WOMAD: Sarah Blasko Interview (Podcast)
Summer seems to be on its last legs here in Melbourne, but in Adelaide the festival season tends to keep the city warm right through March. A big part of that is the WOMAD weekend of music. An annual event, it attracts the world’s best musicians from every continent and brings them together in the middle of the city, under the trees of Botanic Park. This year it’s being held from March 7-9.
One of the locals joining the global village of artists is Sarah Blasko. She’s been casting her delicate spell over music lovers for several albums now and has established herself as one of Australia’s most admired and most enduring female singer-songwriters. So, in the lead-up to WOMAD, I had a chat with Sarah on the phone from Sydney about composing music for Shakespeare, dancing with Björk and being a musician from nine to five.
Click here to listen to the podcast. 15 minutes, 8MB, mp3
_
Australian Chamber Orchestra - Vital Tour
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre
February 3
The most dynamic work in the ACO’s first concert of the year was a performance of British-Australian Roger Smalley’s Strung Out. This piece was structurally arresting from the first note: it started with a twang of released energy, a rubbery sound as multiple strings were plucked in unison. The fact that the musicians were “strung out” — arranged in a single line across the stage — allowed us to see and hear momentum moving from one musician to the next, as if the entire orchestra were an enormous harp or guitar. Sound rapidly crossed the stage, switching from one player to another, before reaching the central section of cellos and bass. This appeared to be the “bowels” of the operation — where melodic lines were resolved, while violins would shriek and stop-start on either side.
The physical arrangement also made us highly conscious of the players’ movements: bows sheering off the bridge, and the very tactile pizzicato — like sharp points punctuating the composition. Passages of dazzlingly smooth and even sound were followed by moments of slashing abruptness — a wall of sound would reduce to one soft vibrato on the cello, or a tentatively held note on the violin. Occasionally, one half of the orchestra worked their way through an elaborate sequence, each playing a couple of notes, while on the other side, bows moved frantically in unison. Themes settled, then shot up at unexpected points — like a choreographed fountain display.
Haydn’s Symphony No. 47 in G was an array of precisely sketched little notes — a surprisingly low-key choice for opening number, apart from the structural oddity of its “palindrome” minuet, which consists of 10 bars played forwards then backwards (notes read from right to left). This restrained, uneventful work gave us time to notice the commanding second violinist Helena Rathbone, and the jauntiness of lead violin and artistic director Richard Tognetti: a showman with a leaping bounce and a very active elbow directed at the audience.
The Singapore-born pianist Melvyn Tan made a guest appearance on Mozart’s Concerto No. 19 in F Major, and impressed with his delicate touch on the turbulent passages of the Allegretto. For an acclaimed soloist and Mozart specialist, Tan’s style was extremely casual — attentive rather than flamboyant — and he gave a remarkably loose, flowing performance.
Schubert’s Quartet No. 15 in G provided instant coloration: a mood plunge, with its irresistible attack of violins. No-one does a momentum kick like Schubert, with the light, faint shimmering of the bow that leads up to a sforzando; principal viola Christopher Moore was particularly impressive in his solo. During these dramatic sequences, where hushed phrases were played in between strident, cracking strings, the entire orchestra seemed to tilt inward, as if leaning into the buzz.