Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

ARGO: VOID music for voice, violin, piano + electronics

Merlyn Quaife, Monica Curro, Stefan Cassomenos + Connor D'Netto

distant, detached, ethereal, other-worldly :: void beckons you forth on passage from darkness to light In partnership with Opera Queensland, Argo gives you a rare opportunity to see behind-the-scenes into the bowels of Opera Q’s Studios. Dark and surreal, their rehearsal spaces are the perfect blank canvas to create this dreamlike experience, featuring three of Australia’s most alluring soloists, Merlyn Quaife, Monica Curro, and Stefan Cassomenos. Underpinning the whole night are ambient electronics in surround sound by Connor D’Netto, and glitchy video art by Slato (aka Benjamin Fitzpatrick). Undulating drones, ambient electronics, live-manipulated instruments, and virtuosic performances equally plaintive, lyrical and acrobatic, combine in this spellbinding event.

The program includes George Crumb’s elegiac settings of poetry by Walt Whitman, Apparition, Ben Heim’s haunting Black Light Songs, contrasted by Nico Mulhy’s beautiful yet slightly unhinged Drones & Violin, and John Adams's rollicking Road Movies, all brought together with a new work by Connor D’Netto.

PROGRAM Nico Muhly – Drones & Violin Ben Heim – Black Light Songs George Crumb – Apparition John Adams – Road Movies Connor D'Netto – new commission* live visuals by Slato (aka Benjamin Fitzpatrick) * World premiere, commissioned by argo in 2017 approx. 70 minutes total running time.

Performers: Merlyn Quaife, Monica Curro, Stefan Cassomenos, Connor D'Netto

Featured non-Australian music: "Drones & Violin" by Nico Muhly, "Apparition" by George Crumb, "Road Movies" by John Adams

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• New work by Connor D'Netto
• New work by Ben Heim
• Performer Monica Curro
• Performer Merlyn Quaife
• Performer Stefan Cassomenos
• Performer Connor D'Netto