Category Archives: Live Performance

Piano Grande!

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Government House Ballroom

reviewed by Neville Cohn

If you have not previously heard of Bo An Lu, make a note of the name. If his account of the first movement of Tchaikowsky’s Piano Concerto in B flat minor is anything to go by, this sixteen-year-old is on a fast track to the stars.

Seemingly unruffled by one of music’s greatest challenges – and a TEE exam the following day – Bo An employed fearless fingers to hurl massive blocks of sound, Zeus-like, into the auditorium. By any standards, this was a remarkable achievement not least for expounding Tchaikowsky’s musical argument in so lucid, mature and heroic a way. Mark Coughlan provided excellent backing on a second piano.

Fazioli  pianos are few and far between in Perth – and to have two of these magnificent and very costly concert grands temporarily under a single roof would have been a first for the city. And nine fine musicians fronted up to put these instruments to the test with both players and pianos emerging with honour enhanced. This was a piano extravaganza to cherish.

A gem of the afternoon was Romance by Rachmaninov. A particularly tricky logistic challenge for three musicians and six hands at a single keyboard, it was an admirably expressive offering by Graeme Gilling, Emily Green-Armytage and Lyn Garland.

Very much noisier Rachmaninov – his Suite No 2 for two pianos – was essayed by Green-Armytage and Adam Pinto who generated very high decibel levels for which the Ballroom was really too small a venue. The Concert Hall would have been preferable for this.

There was also some delightful insouciance in the form of  Poulenc’s L’embarquement pour Cythere which came across courtesy of Garland and Coughlan.

Also at this concert marking Zenith Music’s 40th anniversary, was the quite remarkably poised seven-year old Shuan Lee who, with his father Yoon Sen Lee, gave us an arrangement for two pianos of themes from Yellow River Concerto and Homeland.

Gilling and Coughlan also played, most sensitively, Percy Grainger’s Blithe Bells – a re-working of Bach’s serene Sheep May Safely Graze – and were joined by Garland and Pinto in Smetana’s Rondo in C, frankly charmless music that sounded a simulation of peasants engaged in a heavy-footed, bucolic dance. There was also music by Mozart in the form of a movement from a sonata for two pianos played by Kathy Chow, another gifted 16-year-old, and Yoon Sen Lee.

At this memorable offering by of some the city’s most accomplished pianists, the crowded audience included many of Perth’s leading piano teachers.

Barry Palmer, whose speech had the inestimable advantage of brevity, paid tribute to the Cranfield family who have made so singular a contribution to the music life of the city.

Vocal Evolution

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Royal Schools Music Club

Sir Thomas More College Chapel

reviewed by Neville Cohn

Vocal Evolution 2009 competition

In many decades of attending – and writing about – concerts, I had never experienced a program presented by a male vocal harmony chorus ie until the weekend when I heard a performance by Vocal Evolution at Sir Thomas More College Chapel on the campus of the University of Western Australia.

Only brief moments into the curtainraiser –  an altogether beguiling account of Blue Skies –  it became unambiguously apparent that Vocal Evolution is a male voice ensemble of high order. From first note to last, its singing was an essay in ultra-professionalism with nary a wrong note, let alone a discord or a lapse in intonation.

Corporate tone could hardly have been bettered – and chording was everything one could have hoped for. With a unanimity of attack that most critics dream about but seldom encounter in reality, there was abundant evidence as well of care lavished on diction. Every word was as clearly enunciated as one could possibly expect it to be. It was an object lesson in how to do this sort of thing very well.

Vocal Evolution’s performance suggests it is an ensemble that rehearses regularly and intensively. Certainly, there were no passengers in this vocal group which harmonises with the ease that comes only from rehearsal that is totally focussed.

It is hardly surprising to learn that Vocal Evolution has won a swag of awards for its singing. At the Australian Association of Men’s Barbershop Singing National Convention in Hobart last September, Vocal Evolution won gold medals in every category it entered which, on the evidence of Saturday’s performance, is hardly surprising.

This is no stand-and-deliver group. On the contrary, the ensemble has a repertoire of discreetly choreographed movement that adds a pleasing visual dimension to the performance, enhancing the overall quality of excellence that informs everything Vocal Evolution presents. It is, moreover, clear that the singers relish performing – and this adds a further dimension to the overwhelmingly positive impact of the singing.

