22 February 2014

School's in

It's that time. The ANU School of Music and Friends launched the New Year at the Sitsky Room on Thursday with champagnes and beers and chatter and a sneak preview of the concert program for the coming year and a few student performances. It's a promotion for the Friends, but the deal is good: a decent discount on all performances and some special, invitation-only events, so it looks good on financial as well as artistic grounds if you are a concert goer, but then you may as well be. The International Chopin Piano Competition returns in September; there's a performance of Monteverdi's opera, L'Orpheo in August; The Australian Haydn Ensemble is appearing in four concerts and providing workshops as the ANU Ensemble in Residence; there are various other prizes, for accompaniment, chamber music, jazz/contemporary music; there's a concert series and Ensemble performances and recitals and public lectures. As for performances, Ciaran Edwards-McKeown (guitar) played Rodrigo, Aaron Chew (piano) played a Schubert Impromptu and Tate Sheridan (piano) and Calum Builder (alto sax) did a take on Scarborough Fair. Calum played some indistinct, breathy alto and I was amused to be asked if it was a jazz technique. It's pretty standard, of course, and nowhere near the experimentation of SoundOut and the like. Another reason why there's strength in combing the musical streams.

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