Six inspiring concerts with outstanding artists
MACQUARIE Conservatorium has an impressive line-up of visiting artists in the 2018 Concert Series, with a range of musical styles on offer.
The series opens on Friday, March 23, with a memorable night of jazz, featuring Australia’s premier jazz vocalist Emma Pask with renowned pianist Matt Mcmahon.
Award-winning Emma Pask has performed all over the world for VIP audiences including the late Diana Princess of Wales and Princess Mary of Denmark, while her stint on “The Voice” took her talent to an even wider audience.
Winner of the Freedman and National Jazz Awards, Matt Mcmahon’s exciting work as pianist and composer is acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. Both artists have recorded numerous albums and appear regularly at major music festivals in Australia and overseas.
The second concert in May features two international artists on an Australian tour. French soprano Laetitia Grimaldi and South African/ Israeli pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz will present a program of romantic French songs by Fauré, Debussy and others, in the style of a Parisian salon concert from the period known as La Belle Époque.
From 1870 to 1914, the arts of all types flourished in Paris, from the literary heights of Marcel Proust to the decadence of the Moulin Rouge. Poets, painters and composers met in the celebrated salons of Paris to share their art, and this concert will recreate the experience of hearing music in this context.
Third in the series is a return visit in June by two favourite artists, duo pianists Elena Kats-chernin and Tamara-anna Cislowska. Elena Katschernin is Australia’s most famous living composer,
Jazz vocalist Emma Pask will open the 2018 series on Friday, and Tamara
March 23, with renowned pianist Matt Mcmahon.
Anna-cislowska is a popular Classic FM radio presenter as well as an acclaimed concert pianist.
In this concert, they perform from their recent chart-topping album “Unsent Love Letters: Meditations on the music of Erik Satie”. After the death of the enigmatic composer Erik Satie, dozens of unsent love letters were found in his Paris apartment. Elena Kats-chernin and Tamara-anna Cislowska send those letters off in a series of piano miniatures by Kats-chernin, inspired by Satie’s extraordinary life and music.
Dubbo has also been included in the inaugural tour of alumni from the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), a “hothouse” training institution for elite classical musicians, comparable to the Australian Institute of Sport. Ensemble Peregrine features four outstanding Australian wind players who originally studied at ANAM and have gone on to take up key positions in major orchestras in Australia, North America and Europe. For their concert in July, they are joined by another ANAM graduate, pianist The Ultimo String Quartet will finish the 2018 concert Gladys Chua, series in November.
to perform a program centred around Mozart’s iconic Quintet for piano and wind.
Two artists well known to Dubbo audiences team up for an exciting new show in September. Australian theatre icon John Bell AO OBE and internationally acclaimed pianist Simon Tedeschi will present Bright Star, a feast of poetry and music featuring the works of poet John Keats and composer Franz Schubert. This innovative and inspiring performance explores the life, love and genius of these two bright stars of the Romantic era, who both died z Vivienne Winther is Director, Macquarie
tragically young. Bell and Tedeschi Conservatorium. Dubbo Photo
share their insights into their timeless News is a media sponsor of this year’s works, and the lives of the artists program. who created them.
To finish off the concert series in November, the Ultimo String Quartet will play Mendelssohn and Shostakovich quartets, as well as selections from Bach’s The Art of the Fugue.
The Ultimo String Quartet features members of the Australian Piano Quartet, one of Australia’s leading ensembles and the Ensemble in Residence at the University of Technology Sydney since 2012. Violinists Kristian Winther and Anna da Silva Chen, violist James Wannan and cellist Thomas Rann bring their combined virtuosity, musical intelligence and extensive chamber music experience to the string quartet form in an exciting new extension of their work together in the Australian Piano Quartet.
With brilliant singers, pianists, wind and string players, plus a legendary actor – this year’s concert series oat Macquarie Conservatorium offers a truly diverse range of high quality artists in programs of entertaining and inspiring music.
Tickets for the first concert and great value series tickets are on sale now from www.123tix.com.au and at Macquarie Conservatorium. Visit www.macqcon.org.au for more info and booking details.