Sound and Space: Astra and Architecture
MUSIC ALWAYS interacts with the architecture in which it is heard, although classical music practice is sometimes slow to realize this. In Melbourne many of the best concert-spaces are buildings not built for that purpose – the splendid heritage of public and ecclesiastical constructions from the first 100 years of the city’s history, as well as industrial and more recent buildings. Exploring and exploiting ‘non-customized’ spaces for musical performance is an important part of celebrating the architectural heritage in many countries – the Netherlands, to name but one. But many other arts-proud cities had more success than Melbourne in generating a variety of fine purpose-built concert halls, so that Victoria’s architectural heritage is also a vital musical resource.
How does music ‘interact’ with a building? When music is heard, there are both literal and metaphoric resonances at play – the acoustic reverberations that characterize every building in individual ways, and the historical backdrop of the music performed, which resonates beyond its own era and original location in the ears of the modern listeners. Contemporary composers have been alert to both these qualities and frequently draw them into the concepts and sounds of their music. And new musical compositions can use the nooks and crannies of non-conventional halls in many inventive ways. Special relations between music and space also go back to much earlier eras – the new polyphony created in the enormous stone resonances of the first mediaeval cathedrals, the multi-directional sound sculptures of the early baroque, where bands of players and singers assailed and astounded the listeners from various directions, in a space such as St Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
Over the last 30 years, Melbourne’s Astra concerts have ranged around the architectural environment, seeking and finding some of the marvellous enclosed spaces whose acoustic and visual qualities inspired site-specific concert designs. If one ideal aim of every music performance is to create a unique, unforgettable event, the building itself can be an active partner, through its own visual and sounding qualities and the way it is set up and used.
Some buildings have been visited just once in Astra’s history, leading to the sense of a unique occasion – for example at the Domed Reading Room of the State Library, or Queen’s Hall at Parliament House. Others have been recurring partners for Astra’s particular vision – to invigorate the concert experience of classical music by continuous mixtures of new and old music, and of music with other art-forms. It is no real paradox to say that Victoria’s old buildings have shown a vigorous ability to contribute to renewal of our concert culture.
Astra concerts are mainly choral events, centered on the Astra Choir with a broad repertoire from the middle ages to the present day. But programs always include other kinds of performance as well – instrumental or electro-acoustic compositions, elements of poetry, and sometimes theatre or dance. Because the choir is such a flexible and moveable resource, the concerts in heritage buildings can be designed around changing configurations in the architecture, unhampered by the frozen designs of traditional concert halls.
In each of the concerts outlined below – a selection of Astra events spanning three decades from 1979 to 2010 – the musical and architectural designs formed an interactive partnership. The buildings contribute to the design of the program with their varied spatial possibilities, their acoustic and visual ‘personalities’. The music in turn contributed a new quality to the perception of the buildings, now experienced by audiences as sounding space, as a vehicle by which great cultural issues from music’s history can be traversed, and as a contemporary context for new ideas in Australian composition.
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Tuesday April 10, 1979
CAIRNS MEMORIAL CHURCH, East Melbourne
ST JOHN PASSION (1631), Christoph Demantius first Australian performance
EASTER DIALOGUES (C.1640), Johann Schein
with works for voices, solo trombone, solo cello and electronics by
Mauricio Kagel and Warren Burt
This lofty sandstone church in Powlett Street, East Melbourne, the former Presbyterian parish, was later destroyed in a fire and restored as residential apartments. It was the choice for several Astra programs through the 1980s. With its elevated rear gallery close to the ceiling and its raked wooden seating curving around the main performance area, it offered a theatrical environment for the spatial qualities of some unusual music from 17th-century Germany, instrumental theatre by the Argentinean Mauricio Kagel, and new vocal and electronic works by Australian Warren Burt.
The Astra Choir with ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
Christian Wojtowicz (solo cello), Simone de Haan (solo trombone)
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Friday July 10, 1981
CUSTOMS HOUSE, Melbourne
IN ECCLESIIS (1981), Graham Hair first performance
Giovanni Gabrieli, Elliott Carter, Graham Hair and Roger Reynolds.
With possibly the finest reverberant acoustics of any space in Melbourne, the magnificent Palladian architecture of the Long Room at the Customs House offered itself as a direct counterpart to an important new work by Australian composer Graham Hair. This was a re-setting of the famous text In ecclesiis used by Palladio’s contemporary in Venice, Giovanni Gabrieli. The Long Room was later to lose its possibility as a performance location by becoming the site of a permanent installation of the present-day Immigration Museum.
