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Travel Kaleidoscope II

Event

Travel Kaleidoscope II

  • Date: Sunday, 5 October 2014, 5.15pm
  • Venue: Church of All Nations — 180 Palmerston St, Carlton, VIC
  • Tickets: Adults: $35 | Children: 20 | Concession: 20 — Tickets can be purchased online or by phone on (03) 9326 5424

Event Details

The Astra Choir’s second ‘travel kaleidoscope’ in the 2014 season is a kind of viaticum or ‘departure rite’ for the Choir’s own period of travel – for concerts in Italy and Romania in October/November. Astra has had close connections with composers in Italy and Romania over several years.

The October 5 program, at the Church of All Nations in Carlton, brings together a mosaic of works from the three respective regions - choral music from composers of various generations in Romania and Italy joined by a similar age-spectrum from Australasia. Ideas of ‘east’ and ‘west’ are still important within Europe, as well as over wider horizons. They are built into the history and culture of the two main cities of the Astra tour, Venice and Bucharest, often associated with travelling artists and artefacts. This concert shows parts of the Choir’s project to introduce musical works of the three regions of the world to each other.

Travel in music can take many forms and often occurs in the head of the composer. The Chinese-Australian composer Julian Yu visits a Transylvanian woodwind composition by the Hungarian György Ligeti, and re-imagines it as a choral scene with a Chinese text. Arnold Schoenberg also turns to Chinese poetry, for his first 12-tone choral work. The New Zealand composer Jack Body is inspired by the post-byzantine scrotchy chant of early Russian music for his Hebrew Psalm setting “By the Waters of Babylon”. The Australian Elliott Gyger creates three layers of language and style – in Greek, Latin and English – for a text from the Book of Revelations. The Romanian Dan Dediu combines byzantine elements of his own culture with explorative techniques from two Italian masters, Gesualdo in the early seventeenth century and Verdi in the nineteenth. Heinrich Schütz travels to Venice to acquire a style of colour and theatre in music with which he influenced his own country for an entire century.

The composed works are joined in this concert by performances from the Astra Improvising Choir, developed from even wider backgrounds – Javanese song, East European harmony and Balinese ketchak chant.

Performers: The Astra Choir; John McCaughey, conductor; the Astra Improvising Choir; Catrina Seiffert, soprano; Jerzy Kozlowski, bass; Kim Bastin, Joy Lee Peter Dumsday (piano and organ)

Featured non-Australian music: Filippo Bresolin, Gianluca Geremia, Marco Moteni, Giandrea Pauletta, Filippo Perocco, Riccardo Vaglini, Francesco Zorzine, Dan Dediu, Dan Buciu, Marcel Octav Costea, Mihai Murariu, LIvia Teodorescu-Ciocanea

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on (03) 9326 5424 or by email to info@astramusic.org.au

Featured Australian Works

Ahmatova Chorus : choir by Helen Gifford
— performed by Astra Choir and John McCaughey
And I heard a voice out of heaven : for mezzo-soprano and baritone soli, SATB chorus unaccompanied (1997) by Elliott Gyger
— performed by John McCaughey and Astra Choir
In Frieden dein : choir by Kym Alexandra Dillon
— performed by John McCaughey, Astra Choir and Astra Improvising Choir
Nocturnes : for choir & piano: III (1988) by Keith Humble
— performed by John McCaughey and Astra Choir
Revolutionary fugue : SATB choir with organ (2008) by Lawrence Whiffin
— performed by Astra Choir and John McCaughey
Time steals softer : Based on poetry by George Genovese (2009) by Lawrence Whiffin

Featured artists

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