and the surrounding grassland, a sky that stretches in perfect blue across a seemingly limitless horizon, the awe inspiring wonder of a desert night sky, the dry creek beds that belie the water stored below in the Great Artesian Basin, and the artesian bore baths in Lightning Ridge that bring soothing hot  mineral water from three kilometres beneath the earth to the surface.

Sunset in Lightning Ridge, NSW. Just prior to an outdoor screening of Wide Open Sky. 

We ended our week, exhausted but happy, with an open air screening of Wide Open Sky in Lightning Ridge (complete with stereophonic cicadas and a desert sunset) and a midnight dip in the artesian bore baths. Wide Open Sky is a documentary about Moorambilla Voices which picked up an audience favourite award at the  Sydney Film Festival in 2015. It opens in cinemas nationally in April. If you're interested in anything you've just read, or are curious about the Moorambilla program, please check your local cinema for listings.

I can't wait to return to Baradine in August. Until then I'll be dreaming of the crystal clear night sky, the music and dance inspired by the landscape, and the bore baths in Lightning Ridge.

Hourglass Beach - Review - Cut Common Magazine

A review of Hourglass Beach, in the Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. 

Read the full article here.

In true form to its aesthetic and mission statement as a chamber ensemble, Sydney’s new Hourglass Ensemble provided a mix of Polish and new Australian music including two world premieres in the Utzon Room. The programming provided opportunities for each of the artists to display their solo playing as well as demonstrate their tight, chamber ensemble skills.

The evening opened with Peter Sculthorpe’s ‘DreamTracks’ for clarinet, violin and piano. This piece takes influences from the musical ideas of ‘Dijilie’, and taken from the larger ‘Songlines’ series. The three musicians rendered their intricately woven musical parts together and created a vibrant rhythmic and textural scape. Gregory Kinda’s piano part provided the rhythmic and harmonic framework over which Andrew Kennedy on clarinet and Beata Stanowska danced and floated. Here, we heard some extremely fine ensemble playing matched with an enthusiastic presentation of this work.

The next piece on offering was a world premiere by Margery Smith. ‘White Shadows’, dedicated to her brother Peter, who tragically took his own life this year, is an exploration on the themes of impermanence, loss and isolation. Before the piece began, Smith spoke to the audience about the process of writing the work and the importance of the text. Poet Lidja Simkute then took to the stage and recited the text contained in the final movement. It is certainly refreshing to hear composers talk about their personal experiences and how this is displayed in their work.

The fifth movement ‘En Plein Air’ contained text from Rita Bratovich, based on the writings of Peter. The opening of this piece set the tone for the remainder of the work and a delicate atmosphere was soon established. The flute was placed off to the left and the violin to the right, gently echoing in the distance before moving closer to the rest of the ensemble. This was an extremely well crafted and considered composition that explored many shadings of colour from instrumental combinations. Baritone Andrew O’Connor, who was a guest soloist, relieved the lines of text with tenderness and delicacy, his velvety voice gliding atop the musical lines from the chamber ensemble. O’Connor’s expression and shading in these songs brought the poetry and the text to the fore.

To conclude the first half was a new work by Australian composer Michal Rosiak: ‘Contrasts’ for flute, clarinet and piano is cast in two contrasting movements. The first movement contains spiky harmonic and rhythmic episodes that quickly move into new musical ideas. Overall, this piece contained many fast-paced ideas that quickly changed without really evolving the musical line. Frantic episodes emerged and submerged themselves in a virtuosic feast. The ensemble performed to the highest of standards and the interplay between Kowalski on flute and Kennedy on clarinet was highly charged. Kinda’s pianistic gymnastics provided a tightly woven rhythmic impetus upon which the foundation of the ensemble was situated.

Opening the second set was Ewa Kowalski performing the solo flute work ‘Orient Bis’ by Adam Porebski. The piece draws on Japanese and Chines flute playing and explores extended techniques such as triple and double tonguing, flutter tonguing and glissandi, all which demonstrate exciting tonal palettes from the flute. Kowalski’s control of tone was highly developed and her control of the instrument highly crafted. Her approach to the extended techniques explored every subtle nuance of the flute and she was able to display all of her skills, technique and stagecraft in this virtuosic performance.

The centerpiece of the evening was a solo piano performance from Gregorgy Kinda, whose musical craft and sensibility were evident from the first few notes in his rendition of Grazyna Bacewiz’s Piano Sonata No. 2. This piece was composed in the early 1950s and displays a plethora of influences, ranging from hefty Russian rhythms and dissonances to elements of jazz, French music and Impressionistic overtones. Kinda’s thunderous approach demonstrates his total command and control of the Steinway piano, much like a race car driver behind the wheel of at high speed event. He propelled highly climactic music forward with every phrase. This was a charged performance of a work that had nearly everything in it. I had always thought Horowitz was my favourite pianist – and then I heard Gregory Kinda.

The concluding piece was another world premiere. Kennedy’s ‘Hourglass Beach’, for chamber ensemble and baritone explores themes of morality in today’s world. Beginning with a modal sounding harmonic framework, the musicians wove individual lines around musical ideas. Guest soprano Suzi Stengel entered the stage midway through the work and sung a lament in the second movement ‘Three Lullabies’. The soprano voice added a change of colour and pace to the work and served as a new palette before Andrew O’Connor took the reigns to conclude the piece. Andrew Kennedy’s scoring was well considered and thoughtful. His use of tonal language included modal elements and strong melodies.