In so uniformly excellent a presentation, it is perhaps invidious to single out this item or that but it would be ungracious not to particularly mention Nexus’ account of You are my Sunshine (a near-faultless essay in pianissimo singing) and a memorable account by 3 Men and Adrian of Come Fly With Me.

Africa (by Toto) provided untrammelled listening pleasure; it deservedly brought the house down.

Are there any commercial recordings of Vocal Evolution? If this performance is anything to go by, there ought to be.

Although intended for performance at Callaway Auditorium, a last minute hitch prevented this happening which placed committee members under huge pressure to find another, suitable venue – very quickly. And this they did: St Thomas More College Chapel fitted the bill admirably, not least for its fine acoustic.

Immediately prior to the concert, the Royal Schools Music Club’s AGM took place.

Every committee member of every arts association in Australia should attend the RSMC’s Annual General Meetings to learn how to do this sort of thing in the most efficient way. Instead of the often meaningless time wasting on trivial matters that can make such meetings a seemingly endless, mind numbing experience, the RSMC committee gets through the agenda in minutes. Not a moment is wasted and the main business of the evening – the music – gets under way.

Recital- Government House Ballroom

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Sacha McCulloch (cello)

Faith Maydwell (piano)

Government House Ballroom

reviewed by Neville CohnCelloPianoWeb

A recital of masterworks for cello and piano at Government House Ballroom at the weekend raised funds for the Australian Red Cross. Unusually at this venue, curtains at the rear of the stage were drawn back so allowing the late afternoon sun to bathe the stage in light.

It was an account of Brahms’ Sonata for cello and piano, opus 99 that provided the most consistent listening pleasure. Here, both musicians drew from deep wells of expressiveness in a way that allowed the sonata’s cumulative grandeur to register most positively on the consciousness.

Certainly, with Maydwell at the venue’s splendid, recently acquired Fazioli grand piano – and McCulloch impressive in coaxing noble tone from the cello, especially in the lower range – one was able to savour one of Brahms’ greatest inspirations. In fact, if this had been the only item on the program, it would have been an entirely fulfilling listening experience. I dare say that unfamiliarity with the Ballroom’s acoustics may have been a factor contributing to some less than immaculate cello intonation.

Rachmaninov’s Sonata for cello and piano is not for tinkle-fingered shrinking violets. On the contrary, it requires a cool head, an iron nerve and Olympian staying power to essay this formidably demanding score. I’m happy to say that on these counts, both musicians came up trumps with playing of an impressively committed kind. More often than not, there was bracing attack and follow-through in even the most dauntingly complex episodes, and these were almost invariably a model of what fine ensemble playing is all about. Again and again while traversing the musical equivalent of a minefield, the duo seemed to relish coming to grips with its challenges. I especially admired the quality of keyboard tremolos which brought an extra frisson to the scherzo.

This epic opus makes massive demands on the players but, some less than precise cello intonation aside, both musicians emerged from this titanic musical challenge with honour largely intact.

As curtainraiser, we heard Beethoven’s Variations on a Theme by Mozart. Notationally immaculate playing with pleasing corporate tone compensated for some lack of buoyancy in presentation.

There was an extended interval with fizzy drinks on the house.

La Fanciulla del West (Puccini)

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W.A.Opera Company and Chorus

W.A.Symphony Orchestra

His Majesty’s Theatre

reviewed by Millie Schuman

goldenwest-245 copy

Dario Volente. photographer: James Rogers

Compared to the dizzying amounts of money that go towards the running of the nation’s flagship opera company in Sydney, most of the provincial opera houses scattered around the country are obliged to do their best to mount worthwhile performances on the equivalent of a frayed shoe string. Yet, decade in and decade out, opera goers in smaller Australian cities are offered seasons that somehow defy fiscal logic to produce handsome performances using the very best local talent that modest monies can afford and importing the occasional singer from interstate or abroad.

It would have been a calculated risk on the part of the West Australian Opera Company to mount this production in the sense that it is a significant departure from its more usual, safe-as–we-go, policy of offering sure box office hits such as Carmen, La Traviata, La Boheme and Marriage of Figaro.

If, as I’ve been told, Fanciulla del West has never been mounted here before, then this rarely heard opera has arrived here 99 years after its premiere in the US in 1910.

Unlike Puccini’s many, more frequently encountered, operas, Fanciulla is almost totally devoid of memorable melody with virtually none of the inbuilt aria allure of, say, Puccini’s La Boheme, Turandot and Butterfly. But in dramatic terms, it packs a knockout punch and it is greatly to the credit of the WAOC that this crucial dimension of the performance was present to such a high degree.

