 |
| Tobias Cole |
Canberra
International Music Festival.
High Court
of Australia.
Monday May
13th.
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
Joyful noise
from the musicians and joyous smiles from the audience are the lingering
impressions of this superbly curated concert, the first in the Amazing Space
series in this year’s C.I.M.F. Canberra
music enthusiasts have long been aware of what an extraordinary setting the
High Court building provides for the performance of music, but for this concert
every item had been carefully selected to display or test these particular
qualities.
Architect Ross Feller provided the parameters
with an outline of the special architectural features of the building, and
explained exactly how its heroic scale affected the acoustic. He encouraged the
audience to move around the building during the concert to experiences these
affects. Many of the large audience did, choosing to watch from the various
walkways and balconies surrounding the main performance area.
A selection
of familiar and original works, played on unusual combinations of instruments produced
quite magical moments, which were enhanced by imaginative presentation, as when
the audience quietly moved back from their vantage points on the ceremonial walkways
to make way for didgeridoo player, William Barton as he moved slowly among them
in a dramatic and arresting opening to the concert.
The
infectious enthusiasm of the Taikoz drummers brilliant on a variety of
percussive instruments, the expressions on the faces of the four members of
Synergy Percussion, seemingly as mesmerised as their audience by the beautiful
sounds they were extracting from their various Xylophones during their breathtakingly
beautiful performance of Handel’s Keyboard Suite in D Minor, stay in the mind.
There were
items in which the audience hardly dared to breath for fear of breaking the
spell, especially in the Taikoz presentation of “Resounding Bell” where the
drummers provided a gentle accompaniment for Riley Lee’s sublime shakuhachi flute solo, or during the
final Bach Chorale in which the instruments included shimmering handbells,
shakuhachi flute and didgeridoo, played from balconies and walkways above and
surrounding the audience, or most especially during two Monteverdi arias in
which the icy glitter of Tobias Cole’s superb counter tenor voice has never
sounded so striking as when accompanied here by Synergy’s warm, mellow
xylophones.
An
extraordinarily auspicious commencement for a series of programs spotlighting Canberra’s
Amazing Spaces, “Sounding the High Court” has set a high benchmark for the rest
of the concerts in this series.
(An edited version of this review appears in the digital edition of CITY NEWS)