Canberra Symphony Orchestra: Hearing the Land - CSO Australian Series. National Museum of Australia, September 1, 2022.
The essential message conveyed in the performances at Thursday night's CSO concert Hearing the Land is the urgent need for humanity to listen. Listen to each other, listen to the plight of people in other countries, listen to the very young and the very old, those who are vulnerable and those who are striving - and above all, listen to the wisdom of the lands on which we live. Each of the six musical "acts" made the audience aware of the way in which humanity and nature are interdependent: we must learn a way of relating that strengthens communication across the globe and binds us closely to patterns of survival that are embedded in the natural environment and in each other.
Michael Sollis's refreshingly theatrical work Mirage transported us to the shimmering heat of the Australian outback. Kiri Sollis on piccolo and Veronica Bailey on percussion were transformed into strange competitive desert creatures, disturbing the air with their trilling birdsong and chattering chimes - one minute sounding adversarial, the next connected and responsive then suddenly both swooping upward in a chattering and screeching reminiscent of a flock of parrots. This skilful composition captured both the spacious landscape and the tight intimacy of creatures in communion.
Songs of the Silent Earth in three movements by Nathalie Williams inspired three scenes in my imagination. The first scene was the breeze through a stand of coastal paperbarks embodied in the intertwining string melodies. In the second, the sombre, majestic cello theme suggested a deep, swift flowing North Coast river and the third movement evoked the view from a mountain across a broad landscape, painted in the agile piano underpinning moody harmonics on cello and violin. Edward Neeman, Doreen Cumming and Patrick Suthers were a well-blended, focused ensemble, alive to each other's playing.
Eric Avery's Mists, an intricate minute of music for bassoon, piano and violin with rhythmic drama and nice textural contrasts was a good foil for the longer, hypnotic Solace by Kirsten Milenko. In this work, momentum built into a conflagration of harmonics, conflicting tonalities and rhythmic antagonism, voicing Milenko's question: "Do we perceive ourselves as guardians or owners of the world?"
The voices of the Djinama Yilaga Guest Ensemble swept through the auditorium with the simplicity, beauty and power of musicians singing their truth. A multi-generational group, the sweet young voices of the children blended with the other age groups to embody the invincible strength of a living women's tradition dating back 40,000 years. Melanie Horsnell's composition Sugar and White Man sent shivers down the spine in its succinct rendering of her story of the collision of European society with Indigenous culture.
Memorable for its exuberance and enlivening modulations, Deborah Cheetham's Emergence was an uplifting finale. Written for flute, piano, violin, bassoon, vibes and percussion, the thematic material seemed determined to explore every corner of the instrumental palette, concluding with a united, exhilarating upward run as if the musicians were reaching for bright hope - and indeed emergence into a brave, pandemic-modified new world.
With musicians and composers exploring pertinent themes for our times, this was a concert to make us think, feel and most importantly, to listen more deeply to our world.
