Anyone familiar with the work of cellist Peter Eom, who performed on Wednesday in the RBA, would not have been expecting a collection of Bach and Britten pieces. They might have been surprised though by the floor layout, which featured six “cello stations”. Peter’s introduction stated that his recital was titled Primordial because he wanted to suggest rituals, dreams and surrealism and he wanted us to take the recital on whatever terms we, or our subconsciousnesses, chose but to experience it as a single whole played end to end.
The second programme in this year’s West End Micro Music Festival had its first performance at Redeemer Lutheran on Friday night. It was a mix of contemporary instrumental and vocal works with some unusual Hildegard von Bingen and some interesting lighting (Billy Wong) and staging.
The Happenstancers ended their 2023/24 season last night at 918 Bathurst with a concert called Babes in Toyland. It consisted of mainly late 20th and 21st century chamber works with one unusual Mozart piece (K617 for glass harmonica (Kevin Ahfat), viola (Hee-Soo Yoon( ,cello (Peter Eom), oboe (Aleh Remezau) and flute (Tristan Durie) to spice things up.
Saturday evening, at Redeemer Lutheran, the Happenstancers offered up a palindromic tribute to Pascal Dusapin. As it was a palindrome I shall review it from the middle outwards. Let us take the interval as t=0. Then at t=+/-1 we heard Two Walkings from singers Danika Lorèn and Hilary Jean Young. Two songs; “How Many Little Wings” and “Kiss My Lips She Did” came before the break and the rest; “May June”, “A Scene in Singing” and “It Seems To Be Turning Music” after. And, of course the singers swapped positions at the break! This is extremely interesting but fiendishly difficult music with the unaccompanied singers trading snatches of phrases and half thoughts in a complex atonal musical language. I’m actually in awe that anybody can actually perform a work like this but they did, and very well.
operaramblings 