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Opening of the 2013 Canberra International Music Festival: The Summoning

 



Last night, Friday May 10, at the iconic Albert Hall, the 19th Canberra International Music Festival commenced. It was the gala performance of the festival's 10-day event, concluding on Sunday May 19.
Concert 1, the “Canberra Times Opening Gala: The Summoning” set the scene for the Centenary of Canberra celebrations that honours a hundred years of the naming of the city and the design and creation of the nation’s capital city. 

Acknowledging the Ngunnawal people (past and present), the traditional owners of the land on which Canberra was built, the two-hour show featured the haunting tones of William Barton’s didjeridoo solo. The sound of his music, entitled “Didjeridu,” echoed throughout the hall, which for me was the highlight of the evening.
Interspersed into the performances were the “retrospective” personas of Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin. The Griffin Architects from Chicago won the international competition, announced in 1911, to design the layout for the city of Canberra. In 1913, the design commenced and the Griffins moved to Australia. Hence the festival acknowledged its creative roots. In addition, the Music Festival paid tribute to the people throughout the world who made Canberra their home.


Estonian minimalist, Arvo Part performed “Hymn to a Great City” which was an Australian premiere performance. TaikOz performed “Opening Rite” followed by Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana. TaikOz’s performed “Middle Rite” followed by Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.” Edgar Elgar performed “Canberra, Shimmering City” before TaikOz’s “Closing Rite” and Igor Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Featured artists included Synergy Percussion, Viney-Grinberg Piano Duo, Calvin Bowman with an organ rendition, and the Canberra Festival Brass. The Canberra Festival Chorus (a combination of Canberra Choral Society, Oriana Chorale, Llewellyn Choir, SCUNA, Australian National University School of Music Chamber Choir, and the University of Canberra Chorale) sung the themed pieces from thr front stage and behind the audience, directed by Roland Peelman.
Witold Lutoslawski performed “Variations on a Theme of Paganini, followed by the premiere version of Elena Kats-Chernin’s “Beaver Blaze” commissioned by Betty Beaver. The night was hailed a success with a standing ovation.




The remaining 9 days of the Canberra International Music Festival will have performances at various locations around the city. It will celebrate America’s cultural contributions to Australia through the composer-in-residence, Paul Dresher and a focus on the works of John Adams and Steve Reich. The Music Festival will also acknowledge its English heritage with performances by composer-in-residence, Gavin Bryars. Featured composers will include contemporaries of Marion Mahony Griffin—including Rebecca Clarke, Amy Beach, and Phyllis Campbell. Other featured composers throughout the festival will include Johann Sebastion Bach, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Benjamin Britten.




 

 

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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