The Astra Choir with vocal soloists and Flederman Ensemble, conducted by John McCaughey
Geoffrey Collins (flute), Christian Wojtowicz (cello), Simone de Haan (trombone), Graeme Leak (percussion), Carl Vine & Graham Hair (keyboards); with Jeffrey Crellin (oboe)
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Wednesday June 16, 1985
NORTH MELBOURNE TOWN HALL
Works for choir and chamber orchestra by
Fritz Hart, Florence Ewart, Isaac Nathan, Margaret Sutherland, Keith Humble, Helen Gifford, and WA Mozart.
One of the earliest concerts to re-discover the North Melbourne Town Hall as a fine performance space, this program for Victoria’s Sesquicentenary presented a spectrum of Victorian composers reaching back to colonial days. Choir and chamber orchestra were conducted by three of Astra’s Musical Directors, George Logie-Smith (1957-77), John McCaughey (1978-1982 and 1985-2011), and Robert Smallwood (1983-4), who researched the early Australian music in the concert at the State Library of Victoria.
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Sunday February 23, 1986
North Melbourne Roving Choral Concert:
MEAT MARKET CRAFT CENTRE / ST MARY’S ANGLICAN CHURCH /
ST MARY STAR OF THE SEA CHURCH / NORTH MELBOURNE TOWN HALL
Works for choir by
Heinrich Isaac, Tchaikovsky, Pauline Oliveros, Heionrich Schütz, Dieter Schnebel, Hildegard, Helen Gifford, and WA Mozart.
The first of several roving concerts over a number of years, in which the audience had the experience of walking from one performance location to another, each stage of the program designed for the character of the four heritage buildings. Two decades later the Meat Market was to be more officially discovered as a space for performance, subdivided into two areas, and established as a location for non-conventional showings and productions.
The Astra Choir with soloists and chamber orchestra conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday September 28, 1986
Collins Street Mobile Concert:
BAPTIST CHURCH / SCOTS’ CHURCH / UNITING CHURCH, City of Melbourne
Works for choir by
Hildegard von Bingen, Mauricio Kagel, Dieter Schnebel, Franz Liszt, Helen Gifford, Robert Schuman, Keith Humble and WA Mozart.
Another mobile event, in Collins Street, led the audience through three churches in three distinct architectural styles by Joseph Reed, with a diverse choral program that responded to the spatial qualities of each building.
The Astra Choir with soloists and chamber orchestra conducted by John McCaughey
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Saturday November 29, 1986
DOME READING ROOM, State Library of Victoria
multiple choirs, brass ensemble, tuning forks and toy instruments
BLOW THE TRUMPET IN THE NEW MOON (1600), Giovanni Gabrieli
CHOIR PHANTASIE (1983), György Ligeti
ANGELS (1938), Carl Ruggles
THE SEASONS (1971), Keith Humble
LOVE SONG (1986), Carl Vine first performance
VOICES, TUNING FORKS AND ACCORDION (1986), Warren Burt first performance
CREATION AT REST – DEUTSCHE MOTETTE Op.62 (1913), Richard Strauss
In Melbourne’s grandest and possibly finest room of all, this concert utilized the multiple storeys of encircling galleries, extending high up into the dome, for a unique spatialised sonic experience with multiple groups of voices. The premiere of Carl Vine’s Love Song for solo trombone and electronic sounds, was performed from the raised Librarian’s desk in the centre of the floor, bathed in the surrounding tape sounds from the galleries, and 4 choirs surround the audience with sounds of gently falling paper in Keith Humble’s The Seasons.
The Astra Choir with soloists and the Melbourne Brass Ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
with Simone De Haan (solo trombone).
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Friday July 24, 1987
MEAT MARKET CRAFT CENTRE, North Melbourne
Keith Humble, SOUNDSCAPES (1987) first performance
George Brecht, MOTOR VEHICLE SUNDOWN (1962)
Lawrence Whiffin, PERCEPTION OF THE STRAIGHT LINE (1987) first performance
with works for choir, trombones and solo flute by Lou Harrison, Jan Sweelinck, Jeff Pressing, Clément Jannequn and Claude Debussy.
A full exploitation of the vast Meat Market space before it was re-modelled into two areas as a performing arts facility. The program extended from mobile pieces by Lou Harrison and Keith Humble via the 16th choral birdsong of Jannequn to a Fluxus event by George Brecht for four cars, driven into the space in mid-concert and performing with all their lights, horns and doors.
The Astra Choir with soloists, instruments and cars, conducted by John McCaughey
with the ensemble Pipeline and VCA trombone choir, directed by Simone De Haan.
