Canberra
Theatre on 15th September 2023.
Performance reviewed by BILL STEPHENS
The baby boomers were out in force for this sold-out concert in the Canberra Theatre; part of a nation-wide tour with which Kate Ceberano is celebrating her 40-year recording career by performing symphonic arrangements of her most iconic songs with the symphony orchestras of each of the capital cities.
Last night
it was the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s turn to join Ceberano on stage, and
what a night it proved to be.
Few
Australian performing artists could match the career of Kate Ceberano who has
distinguished herself across just about every aspect of entertainment. However it
as a singer/songwriter/recording artist that she is most revered, having recorded
no fewer than 30 albums over that 40 years, among them 11 platinum albums, 10
top-selling singles.
The most
recent, “My Life is a Symphony” featuring her most iconic songs and personal favourites,
reimagined with lush symphonic arrangements by Roscoe James Irwin, provided the
repertoire for this concert.
To the
opening bars of one of her most iconic songs, “Pash”, and amid welcoming
applause from the capacity audience, Ceberano took the stage wearing a
glittering black gown and flashing that familiar warm, broad smile.
For this
concert the Canberra Symphony Orchestra was augmented by Ceberano’s key musical
collaborators in Paul Cecchinelli on the Steinway grand, Kathleen Halloran
(guitar), Jonathon Zion (electric Bass), Gordon Rytmeister (drums and Piano)
and backing vocalists Jessica Fairlie and Alison Ainsworth, all conducted by
Vanessa Scammell.
But despite
the presence of a stage-full of musicians Ceberano quickly established that this
concert was not going to be a starchy affair.
After confiding
her pleasure in revisiting these favourite songs and the excitement she felt in
being able to share these new arrangements with her Canberra audience, she launched
into a sublime performance of “Sweet
Inspiration”.
As the
concert progressed, she explained that she had written “Courage” as a wedding
gift to her mother and step-father, reducing herself to tears by the memory of
performing it at their wedding.
Explanations
of how she was inspired to write “Earth and Sky” as a gift to fellow-performer
Sara Storer, how “Time To Think” resulted from a relationship breakdown, and
the inspiration behind “Louis’ Song” were among many shared during the
performance.
Ceberano was
obviously in her happy place on stage. Fronting a packed audience, offering relaxed
and chatty backstories to each of her
songs, frequently reducing her audience, and her on-stage musicians, to
stitches with her spontaneous, cheeky asides. For as well as being a superb
singer/songwriter, Ceberano is also a gifted raconteur.
Throughout
the concert, responding to Irwin’s inventive new arrangements of such Ceberano
classics as “Sunburn”, “Brave”,
“Sympathy” and particularly “Cherry Blossom Lipstick”, superbly rendered by the
musicians themselves responding to the mood of the moment and Scammell’s
inspirational conducting, Ceberano pleasured her audience with her well-honed
artistry mining every lyric for fresh nuance inspired by the gorgeous accompaniments.
In return, the blissed-out audience offered an enthusiastic standing ovation, and even after a generous encore, seemed reluctant to leave the theatre, seemingly unwilling to break the spell of this memorable concert.
Image by Juan Mahony
This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 16.09.23