Star of the evening was Argentinian tenor Dario Volonte as the Mexican bandit masquerading as Dick Johnson. Blessed with a supple, agile, finely trained voice, he was a joy to hear. He seems incapable of an ugly sound. That, allied to a convincing stage presence, made his performance memorable.

No less significant a player in this doomed scenario was John Summers as Sheriff Jack Rance, as thoroughly nasty a villain as one could ever encounter in opera. Clad in black, with a character to match, Summers gave a wonderful portrayal of the sinister Rance. Wearing his unpleasantness like an invisible cloak, he portrayed Rance as if to the manner born.

Can there ever have been a stranger Bible class than that in the Polka Saloon in Act 1 with Minnie presiding over a remarkably orderly collection of miners, cowboys, assorted toughs and ruffians as students? Rather charmingly (and improbably), this scene has flashes of comedy; it’s the light relief that throws the ugliness of characters like Rance into bolder relief.

Fanciulla has often been slammed by American critics. I dare say that some of this ire stems from a silly parochialism, a belief that no one other than a true blue American should set an opera in the Wild West. Yet, no one has ever done it more imaginatively in the genre than Puccini. Its plotline boils down to a variant on the eternal triangle theme. Minnie – in an environment where there are virtually no other women – becomes a constant focus of fascination and desire on the part of the rough and ready crowd that patronises her establishment. Rance and Johnson are both infatuated with Minnie and the tensions between the three are skillfully exploited by the composer – and the three principals were almost beyond reproach in the playing out of the story. Vocally and theatrically, they came up trumps again and again.

Consistently in character, not least in conveying the tense rivalry between bandit and sheriff, this was memorable music theatre. Throughout, Anke Hoppner was vocally impressive as Minnie.

Many in the opera chorus, in their long, all-weather coats and akubra-type headgear, looked as if they might have been mates of The Man from Snowy River.

It was at times problematical to identify characters playing smaller roles, what with their sometimes luxuriant beards and moustaches, a task made more difficult due to often rather dim lighting which, I hasten to add, was entirely appropriate in generating a sense of locale and time.

Stuart Laing as the archetypal innkeeper, Tom Wood as Joe, James Clayton as the Wells Fargo man and Andrew Foote as the captured bandit Jose came across convincingly in smaller but significant roles, as did the snappily dressed David Dockery as Sid who narrowly averts being lynched for cheating at cards.

The all-purpose Act 1 set, cleverly lit, established and emphasized atmosphere. Occasionally, the set resembled a claustrophobic, concentration camp interior with an eerie – possibly inadvertent? – simulation of barbed wire. Clever use of projected period images also did a great deal to establish period and place. Indeed, the visual aspect of the production very substantially contributed to the overall impact of the production.

Puccini calls for a big orchestra and the WASO sounded very much on its mettle, with Aldo Salvagno doing wonders in setting meaningful, workable tempi and extracting a  host of Puccinian subtleties from his forces.

Interview: Alexander Lewis

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Review: Alexander Lewis (tenor)/David Wickham (piano)

by Neville Cohn

The notion of a parent teaching a child music is neither new nor unusual. Famed pianist Clara Wieck (who married composer Robert Schumann) was coached to greatness by her famously domineering father Friedrich. Far and away the most celebrated of these arrangements is that of Leopold Mozart guiding the musical development of his phenomenal genius child Wolfgang Amadeus.

Much more recently still was the famously fractious relationship between pianist Ruth Slenczynska (who gave all-Beethoven recitals in Paris aged nine years) and her frighteningly strict father Joseph who would strike the tips of little Ruth’s fingers with a metal ruler at lessons if he found fault with her keyboard technique.

Nearer to home, and infinitely less fraught, are Patricia Price, noted vocal teacher, and her singer son Alexander Lewis who recently returned from a tour of Phantom of the Opera in which he sang in over 300 performances as Raoul across Australia and as far away as Taipei in Taiwan.

Warmly acknowledging the teaching skill of his mother – she has been her son’s only teacher – Alexander said “working with Mum means everything to me. I think Mum sometimes finds it hard to be really tough on me because I am her son but she knows how to get the best out of me”. He says that without his mother’s guidance, he wouldn’t be the singer he is today.