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Sunday March 6, 1988
Sandringham Roving Choral Concert:
SANDRINGHAM STATION / UNITING CHURCH /ALL SOULS ANGLICAN CHURCH / SANDY BEACH COMMUNITY CENTRE
Works for choir by John McCaughey, Helen Gifford, Robert Schumann, Hildegard von Bingen, Nicolas Gombert, Dieter Schnebel and Hanns Eisler.
A roving concert, from the Sandringham station platform to a series of churches and secular buildings.
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
with Jan Friedel (actor-singer) Kim Bastin and Lawrence Whiffin (pianos)
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Friday September 10, 1988
CUSTOMS HOUSE, Melbourne
Mediaeval Tropes and Gregorian Chant for the Feast of Pentecost
Tradition Choral Songs from Vietnam, Java and Thailand
Chris Mann & Warren Burt, ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES
with works by Giovanni Gabrieli, Goerge Brecht and Donald Martino
A return to arguably Melbourne’s finest acoustic space, the Customs House. The Palladian surroundings were the environment for a multi-lingual program at Pentecost, concluding the International Musicology Conference in Melbourne that marked Australia’s bicentennial year. Mediaeval Gregorian tropes, chants from SE-Asia, and recent Australian and American joined in the multi-linguistic theme.
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
with soloists Lloyd Fleming, Le Tuan Hung, Hidris Kartomi and Anon Chantarapaoraha.
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Friday December 15, 1989
ST MARY STAR OF THE SEA CHURCH, West Melbourne
Mediaeval Tropes and Gregorian Chant for the Feast of Christmas
Jack Body, MARVEL NOT JOSEPH (1976)
with music by Gombert, Wylkinson, Clemens non Papa and Schoenberg
The largest parish church in Australia, St Mary’s in West Melbourne has offered many acoustic and spatial possibilities for Astra programs in its vast neo-Gothic dimensions. This was one of the earlier Astra concerts here, exploiting the building’s wide-spread galleries and sanctuary spaces for the theatre of mediaeval tropes, researched by Australian scholar Greta-Mary Hair, and extending to an antiphonal modern work by prominent New Zealand composer Jack Body.
The Astra Choir with soloists conducted by John McCaughey
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Friday August 10 & Saturday August 11 1990
SOUTH MELBOURNE TOWN HALL
Martin Friedel, CONVERSATIONS BEFORE THE SILENCE (1990) first performance
Helen Gifford, TOCCATA ATTACCO (1990) first performance
with choral works by Pierre de la Rue and Stravinsky
The grand 19th-century space of South Melbourne Town Hall, criss-crossed with podia and walkways, provided the background for Martin Friedel’s first cantata on themes of science and its historical ramifications, composed in commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima. A further three cantatas were to follow over the succeeding 20 years. The South Melbourne Town Hall later became the home of the Australian National Academy of Music.
The Astra Choir with soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
with Sally Mays, solo piano
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Sunday November 4, 1990
ELM STREET HALL, North Melbourne
William Henderson, performance text: MURCHITT A DAYDREAM (1990)
Samuel Beckett, dramaticule: COME AND GO (1965)
Alban Berg and Neil Kelly, song cycles
Johannes Brahms, Cindy John and Tom Hall, choral pieces
The old Sabbath-school hall of the former Presbyterian church in North Melbourne became Astra’s rehearsal base through the 1980s and 1990s, and also provided a flexible, intimate and theatrical space for many smaller-scale productions, such as this blend of text-art, mini-drama, song-cycle and choral works. Much more recently it has been restored in 2010 to become an elegant inner-city place of worship, while the neighbouring 19th-century church is undergoing reconstruction.
Merlyn Quaife (soprano), Tom Considine, John Jacobs and William Henderson (actors)
Michael Kieran Harvey (piano)
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
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Saturday November 7, 1992
SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS GALLERY, SCIENCEWORKS, Spotswood
choral songs with invented instruments and live electronics by composers from La Trobe University. Wroks by:
Brahms, Maahler, Ravel, Michael Hewes, Steve Adam, Cindy John, David Hirst, Martin Friedel, Martin Wesley-Smith, Graeme Leak and Jeff Pressing
Melbourne’s science museum on the Yarra at Spotswood combines the French chateau style of the 19th-century pumping station with a modern circular building – an environment for a program combining traditional choral sound with live sound processing, electronic music and newly-invented instruments.
