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Imagine a dinner party where your host passes round antique leatherbound music manuscripts and says, ‘You’re singing tenor! ’ Then around the table one voice after another begins to sing from the ancient Dow Partbooks.

Since the dawn of history, the human voice and the act of singing have been intrinsically linked with storytelling and the acquisition of culture. For their debut performance at UKARIA, The Song Company presents a beautiful selection of a cappella repertoire, framed by the sumptuous

polyphony of William Byrd and his friends, who shared this music over 400 years ago from partbooks around the table in town tavern and country house, no doubt with candles, wine, much laughter and bonhomie!

UMBERTO CLERICI AND KARIN SCHAUPP

Sunday 25 February | 2.30pm

Songs Without Words

The fragile intimacy of cello and guitar is one of the most exquisite combinations, but much of the delicate magic these instruments weave is lost in large halls. In the transparency of UKARIA’s acoustic, this intimate duo comes alive like nowhere else.

Spanning five centuries, an organic collection of songs and lieder will trace a life’s journey from childhood to old age and everything in between: love, jealousy, family, illness, joy and conflict. You’ll hear music by Schubert, Ravel, Rodrigo, Rachmaninov, Dvorák and many others – all beautifully reconceived by Umberto Clerici (cello) and Karin Schaupp (guitar).

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THE SONG COMPANY

Sunday 11 February | 2.30pm

Byrd - Round Table

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Photo Cybele Malinowski

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Jack Liebeck | violin Tobias Breider | viola Trish O’Brien | cello Paul Dean | clarinet Daniel de Borah | piano

‘The morning I woke up after saying our final farewell to our Dad, I went to the back of the house where he grew up and spent his entire life, and

there, stark and proud in the middle of one of the gardens was a brilliant and distinctive blue flower. After a little searching, we discovered that the flower and plant was Blue Ginger, and its name and appearance will always be inextricably linked with the days following his death.’ Paul Dean

Internationally acclaimed violinist Jack Liebeck joins Ensemble Q to perform Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B flat major, Op.11, Paul Dean’s Blue Ginger (2018) for clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano, and the Brahms Piano Quartet No.2 in A major, Op.26.

ENSEMBLE Q

Sunday 25 March | 2.30pm

Blue Ginger

SOPHIE ROWELL CHRISTOPHER MOORE TIMO-VEIKKO VALVE

Sunday 15 April | 2.30pm

In 1985, Dmitry Sitkovetsky completed the first transcription of the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 for string trio ‘in memoriam Glenn Gould’ to commemorate the 300 year anniversary of Bach’s birth.The serenity, conviviality, and cosmic timelessness of the original is not compromised, but enhanced: the

mathematical complexities of Bach’s contrapuntal lines are delineated with a transparency of texture that is remarkable.

Three of Australia’s leading principal players – Sophie Rowell (violin) and Christopher Moore (viola) from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra,

and Timo-Veikko Valve (cello) from the Australian Chamber Orchestra – unite to perform the greatest model of the Baroque art of variation in one sitting, without interval.

Complimentary afternoon tea will be served after the performance.

Goldberg Variations

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AIKO GOTO AND IAN MUNRO

Sunday 6 May | 2.30pm

The Fairy’s Kiss

Japanese violinist Aiko Goto studied at The Juilliard School of Music in New York and has been a member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra since 1999. Ian Munro occupies an unrivalled position as one of Australia’s most distinguished pianist/composers, achieving

success in both fields like few of our age.

For their first appearance together at UKARIA, they perform an intriguing program showcasing the colourful diversity of the violin and piano duo repertoire: Stravinsky’s Divertimento

(a transcription from his ballet The Fairy’s Kiss), Takemitsu’s Distance de fée, and Schubert’s Fantasy in C major, D.934.

‘In his larger forms, Schubert is a wanderer. He likes to move at the edge of the precipice, and does so with the assurance of a sleepwalker.’

Alfred Brendel

Schubert, the great Viennese master of song, was Liszt’s favourite composer: the Hungarian virtuoso performed Das Wanderer many times. Equally synonymous with the Romantic ideal of a wanderer, Liszt composed his own analogous masterpiece, chronicling journeys of self-realization through travels across Italy and Switzerland.