Perth-based Alexander’s work ethic was formed in childhood when the family was based in Harpenden, England where his father Michael Lewis sang in opera in both the UK and Europe. At the venerable age of seven and a half years, little Alexander became a chorister at St Alban’s Cathedral. There, he was expected to front up for practice three days a week before and after school with a rehearsal from 6 to 9pm on Fridays, Saturday afternoon rehearsals followed by Evensong with two and sometimes three services on Sundays.

Initially, Alexander trained as a baritone but when his mother flew to New York to hear her son sing Rossini’s Largo al  factotum with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, she realised Alexander’s voice was metamorphosing into that of a tenor. With change of voice comes change of repertoire, a daunting prospect bearing in mind how much of the tenor repertoire there is to learn – and how much of the baritone material had to be jettisoned.  “I’m going to miss singing Largo al factotum and Billy Budd’s aria – but sadly they have to be left behind”.

Here, as in all things musical, Alexander turned for guidance to his mother who said that “of course, the relationship is very different to that with my other students because Alexander is my son.

“We are able to show our frustrations (that inevitably crop up during lessons) much more openly because of this and we don’t have to search for the right words when grappling for solutions to musical problems”, she said. “Al is always prepared to listen to me and trust my advice”.

Price adds that her son is invariably “hungry for improvement and is never complacent. His main purpose is to sing and always has been – and this makes my teaching much easier.
Alexander’s mother believes that the key to their successful master/student relationship is a mutual respect and a shared love of singing. “I think that I learn as much from Alexander as he does from me”.

In 2001, the then-18 year old Alexander became the youngest-ever finalist in the Australian Singing Competition. A semi-finalist in the Neue Stimmen (New Voices) Opera Competition in Germany in 2007 (as a baritone), Alexander will be back there for the finals in October – as a tenor – singing arias by Mozart, Gounod, Tchaikowsky and Verdi.

“There are various cash prizes for the finals”, he said. “But the really important thing is having exposure to the people on the adjudication panel and those, such as agents, who attend the contest. There is the potential for job offers”, said Alexander.

On Sunday 6 September at 4pm, Alexander Lewis with David Wickham at the piano will present a recital of American songs at Government House Ballroom. Some of it will be familiar to most local concertgoers but a deal of it will be refreshingly new in this neck of the woods, in particular Gene Scheer’s Voices from World War II as well as songs by Kurt Weill and Leonard Bernstein. Tickets at $35 ($25 concession) are available from WAAPA box office.

Monies raised by the recital will fund visits to WAAPA of leading singers and teachers to give master classes to students.


RECITAL

Alexander Lewis (tenor)/David Wickham (piano)

Government House Ballroom

reviewed by Neville Cohn

Alexander Lewis is that vocal rarity: a trained baritone whose vocal range has altered so significantly that he is now a tenor.

In a taxing program that effectively blurred the line that divides art songs and music theatre pieces, Alexander Lewis, who moves about the stage as if it were his natural milieu, gave abundant evidence of an ability to adapt, chameleon-like, to any of a range of styles.

Gene Scheer’s Voices of World War II was fertile fare for Lewis’ abundant gifts, in which consistently clear diction and an ability to home in unerringly on the mood appropriate for each song, combined to most pleasing effect. Whether singing of an invitation to tea in a house in wartime London, of a German U-boat captain or holy water in the hell that was Omaha Beach on D-Day, Lewis demonstrated a most convincing narrative gift. I particularly admired David Wickham’s skill at the piano in the turbulent, beautifully stated accompaniment to the song about the U-boat captain. In fact, Wickham’s prowess at the keyboard was like a golden thread through the recital, not least in a virtuosic, bright-toned introduction to the afternoon in Ricardo Lorenz’ Bachango.

In a recital glittering with fine moments, I very much admired the skill brought to bear  on Ned Rorem’s arrangement of Stephen Foster’s Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair. Wickham’s delicate backing for Lewis’ immaculately stated line made this one of the gems of the afternoon.

Even the ubiquitous Maria from Bernstein’s West Side Story sounded fresh and newly minted with its extrovert and ardent vocal line and buoyant accompaniment.

Wickham’s magical treatment of two of Gershwin’s Preludes extended to his accompaniment of songs by William Bolcom, making light of villainously tricky writing in Over the Piano and evoking, beautifully, the poignant quality of Waitin’.

In a bracket of folk songs, Lewis was entirely convincing in I Gave My Love a Cherry and Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair.

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