Merlyn Quaife (soprano), Tom Considine, John Jacobs and William Henderson (actors)
Michael Kieran Harvey (piano)
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday December 18, 1992
ST MONICA’S CHURCH, Moonee Ponds
Gregorian chants, mediaeval pilgrim songs with Scottish music for multiple voices by Robert Carver (16th century) and Thea Musgrave (1977)
One of Melbourne most impressive neo-gothic spaces, the enormous sandstone church of St Monica in Mount Alexander Road, Moonee Ponds, provided a host of spatial possibilities for voices moving through the building in changing configurations.
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
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Saturday December 16 & Sunday 18, 1995
GASWORKS THEATRE, Middle Park
Martin Friedel, THE THIRD PLANET (1995)
The old South Melbourne gasworks plant with its surrounding park was transformed in 1992 into a resonant performance space, whose flexible flat-floor expanse has allowed for many designs of Astra events involving choral performances with theatrical dimensions.
In this concert timpani music by Elliott Carter and choral pieces from the age of Galileo introduced a large new cantata for soloists, instruments and choir by Martin Friedel, which traced the history and science of flight from Icarus to the astronauts
soloists including Merlyn Quaife (soprano), Jan Friedl (actor), John Arcaro (timpani)
The Astra Choir and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday March 16, 1997
ST MARY’S BASILICA, Geelong
Keith Humble, IN PACE - IN PEACE (1991)
The large basilica of St Mary, dominating the Geelong skyline with its characteristic and unusual bluestone steeples, has undergone spectacular restoration of its neo-gothic interior spaces, an invitation for musical exploitation with mobile and changing configurations of singers. In this concert, a Geelong composer who went on to become an international musical figure, Keith Humble, was represented with the posthumous premiere of his open-form work IN PEACE, surrounded by a span of music from Hildegard in the Middle Ages, through motets of the Renaissance to Gustav Mahler.
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Tuesday April 15, 1997
HEIDELBERG TOWN HALL
Choir and Trombone Quartet:
Giovanni Gabrieli, Heinrich Schütz, Max Reger
with new Australian works by
Richard Vella, Martin Wesley-Smith, Stuart Campbell, David Stanhope
Listed on the Victorian Heritage Register as "the greatest and most eloquent expression of the interwar brick Moderne style in Victoria”, the Heidelberg Town Hall of 1937 offered a flamboyant, mirrored space for a program of interactions between choirs of voices and trombones, with a quartet led by the distinguished Australian trombonist from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Michael Mulcahy.
The Australian Trombone Quartet, leader Michael Mulcahy.
The Astra Choir and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday November 16, 1997
BRUNSWICK TOWN HALL
Choir and String Quartet:
Martin Friedel
WALTER BENJAMIN CHORUSES & NIGHT PIECES (1992-5)
with works form the American experimental tradition by
Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Charles Seeger, Johanna Beyer
String Quartet, leader Briar Goessi, Kim Bastin (piano)
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
Built in 1876, the Brunswick Town Hall has been described as an imposing Victorian building in the Second Empire style. The more intimate interior hall provided an immediacy of visual and acoustic contact, perfect for Martin Friedel’s images of urban nights in his premiered string quartet. The new Australian work was set among classic choral and chamber works of the American experimental music tradition, including the pounding piano clusters of Henry Cowell.
String Quartet, leader Briar Goessi
The Astra Choir and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday January 18, 1998
ST PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, Ballarat
Keith Humble, IN PACE - IN PEACE (1991)
Opening the inaugural summer Festival ‘Organs of the Ballarat Goldfields’ this concert exploited the gothic interiors of another large church building, Ballarat’s Catholic cathedral, first begun in 1851. The Festival audience experienced the building through a spectrum of music throughout its space, from mediaeval pilgrim dance-songs to Renaissance motets, Liszt, Gustav Mahler and contemporary Australian Keith Humble.
Sergio De Pieri (organ)
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Saturday September 11 Sunday September 12, 1999
ST KILDA TOWN HALL
Helen Gifford
CHORAL SCENES (1999)
with French wartime works by
Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud and Poulenc
String Quartet, leader Briar Goessi, Kim Bastin (piano)
The Astra Choir conducted by John McCaughey
Dating from 1890, the Classical Revival space of St KIlda Town Hall was redesigned after an extensive fire in 1991. A texted, transparent glass wall dramatically divides the large space into two halls of different character, both of which were exploited in this large program around Helen Gifford’s choral pageant of poems generated in World War I. Poulenc’s massive settings of poems from the time of World War II by Paul Eluard complemented the new Australian work.