Off on a voyage of her own, our Founder and Director Ulrike Klein discovered the Israeli-South African pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz during a visit to Balawayo, Zimbabwe. Upon hearing his interpretations of Schubert, there was only one thing to be done: invite him to UKARIA to perform the monumental Fantasie in C major, D.760.

AMMIEL BUSHAKEVITZ

Sunday 29 April | 2.30pm

The Wanderer

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The average human will take more than 672 million breaths in a lifetime. How we breathe impacts every area of our life. For Grammy nominated classical saxophonist Amy Dickson, the study and mastery of breath goes far beyond a passion – it is an obsession.

Drawing upon years of research, Take a Breath is a new collaboration between Amy Dickson and American filmmaker and artist David Donnelly (Maestro). Short films and vignettes conveying chapters in the human musical relationship with breath are interwoven with solo performances of Traditional Aboriginal lullabies, alongside music by Mark Anthony Turnage, Jacob ter Veldhuis, Hildegard von Bingen, and Steve Reich. This interactive experience unfolds over one hour, posing a fascinating overarching question: can improved breathing change our experience of listening to music?

Complimentary afternoon tea will be served after the performance.

AMY DICKSON

Sunday 3 June | 2.30pm

Take a Breath

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Photo Christian Mushenko

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‘In this age where no-one has any time, diaries are chock-a-block, schedules bursting and calendars stuffed, it could be said that what is missing is the space to miss things, even space. I would like to suggest we wind back the clock a moment, or throw out the clock.’

Tamara-Anna Cislowska

In this fun-filled tête-a-tête, the award winning composer and her long-time collaborator delve into Elena Kats-Chernin’s treasure trove of compositions. A delightful sneak peek into the unique beauty and scope of her music, Kats-Chernin and Cislowska perform both solo and together across

selections from their two recent and chart-toping albums: Butterflying and Unsent Love Letters: Meditations on Erik Satie.

That wondrous Bohemian alternation of brooding pathos with light-hearted dance is a defining feature of much of Dvorák’s oeuvre. Boldly innovative and strikingly atypical in form, the beloved Dumky trio is one of the staples of chamber music.

Since forming in 2013, the Lyrebird Trio has forged a reputation for delivering engaging, intelligent and sensitive performances. Glenn Christensen (violin), Simon Cobcroft (cello) and Angela Turner (piano) return to UKARIA to perform Haydn’s ebullient Gypsy trio, Sculthorpe’s

Night Song, and Dvorák’s ever-popular Piano Trio in No.4 in E minor, Op.90.

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ELENA KATS-CHERNIN AND TAMARA-ANNA CISLOWSKA

Sunday 24 June | 2.30pm

Dreams on VelvetLYREBIRD TRIO

Sunday 8 July | 2.30pm

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Showcasing the wealth of exceptional talent to have been shaped by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) during its rich 21-year history, ANAM Artists brings together a handful of alumni each year, promoting their achievements in a series of recitals across the country.

Ensemble Peregrine comes together exclusively for this tour, gathering the principal wind players from several of the world’s major orchestras. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Jack Schiller (Principal Bassoon) and Thomas Hutchinson (Associate Principal Oboe) will be joined by Alex Morris (Principal

Clarinet, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra) and Andrew Young (Associate Principal Horn, Orchestra Philharmonie Luxembourg) for this exciting program centred around Mozart’s Quintet in E flat major for piano and winds, K.452. The quintet is capped off with one of Australia’s leading freelance pianists and répétiteurs, Gladys Chua.

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‘There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more’

Lord Byron

Nigel Westlake’s oboe concerto Spirit of the Wild premiered in February 2017 to rapturous reviews, with The Sydney Morning Herald likening Diana Doherty’s performance to ‘an incarnation of an exotic woodland bird, a mercurial animal of alert and sometimes savage energy, and a force of creation all in one.’

Spirit Ensemble will premiere Westlake’s chamber version of this magnificent new work in nature’s concert hall – along with Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F major, K.370, Fauré’s Piano Quartet No.1 in C minor, and Benjamin Britten’s Phantasy Quartet for Oboe and String Trio, Op.2.

