INTRODUCTION TO RECITALS AUSTRALIA 2008 SUBSCRIPTION SERIES

Welcome to the 2008 subscription series, which sees several innovations. Our home base moves from Pilgrim Church to Elder Hall, where four of the concerts will be given in association with the Elder Conservatorium. Indeed , altogether Recitals Australia will be working with nine different organisations to bring our audiences the very best music in the most congenial settings at the lowest possible prices.

In addition, you will see that the publication that follows combines the brochures of Recitals Australia and the ABN AMRO Morgans International Piano Series. As the two principal presenters of keyboard recitals in Adelaide, both bodies felt that it could only be to our mutual benefit, and that of our audiences, to cooperate in this way.

The program for the 2008 subscription series is eclectic. It ranges from a work by that key figure in modern music, Morton Feldman, to the Adelaide debut of Jonathan Lemalu, the young international superstar of opera stage and recital platform in a program of art song and arias in which he will be joined by Malcolm Martineau, one of the world’s foremost accompanists.

Our primary emphasis in putting this series together has been on repertoire. Four of the programs are each devoted to one composer with whom the chosen artists have a special affinity. Adelaide-born Clemens Leske is probably one of the few keyboard players in Australia happy to tackle what is even for JS Bach a summit of his achievement, the Goldberg Variations, and celebrated jazz pianist Paul Grabowsky is surely the only one brave enough to improvise on the same work immediately after it has been heard played ‘straight’.

A previous performance by Stephen Whittington of Morton Feldman’s epic Triadic Memories was described by London modern music magazine The Wire as “one of the 60 concerts that shook the world” in the past 40 years. His recital at the Art Gallery of South Australia will complement Hossein Valamanesh’s piece 'Leave your shoes here', which will be on show at the gallery as part of the 2008 Biennial of Australian Art. Both of these works were inspired by the repetitive but subtly changing patterns of Persian carpets.

Acclaimed pianist Anna Goldsworthy is no stranger to audiences here and her concert will consist of works by Chopin, of whose music she is such a popular and lyrical interpreter.

2008 marks the centenary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen, one of the greatest composers of works for solo organ. Melbourne organist Jennifer Chou is something of a specialist in his music and will play the towering masterpiece Le Livre du Saint Sacrement (Book of the Holy Sacrament), the composer’s last and longest work for organ. This recital will be given in Pilgrim Church, which has one of only two or three instruments in Adelaide that are altogether suitable for the performance of Messiaen’s music.

In addition, Melbourne’s husband and wife Mogilevski Duo perform a program consisting of music by 20th century Russian composers. And the outstanding expatriate Australian cellist Li Wei, with Caroline Almonte at the piano, presents a tribute to his late, great teacher Mstislav Rostropovich, exactly one year after the maestro’s death.

We are enormously looking forward to this ‘new look’ season; please join us. Premium wines from Barristers Block will be available for $5 a glass at all concerts except No 1. Our regular subscribers and other audience members should note that not only do the venues vary for these concerts but so do the starting times.

For Recitals Australia
Anthony Steel, president; Gabriella Smart, artistic administrator, subscription series