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday June 22, 2003
QUEEN’S HALL, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
FOLKSONGS AND SOUND MAZES
Percy Grainger and Scandinavians, old and contemporary
Edvard Grieg, Knut Nystedt, Sven-David Sandström
Completed in 1879, the great central space of the Victorian Parliament offers high galleries and archways, and a resonant stone acoustic, for a theatre of choral sounds – here focussed on various facets, both traditional and revolutionary, of the inventive Percy Grainger, together with the Scandinavian tradition, with which he felt a great affinity.
Zoe Knighton (cello)
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday December 14, 2003
ST IGNATIUS CHURCH, Richmond
CHOIR AND COMPUTER PROCESSED BELLS
Graham Hair, LAMENT FOR SANTA SOPHIA (2000)
with mediaeval chants and multi-voice Renaissance compositions
The Astra Choir, soloists and electronics conducted by John McCaughey
The enormous 19th-century St Ignatius church, visible from many kilometres on all sides high on the Richmond Hill, was the site for a large new Australian composition by Graham Hair. In this work a 16-voice lament for the famous cathedral of Byzantium is set among the vast sonorities of computer-processed bells, which resounded from the distant ambulatory surrounding the sanctuary.
The Astra Choir, 16 soloists and electronics conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday May 23, 2004
WILLIAMSTOWN TOWN HALL
Carl Vine at 50:
CHORAL AND INSTRUMENTAL WORKS
with music by
Monteverdi, Lou Harrison, Elliott Carter, Luciano Berio
Among the largest and most original-looking local town halls in the State, Williamstown became a concert setting for a spacious display of compositions around the 50th anniversary Australian composer, Carl Vine.
Miwako Abe (violin)
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday April 23, 2006
UNITING CHURCH, Richmond
Herzogenberg, PASSION (1896)
Kevin March, RILKE SETTINGS (2006) first performance
The elegant, colourful and ornate19th-century Methodist church on the Richmond Hill, offers an instantly theatrical environment with steeply rising stepped wooden terraces to a central organ high at the front. The space was used to full theatrical effect in the dramatic setting of the Passion by Herzoengberger and the premiere of Rilke poems from the Book opf Hours by Melbourne composer Kevin March.
The Astra Choir, soloists and chamber orchestra conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday November 5, 2006
READING ROOM, FITZROY LIBRARY
Catherine Schieve, with Warren Burt
PAINTINGS, FLOOR-DRAWINGS, NON-WESTERN INSTRUMENTS, FREE MUSIC MACHINE, ELECTRONIC SOUNDS
One of the finest and least-known rooms in Fitzroy, the chandaliered and columned former library has unique qualities, used in this event as an intimate performing space for the mixture of visual and auditory, western and non-western, electronic and live materials of painter-composer Catherine Schieve.
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Saturday May 26 and Sunday May 27, 2007
LITHUANIAN HOUSE, North Melbourne
Slave Pianos and the Astra Choir:
DISSIDENT CONSONANCES or: THE IRON CURTAIN, THE FLUX LABYRINTH AND LITHUANIAN HOUSE
The multiple halls and foyers of this enormous and rambling building became the mobile venues for a collaboration of the Astra Choir with the internationally-known artists-composers group Slave Pianos. Actors, film, visual installations, mechanized piano, vodka organ and dancers joined the
the Astra Choir in changing scenes and locations around the building, pursuing the theme of Lithuania’s musician first President, Landsbergis, and his relationship to the Fluxus artist George Maciunas.
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Sunday October 10, 2010
FITZROY TOWN HALL
Martin Friedel,
CITIES OF THE MIND
with music by
Dan Dediu, Neil Kelly, Pauline Oliveros, Max Reger, Frederic Rzewski
The Fitzroy Town Hall (1867) has been the site of many Astra events, involving its strongly theatrical mixture of flat floor, deep stage and surrounding galleries. (The latter have passed out of legal usage in recent years.) Martin Friedel’s extended cantata on the history of the mind and its science created contant changes of singer and instruments to relate its narratives.
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
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Sunday June 12, 2011
CARMELITE CHURCH, Middle Park
CHOIR, RECORDERS, ELECTRONICS, ORGAN
Gombert, Gesualdo, Verdi, Stravinsky
Dan Dediu, Steve Stelios Adam, Michael Hewes, Anthony Briggs, Carl Vine
Completed in 1928 and recently restored to its full splendour, this church has unequalled acoustic qualities within its suggestions of Eastern architecture – a huge sound palette for the varied music of this program, moving between modal music of the past, contemporary harmony, the sound spectra of electronic music and live computer-processing of voices.
Genevieve Lacey (recorders)
The Astra Choir, soloists and ensemble conducted by John McCaughey
