Every year around this time Confluence Concerts work with a group of young artists to curate and present a concert at Heliconian Hall. This year’s took place on Thursday evening. There were twenty two pieces of music on the programme; some written or arranged by members of the group with composers ranging from Henry Purcell and Barbara Strozzi to Libby Larsen and Sting. There was classical vocal and instrumental from the baroque to yesterday, jazz, fado and genre defying pieces. I’m just going to single out a few (to me at least) highlights.

Sarah Storms’ (soprano) Sewing Seeds, Tapestries and Persistence set her own poetry sung, spoken and whispered by herself and a chorus surrounding the audience. It’s an intriguing text and the surround sound was effective. More conventional was a really well executed performance of Barber’s “Sure on this shining night” sung with considerable art by the multi-talented Vivien Illion ((here wearing her soprano hat) accompanied by pianist Michael Spiroff.

When you have three violins and a viola you have to find something for them to play. This time it was a movement from Jacob Dont’s Gradus ad Parnassum played by Larry Beckwith, Clara Moniz and Audrey Sung on violins and Sofia Moniz on viola. It was kind of simple but pleasant. Tracy Wong’s “Jam” and a Clara Moniz arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s “Morning Morgantown involved most of the gang as a chorus stomping and finger-clicking with piano and strummed violin plus Aaron Blewitt on percussion.

After the interval an some Telemann we got one of the more ambitious pieces on the programme Audrey Sung’s Quicksand. Dark, intense, somewhat atonal with some chaotic chattering it explores the idea of how hard it is to “succeed” in one’s own mind! Scored for chorus, violin, piano and really interesting percussion, this one really resonated with me.

Errol Garner’s “Misty” allowed Clara Moniz to show she is at home with cool jazz as well as classical vocals but where she really shone was in her own arrangement of Anibal Nazaré and Fernando de Carvalho’s “Tudo isto e fado” where she sang most idiomatically. There was some excellent art song from female composers to with Sarah Storms singing a dramatic version of Libby Larsen’s “Pregnant with piano while Anna O’Drowsky gave us Rebecca Clarke’s “Lullaby” accompanied by viola and piano.

I think I’ve managed to check almost everyone who performed but there were a trio of Confluence regulars I haven’t mentioned involved as well; Suba Sankara, Patricia O’Callaghan, Máiri Demings and Anika Venkatash. So many of the numbers involved a large chorus that a lot of people doubled up as choristers! It’s really pretty amazing that such a varied and complex programme was put together and rehearsed in just ten days.

Photo credit: Máiri Demings