February

Alex Raineri - Piano Recital

Hailed as a “born communicator” (The Australian), a “brilliant young musician” (Otago Times), and a “soloist of superb virtuosic skill and musicality” (Limelight), Alex Raineri (b. 1993) is active Internationally and throughout Australia as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, writer, producer and educator. 

International performances include tours throughout America, Southeast Asia, United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Germany and Austria. Within Australia, Alex has appeared as a feature artist in many major festivals and venues. As a concerto soloist he has appeared with the Queensland, Tasmanian, Darwin and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, Ensemble Q, Southern Cross Soloists, Orchestra Victoria, Four Winds Festival Orchestra, Bangalow Festival Orchestra, Queensland Youth Symphony and the Queensland Pops Orchestra. He has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Radio NZ, California Capital Public Radio, ABC Classic FM and all of the Australian MBS Networks.

Enno Poppe | Thema mit 840 Variationen (1993-97) 
Rebecca Saunders | Mirror, mirror on the wall (1994) 
Lucio Tasca | Jeux de Vagues (2021) World Premiere 
Liza Lim | The Four Seasons - Autumn (2008-09)
Jakob Bragg | Fourteen transcriptions from across the plane (2023) World Premiere  
Chris Dench | flex for AR (2017)

Tim Parker-Langston and Jonathan Fisher - Vocal Recital

Fanny Hensel, the elder sister of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, has long been recognised as a fine musician and composer, however owing to the restrictions exerted upon her owing to her race, class and not least, gender, her music remains unfamiliar to far too many. This has been, in part, resultant of the absence of scores and recordings.  

In 2021, tenor-researcher Tim Parker-Langston (Royal Opera House and Goldsmiths, University of London) published the complete songs of Fanny Hensel as a part of a practice research PhD, in which artistic practice is the primary means of engaging and learning about Hensel’s music. 

In this carefully curated recital, Tim, alongside pianist Jonathan Fisher, paint a picture of Hensel’s life through her music and that of her contemporaries. The programme will include songs by Fanny Hensel from different stages of her life and of the musicians who bore influence over her: including her tutors Carl Friedrich Zelter and Ludwig Berger; her brother Felix; Clara Schumann (geb. Wieck) and J.S. Bach. 

Lovemusic - Heart of Light

Heart of Light was imagined for the month of February, the last month of winter, a distinctive colour lingering on the horizon giving us the impression something new is coming. Light has a central place in the ideas behind all the music : Finbar Hosie’s new work The Hyacinth Garden invites us on a political and sensuous exploration through waste lands and gardens, in search of togetherness and separation in space and sound. Noriko Baba’s Bonbori is a sound painting of the beauty of Japanese lacquerware glimmering in candlelight in a dark room. Mic Spencer’s new piece, nuthin lik disperr, part of his love letters cycle, is inspired by the poem of the same name by Tom Leonard, an ode to the joy of metaphorical darkness. Santiago Díez Fischer’s love fragments takes Sappho’s Fragments on love and desire as the starting point, which begins “You Burn me” and is part of a new album to be released in the Spring of 2023 documenting his work with lovemusic. Finally in Sasha Blondeau’s Sortir du noir (title "stolen" from Georges Didi-Huberman’s book of the same name) two types of light collide - strong and intentional (roaming searchlights) with fleeting and inadvertent (lamps of lost people).

 

Finbar Hosie  - The Hyacinth Garden , for clarinet, viola, electric guitar, performer and electronics (2023)

Santiago Díez-Fischer  - love fragments for flute, clarinet, viola, cello, electric guitar and electronics (2022)

Mic Spencer - nuthinlik disperr (Love letter No.5) in Memoriam Hans-Joachim Hespos, for quintet (2023)

Noriko Baba  - Bonbori for quintet with objects (2008) 

Sasha Blondeau - Sortir du noir for cello and electronics (2016) 

Emiliano Gavito - Flute

Adam Starkie - Clarinet

Sophie Wahlmüller - Viola

Lola Malique - Cello

Christian Lozano - Guitar

Finbar Hosie - Electronics and Lights

Admission: free

This project was made possible through the generous support of Diaphonique, Franco-British fund for contemporary music, in partnership with the SACEM, the Friends of the French Institute Trust, the British Council, the Institut français, the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, the Centre National de la Musique, Creative Scotland and the Salabert Fondation