Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

The two composing Bs whose music helps to enliven the first half of this program are not the usual ones cited in some central European tallies of musical excellence but possess in abundance their own mastery and distinction. Bartók’s Contrasts, commissioned by the famous jazz player Benny Goodman in the 1930s, is a viscerally exciting personification of instrumental characters in active combat and occasional reconciliation. Britten was a very young composer when he showed in his Sinfoniettafor ten instruments how completely he was in control of animated, fresh-sounding musical dialogue. Owing to the deferred arrival of a commissioned score by Nigel Butterley, its place will be taken by a new work, Double Entendre, by another Australian composer, John Peterson, in which the Australia Ensemble’s brilliant instrumentalists will be partnered by two dancers. Mendelssohn seems to have been born with or developed almost all the talents, distinctions or blessings accessible to human beings. Though he missed out on a long life, his D minor Piano Trio is one of a list of surviving works of an entirely dazzling beauty, securely based in his own extraordinary abilities as pianist and composer.

Performers: Australia Ensemble @UNSW – Ian Munro, piano; Geoffrey Collins, flute; Dene Olding, violin; Dimity Hall, violin; Irina Morozova, viola; Julian Smiles, cello; plus guest artists Shefali Pryor, oboe; Andrew Barnes, bassoon; Robert Johnson, horn; and Andrew Meisel, double bass.

Featured non-Australian music: BRITTEN, Sinfonietta; BARTOK, Contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano; MENDELSSOHN, Piano Trio in D minor op. 49

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on (02) 9385 4874 or by email to australia.ensemble@unsw.edu.au

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Australia Ensemble