Review

From The Age (Melbourne)

Australian Chamber Choir August 24, 2010


Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Middle Park, August 22

Review, Clive O'Connell

ONLY three years old, the Australian Chamber Choir attracts a large body of enthusiastic followers, larger even than several older Melbourne choral organisations. On Sunday, its 20 members performed a mixed bag to a well-populated church audience, revisiting some works that director Douglas Lawrence has made familiar during his years leading the Ormond College and Scots' Church choirs, along with some short, new offerings delivered with enthusiasm and a well-buffed vocal patina.

Central to the program was Allegri's Miserere, the executants grouped together on the high altar. The reading was fluent and blessed with an excellent soprano who articulated spine-chilling top-Cs with comfortable assurance.

While Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus and Handl's poly-linear Pater Noster gave evidence of the ACC's solid grounding, an unexpected pleasure came with Philip Nunn's I Heard the Owl Call my Name, four reflections on Margaret Craven's spartan and moving novel.

The Australian composer's score is still powerfully evocative and clear-speaking after two decades and was deftly accomplished by this group.

With a Brahms sacred song and a Rheinberger Abendlied to exemplify a stoic German Romantic view of Christianity, Lawrence and his singers finished their formal program with Bach's rollicking motet Der Geist Hilft, maintaining an admirable clarity in the opening movement's complex polyphonic matter, and revealing a finely balanced spread of layers in the concluding chorale: Bach vocal interpretation of high quality, with a bouncy energy and unwavering unanimity of pitch.

Houston Dunleavy

Houston has relaunched his blog. And it can be found here. He's been a good friend and co conspirator over many years ever since those sublime days at the Melbourne Con. (Has anybody noticed if it's still there by the way?).

Timorgelfest 2010

I've received notice that the organ psalm prelude Qui Habitat will be performed at this years Timorgelfest. To the best of my knowledge this is the first performance of any of my music in Romania. Many thanks to the organisers and to the dedicatee David Scott Hamnes. More details to follow.

The Owl returns

The Australian Chamber Choir have announced that I Heard the Owl Call My Name will be included in a programme given at the Church of Our Lady of Mr Carmel, Middle Park, Victoria, Australia  on Sunday 22nd of August 3 p.m. They will be using the revised version of the score prepared for the forthcoming publication of this piece. Many thanks to Douglas Lawrence for this information.

Via Crucis

On the Wednesday in Holy Week  Jonathan Eyre performed Via Crucis (2003) on the organ of St Nicholas' Church, Harpenden, U.K. The piece was originally written for Tim Vallence and previous performances have been given by Douglas Lawrence and David Hamnes. Via Crucis is a set of 14 chorale preludes based on chorales matching the traditional Stations of the Cross.

Psalm Prelude-premiere

David Scott Hamnes (see links) has contacted me with the news that he will premiere one of my Psalm Preludes on the 14th of March. David is the dedicatee of this particular piece, one of a set of three, written for friends in 2009.

An Interview

I'll be recording a radio interview on Hobart ABC FM tomorrow afternoon (Thursday 25th of February). I gather it will be broadcast on Friday afternoon (26th of February) sometime between 2 and 4 pm.

Update

The interview dealt almost exclusively with Gregorian Chant and the revival of interest in it in the last decade.

Chant in Tasmania

Speaking, or rather emailing, with Maria Grenfell over the last few days we've decided that I should do some sort of introduction to performing Gregorian Chant whilst I'm in Hobart. It does make sense as I guess that is the other hat that I wear. Some time ago I anonymously authored a little book The Beginner's Guide to Chant (published by St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough) which seems to have been very successful. Anyhow in an how we'll try a potted guide to some of the issues surrounding authentic performance of the music on which much other early music is founded.

Residency February 2010

I'm undertaking a visit to the Hobart Con. in the next few weeks. It will coincide with the opening of the Academic year. I gather I'll be giving a seminar and be doing some individual teaching. Wearing my other hat I gather there's a mysterious stash of early instruments that need identifying. Who knows - we may find William Hance's organ!

I'm particularly interested in this institution as it's about the last of the 'old' Conservatoria in Australia to be left standing and it may be the only place offering a traditional training in the near future. The gorgons and banshees on the mainland have done their best to destroy any real educational value in favour of being able to tick the right boxes for what ever political master they're crawling up to at the time.

Oh well there goes my mainland residencies!

Scores 1999-2000

The Noteworthy Scriptorium maintains copies of four pieces from about ten years ago. These are in NWC format. (1) Searching for Plum Blossoms for solo guitar, (2) The Pioneer for wordless chorus, (3) Double Concerto: The Gift of the Magi for organ, harpsichord and orchestra, and; (4) The Ladye of Shallotte for string orchestra. To access these go to; http://www.nwc-scriptorium.org/.

Leaving my mark circa 1979

Yes, folks you'll be glad to discover that I've found my way into the National Archives. This gem was found using Picture Search on the NA website. I have no memory of the event whatsoever. It was the late 70s or early '80s you know. The picture is taken at the end of the 'work room' in the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne; the piano a duo art reproducing instrument from Percy's own collection (I'm probably holding a roll of Country Gardens). The dignitary was from Singapore and the suit a three piece reversible from Roger David's.

Welcome

This blog is an experiment at making some of my scores and recordings available to a wider audience. I realise a blog is a rather unusual format to do this but I wanted to create something that could be revised frequently and not get too stale. Nothing is as sad as an unloved webpage documenting past glories with no happy ending. As I write this only one piece of mine remains in the audio catalogues (I Heard the Owl Call my Name) and I've discovered it's actually very hard to keep track of exactly who's performing what and where at any time. Anyhow here is the beginning of a place to keep what I'm prepared to let out of the chamber of horrors otherwise known as my compositional output. Any updates and contributions are very welcome.