Musica Viva Australia Announces 2024 Program

Image: Ensemble Q & William Barton. Photo by Lyndon Mechielsen

Musica Viva Australia has unveiled their 2024 Concert program featuring a blend of tradition and innovation.

Audiences across Australia can expect seven national tours spanning six states and territories, four world premieres by Australian composers, and twenty-six of the world’s best artists including William Barton, The Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and powerhouse pianist Kirill Gerstein.

Musica Viva Australia’s Artistic Director Paul Kildea said, “Our 2024 season is a chance to rethink the concert experience and how to tap into all the senses. Next year we are taking a body of repertory, a set of recital conventions, and turning them on their head. We look forward to bringing audiences a sensational line-up of international and local artists, performing both traditional pieces from the classical canon and new works by Australian composers”.

The season begins in February with Long Lost Loves (and Grey Suede Gloves): a “colourful, brash, and dreamy” (Classical Net) evening of storytelling over the piano, inspired by the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer William Bolcom. Devised by Paul Kildea and Ian Dickson AM, and written and directed by acclaimed Australian director, Constantine Costi, the program weaves together quasi-cabaret, part-art songs by Bolcom to create a poignant meditation on life, love and living in the moment. Hear Australian mezzo soprano Anna Dowsley perform Bolcom’s most remarkable songs.

Image: Esme Quartet. Photo courtesy of Tongyeong International Music Foundation

In April and May Esmé Quartet make their Australian debut. This young German-based, South Korean ensemble have been making waves since winning first prize at the 2018 International String Quartet Competition at London’s Wigmore Hall. They perform works representing the epitome of youth, from Mendelssohn’s emotional second String Quartet, to young Australian composer Jack Frerer’s exhilarating, roller-coaster ride Spiral Sequences.

Kirill Gerstein performs a sseven-city solo recital tour in June. A jazz-turned-classical pianist who won the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition at just 22, Gerstein is a fearless artist who makes the impossible sound easy. In this offering, he performs virtuosic works by Liszt, Godowsky, and Chopin, alongside the world premiere of Australian composer Liza Lim’s Transcendental Etude.

Musica Viva Australia will present The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge in July and August. Their return to Australia (following sellout concerts in 2019) wil feature two touchstones of the choral repertoire: Stravinsky’s Mass for choir and double wind quintet, and Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem. When programming the tour, director Dan Hyde wished to give audiences the opportunity to consider music’s wider social footprint, beyond the top hats and concert halls. A new, commissioned work by Australian composer Damian Barbeler, setting words by First Nations poet Judith Nangala Crispin, grapples with the threads of history.

In August Musica Viva Australia will present a new musical collaboration between Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and American composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, Gabriel Kahane. Two musical greats collide as they examine what it means to be artists in the 21^st century whilst honouring their classical heritage.

Ensemble Q and William Barton collaborate so audiences can experience what happens when the oldest wind instrument in the world – the digeridoo – teams up with instruments which found their final form only two centuries ago. The rest of the program includes masterpieces by Brahms and Ligeti.

Image: Musica Alchemica. Photo by Klaus Feichtenberg

Rounding out the 2024 season in November is the Australian debut of Musica Alchemica. led by baroque violinist Lina Tur Bonet. Described by Paul Kildea as “the Kate Bush of early music”, Tur Bonet is widely-considered to be one of the most exciting violinists of her generation. Making her debut with her hand-picked ensemble, Musica Alchemica, Bonet will bring fiery honesty and endless invention to works by Corelli, Telemann, Biber, and other jewels of the Baroque.

Throughout the year, there are also a series of daytime concerts in Melbourne (The Edge) and Sydney (The Concourse, Chatswood). Next year’s program will feature performances by Jess Hitchcock and the Penny Quartet, The Choir of St James’ King Street, the Australian Haydn Ensemble and Andrea Lam among others.

www.musicaviva.com.au