... 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. ...Listen to Excerpt 1: Elliott Carter, Musicians Wrestle Everywhere (1948), chorus, and Excerpt 2: Graham Hair, Opening from In Ecclesiis (1981), soloists, choir and ensemble.
From the concert at the Customs House, Friday July 10, 1981.
Flederman Ensemble:Geoffrey Collins (flute), Christian Wojtowicz (cello), Simone de Haan (trombone), Graeme Leak (percussion), Carl Vine & Graham Hair (keyboards); with Jeffrey Crellin (oboe). ...
Music always interacts with the architecture in which it is heard.
Melbourne has some wonderful acoustic environments. Often, these spaces were built for other purposes – for example the splendid public and ecclesiastical buildings from the first 100 years of the city’s history, and more recent industrial constructions.
Exploiting ‘non-customized’ spaces for musical performance celebrates and explores our architectural heritage.
For 30 years, the concerts of Astra Chamber Music Society have ranged around Melbourne’s architectural environment. Each concert has had a site-specific design that takes advantage of the marvellous visual qualities, spatial possibilities, and acoustic personality of each building.
The music, in turn, contributes a new quality to the perception of the buildings, now experienced by audiences as a sounding space - an area where cultural issues from music’s history are traversed, and new ideas in Australian composition are explored.
In this story take a tour of some of Melbourne’s intimate, hidden spaces and listen to the music that has filled their walls.
For further information about Astra Chamber Music Society click here.