This was a stand out performance from the Hourglass Ensemble in its inaugural performance as Sydney’s newcomer to the chamber music scene. Throughout the evening the group engaged with the audience, explaining the pieces and giving personal stories about the players. The room was charged with energy and enthusiasm and if this performance is anything to go by, it is safe to say Hourglass will have a very bright future as a high calibre chamber ensemble.

http://www.cutcommonmag.com/live-review-hourglass-beach/

LAMENTATIONS FOR A SOLIDER - LIMELIGHT MAGAZINE REVIEW

Review: Lamentations for a Soldier (The Song Company)

by Maxim Boon on April 16, 2015
An uplifting, spiritually cleansing and intelligently multi-cultural Gallipoli tribute. 

The Crypt, St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
April 14, 2015

PHOTO CREDIT: BLAKE CASTLE

'... This richly spiritual music not only showcased the superb blend and musicianship of the Song Company (particular praise should go the ensemble’s newest member, Bass Andrew O’Connor, who was a faultless foundation throughout the evening), but also made full use of the gloriously generous acoustic of St Mary’s Crypt.'

*******

How do you commemorate an event of unimaginable horror? It’s a question many arts organisations have been pondering in recent months as the centenary of the ANZAC campaign at Gallipoli approaches. Some, such as the ACO’s Reflections of Gallipoli for example, have opted for unflinching historical accuracy, confronting the audience with the magnitude of the death and suffering experienced in those Turkish trenches one hundred years ago. This approach is strikingly effective, not to mention affecting, but there is another tact, such as that explored in the Song Company’s Lamentations for a Soldier, staged in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral.

Rather than attempting to take an audience back in time to relive and remember the senseless destruction of the Dardanelles campaign, Artistic Director Roland Peelman has adopted a more serene, spiritually cleansing, and ultimately uplifting programme in tribute to this pivotal moment in our Nation’s history. The hopeful, forward-facing message of this commemorative programme, delivered with subtlety and deeply moving poignancy, is one of peace and multi-cultural acceptance.

The most conspicuous connection to the ANZAC centenary is the acknowledgement of the two cultural identities that a century ago clashed during the bloody Gallipoli campaign. Throughout the programme, in a beautifully poetic display of reconciliation, music from Turkish antiquity, performed by Oguz Mülayim on the ney (a Turkish, wooden flute) is woven in and out of ancient music of the Christian faith, representing in music the historical and cultural roots of the two armies who fought and died during the battles on the Turkish peninsula.

Binding these two radically different aesthetics together were the works of three contemporary composers, whose carefully curated roles allowed a cohesive thread to run from start to finish through this diverse evening of music. This is typically savvy programming by Peelman, who is an expert at delivering pathos laced with a healthy dose of cerebral stimulation.

The breathy, spectrally ethereal tone of the ney, resonant within the welcoming acoustic of St Mary’s crypt, yet nonetheless incongruous in its exoticness, introduced the first of five short pieces by Turkish-Australian composer Ekrem Mülayim, Some Echo Still, in its world premiere performance. These short movements, dotted throughout the programme, were inspired by the writings of Sufi mystic, Rumi, although not conventional settings of these texts as such. Small fragments of vocalised sounds, spoken phrases, and chromatically serpentine melodies pass between the six singers of the Song Company, arranged in a circle at the centre of the crypt. The swirling vortex of fractured repetition evokes the furious spinning of the whirling dervishes, but also cycles of the universe, orbits of planets and galaxies, and the movements of atomic particles. An exhaustively thorough amount of academic preparation (as outlined in the programme) was used to fathom out the implied rotational relationships at work within the music, and this rigour occasionally make these pieces feel overly sterile. However when Mülayim allows the music to connect with a more instinctual, emotionally rich language, its impact is immediate and powerful.

Of the English Renaissance music offered, which included two different settings of When David Heard by Thomas Tomkins and Thomas Weelkes respectively, Robert White’s Lamentations for six voices yielded the most compelling performances. Breaking down into trios and duets, before revelling again in the complexity of six-part polyphony, this richly spiritual music not only showcased the superb blend and musicianship of the Song Company (particular praise should go the ensemble’s newest member, Bass Andrew O’Connor, who was a faultless foundation throughout the evening), but also made full use of the gloriously generous acoustic of St Mary’s Crypt.

Kim Cunio’s setting of Psalm 57, the second of the evening’s three contemporary works, also took full advantage of the rich acoustic setting, with thick, pleasingly dissonant harmonies mixed with hand percussion that at once made reference to both the secular medieval tradition of central Europe and the ethnic musical heritage of the Turkish ney.

For the final piece of the evening, Arvo Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine, the ensemble processed to the distant end of the crypt, allowing the remoteness of the performance to make room for a moment of personal reflection. Composed in 2004 in memory of the victims of the Madrid train bombings, Pärt’s simple yet devastatingly beautiful piece is a tranquil anthem of peace and remembrance; a perfect summation of everything this tribute concert endeavours to honour.

PHOTO CREDIT: BLAKE CASTLE