Diana Doherty* | oboe

Andrew Haveron* | violin

Lerida Delbridge* | violin

Justin Williams* | viola

Catherine Hewgill* | cello

Bernadette Harvey | piano

*Member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra

ENSEMBLE PEREGRINE

Sunday 22 July | 2.30pm

Anam Artists

SPIRIT ENSEMBLE

Sunday 5 August | 2.30pm

Spirit of the Wild

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Photo Christie Brewster

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The distinctive sound world of Ross Edwards reflects a deep interest in ecology and a desire to reconnect music with elemental forces. Uniquely Australian yet simultaneously universal, his music draws inspiration from the natural environment.

Lake Dreaming is a meditation for two pianos, composed especially for the Brown & Breen Piano Duo and commissioned by the Lifeflow Meditation Centre of Adelaide in celebration of the composer’s 75th birthday. Opening with lush birdsong and the mysterious patterns and

drones of insects in Bird Morning, this performance also includes Debussy’s En blanc et noir and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.

Generously supported by Winston Music and the Lifeflow Meditation Centre of Adelaide.

For the 18th century aristocracy, divertimentos and serenades provided both entertainment and atmosphere for sit-down dinners and garden party frivolities. Although Haydn and Mozart provided the most enduring examples, even Beethoven – despite his radically

different temperament – perpetuated the tradition at the turn of the century.

Led by Natsuko Yoshimoto (violin), an ensemble of Adelaide Symphony Orchestra musicians performs Beethoven’s Septet in E flat major, Op.20 and Prokofiev’s Quintet in G minor, Op.33.

Natsuko Yoshimoto | violin Imants Larsens | viola Simon Cobcroft | cello Jonathon Coco | double bass Renae Stavely | oboe Dean Newcomb | clarinet Mark Gaydon | bassoon Adrian Uren | horn

Natsuko Yoshimoto & Friends appear courtesy of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

BROWN & BREEN PIANO DUO

Sunday 19 August | 2.30pm

Lake DreamingNATSUKO YOSHIMOTO & FRIENDS

Sunday 2 September | 2.30pm

Beethoven’s Septet

Photo Dylan Henderson

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CATHERINE JONES AND WILLIAM CARTER WITH VAN DIEMEN’S BAND

SIMON TEDESCHI AND JOHN BELL

Sunday 30 September | 2.30pm

Bright Star

‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever…’

John Keats

Australian theatre icon John Bell AO OBE and internationally acclaimed pianist Simon Tedeschi renew their triumphant partnership, exploring the life, love and genius of two

bright stars of the Romantic era - John Keats and Franz Schubert.

Performing some of the most beloved poems of Keats including Bright Star, Ode to a Nightingale and La Belle Dame Sans Merci alongside Schubert’s Ave Maria, Winterreise and Sonata No.18 in G

major (‘Fantasie’), Bell and Tedeschi share insights and exchange views in a spontaneous conversation on the enduring power of these timeless works and the lives of the artists who created them.

Heavily influenced by dance, the music of the high Baroque takes a simple structure and transforms it into a supremely virtuosic display, in particular for two instruments closely associated with Spain: the cello and the guitar.

Internationally acclaimed cellist Catherine Jones (Australia/Italy) and Baroque guitarist William Carter (UK) join members of Van Diemen’s Band – an exciting new Tasmanian chamber ensemble under the artistic direction of Julia Fredersdorff - for a sumptuous program of

Italian music composed during the Spanish Occupation. They perform concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Fiorenza, alongside arrangements of Neapolitan folk songs by Gaspar Sanz and the famous Fandango quintet of Luigi Boccherini.

A La DanzaSunday 14 October | 2.30pm

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‘What was in the Paris water that enabled Italian Baroque composer Michele Mascitti and late 19th century Spanish composer Joaquín Turina – both of whom lived in the great capital for a time – to write music of such lyrical beauty? Both composers preserved their respective nationalistic traits,

but it is in the music of Turina that we hear the influence of his contemporaries, Debussy and Ravel. While the works of these composers exudes a concise youthful vitality it is in the music of Franz Schubert’s E flat piano trio that we find a profound breadth of vision and melodic beauty so typical of the great

song master! Schubert heard only one public concert of his music in his lifetime. The E flat trio was one of the inclusions in that program.’

Paul Wright

PAUL WRIGHT, MICHAEL DAHLENBURG AND CAROLINE ALMONTE

Sunday 11 November | 2.30pm

Schubert ’s Farewell

Paul Wright (violin), Michael Dahlenburg (cello) and Caroline Almonte (piano) play Turina, Mascitti and Schubert.

