Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Concert at Mosman Art Gallery-Music without Borders

by Jacqueline Buswell

The audience at Duo Deconet’s concert in the Mosman Art Gallery last Saturday included three of the composers whose works were performed. The composer who travelled furthest was Carlos Salomon, who came from his home in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was accompanied by Sydney-based composers Margaret Brandman and Daniel Rojas.

Duo Deconet is made up by Mexican-born Irma Enriquez on piano and Venezuelan-born Henry Avila on violin. The duo has been playing together since 2008, usually specialising in Latin American concert music. This year for the first time they performed pieces by Australian composers Brandman and Rojas, and by Elena Kats-Chernin, as well as work by other composers from Mexico, Costa Rica and Venezuela.

While Jucaro Rumba D’Amorby Brandman was pleasing yet simple, her second piece The Eastern Spinebill and the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos Herald a Blue Mountains Bushfirewas complex and suggestive of fear and apprehension before a bushfire. The most interesting and unusual piece to this writer’s ears was Silences by Costa Rican composer Eddie Mora, where Avila showed us the upper limits of the violin’s range, and sparsely placed notes from both piano and violin enabled us to hear or imagine both the tensions and peace of silence.

In Black Kite by Salomon, the duo was joined by young violinist Victor Avila. The piece began with repeated and alternating lines by the violins, somewhat reminiscent of an inviting air from a village fiesta, then the piano joined in with alternating rhythms and patterns. Salomon writes music that he describes as “neo-typical”, incorporating sounds from traditional Mexican music with techniques and aesthetics from the classical tradition.

Daniel Rojas’ compositions are strongly coloured by Latin American musical traditions and Afro-Cuban rhythms, as in the piece Mirimba, originally written for the marimba.

The concert closed to great applause with a special arrangement for piano and violin of Calliope Dreaming by Kats-Chernin.

The duo’s years of playing together are reflected in their accomplished performance and easy communication, providing for rich listening of a very special repertoire. They have produced two CDs, and their next live performance will be at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith this coming November.