TEDDY TAHU RHODES WITH KRISTIAN CHONG AND THE AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET

Sunday 25 November | 2.30pm

Songs of Travel

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‘I have trod the updward and the downward slope; I have endured and done in days before; I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope; And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.’

Robert Louis Stevenson

Themes of travel and the notion of traversing landscapes both physical and emotional have long provided inspiration for some of the great song cycles.

Songs of Travel by Ralph Vaughan Williams is one such cycle, here performed by Teddy Tahu Rhodes and pianist Kristian Chong, along with Mahler’s magnificent Rückert-Lieder.

The Australian String Quartet join this dynamic duo in Gerald Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring and a collection of anonymous Celtic songs in a journey through some of the most beautiful works for the male voice.

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Encouraged to take up the instrument by a grandmother steeped in the folk tradition of accordion playing, Ksenija Sidorova is now one of the instrument’s leading ambassadors. She made her debut at Wigmore Hall in 2009, before her appearance at the Night of the Proms in 2014 catapulted her to international acclaim. Her debut album Carmen was released on Deutsche Grammophon in 2016.

Ksenija Sidorova will make her debut at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part of their Great Artists series and we are thrilled that she has included UKARIA on her first tour to Australia. Anatoly Kusiakov’s Autumnal Sceneries and Alfred Schnittke’s Revis Fairytales will frame a beautifully diverse collection of Russian masterpieces that will challenge your perceptions and enhance your appreciation of this intoxicating and seductive instrument.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The 2018 Season is proudly presented by: Proudly sponsored by:

Individual Concert PartnersSeason Partner

KSENIJA SIDOROVA Sunday 2 December | 2.30pm

The Russian Accordion

Photo Dylan Henderson

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NIGEL WESTLAKESpirit of the Wild (sextet version for oboe, string quartet and piano)

‘As a young boy, my parents had introduced me to the wilds of Tasmania and I am forever grateful to them for instilling in me a deep love of Australia’s wilderness fostered during numerous walking and boating expeditions.

My trip to Bathurst Harbour reminded me of the preciousness of the wilderness, and of mankind’s propensity to become subsumed by materialism, neglecting our connection to country and the wonders of the natural world, choosing instead to value only those elements of our environment that can be quantified by monetary worth.

Such wild places are truly priceless and we exploit and destroy them at our peril.’

Nigel Westlake

ROSS EDWARDSLake Dreaming for two pianos

‘As I worked on this piece, the image of a lake and its abundant symbolism seemed to match the contemplative nature of the music that was unfolding. A lake’s surface is often likened to a mirror which reflects an image of self-contemplation. Lakes have always beguiled poets and intrigued psychologists, for whom they are likely to represent creativity and the unconscious. Universally regarded as a feminine symbol, a lake is often associated with magical and mystical forces, and because flowing water naturally seeks a cavity in low-lying ground, the ancient Chinese regarded it as a symbol of received wisdom and passivity.’

Ross Edwards

FEATURED COMPOSERS

PAUL DEANBlue Ginger for clarinet, violin, cello and piano

‘The morning I woke after saying our final farewell to our Dad, I went to the back of the house where he grew up and spent his entire life, and there, stark and proud in the middle of one of the gardens was a brilliant and distinctive blue flower. I couldn’t believe the powerful message this sent and also how soothing it was to see it. It was almost as if it was Dad’s way of saying that “everything was alright” and to simply “get on with it” – in his inimitable style. After a little searching, we discovered that the flower and plant was Blue Ginger, and its name and appearance will always be inextricably linked with the days following his death.’

Paul Dean

ELENA KATS-CHERNINButterflying and Unsent Love Letters: Meditations on Erik Satie

‘The piano was always like a best friend to me and even now it is probably the place I feel most comfortable. As a child I spent many hours there, trawling through volumes and volumes of music. It was always my place.

I think my piano music might be the closest thing I’ve ever had to a diary. Something very immediate and familiar to me.

All the pieces on these albums are special to me in some way; they are moments in my life, feelings, people, ideas. I’ve never been good at describing in words how my music works, or why. To me it is just something beyond my understanding and I don’t ask questions. I am just the worker and that is my job.’

Elena Kats-Chernin

Photo Trish O’Brien

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Photo Bridget Elliot