With the quirky signpost “Beyond Borders”, ticket holders for this year’s festival were advised to “expect the unexpected”. The huge success of 2023 “Allbrie Festival” ensured an early sellout for the three-day pass, where all comers enjoyed much humour and quality events while sharing food and music from over 30 countries. In perfect weather, attendees crossed the State border for the first Festival session at the principal concert venue, St Matthew’s Church, to collect tickets and a program ingeniously packaged in a familiar navy blue passport that needed to be checked and stamped at every session. Border Control Officers – aka festival directors Sally-Anne Russell and Mario Dobernig – are to be heartily congratulated for creating a unique theme, initiating and spreading humour and bonhomie among all.
Without bravado or fanfare, the Festival opened modestly and calmly. An elegant and refined string quartet led by concertmaster Roy Theaker, brought much warmth and detailed Romantic lines to Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 4 in C minor. The normally slow movement expected in a quartet was replaced by a most lively and charming C major movement, suitably sunny and Spring-like for travellers from across the borders. St Matthew’s Church is a truly fine venue, beautifully elegant and pristine, with a spacious recital area, although, while the high vaulted ceiling gives space and light, the tone and dynamic of string instruments can fly upwards and dissipate somewhat. A totally contrasting arrangement of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from the most successful musical of all time, West Side Story, followed, with a new stage setting comprising two pianists and three percussionists. Colourful and familiar, robust and energetic, but without the earthiness and grit of American street life, it was today more classically refined. Following the excitement of Latin American dance themes, a sensitive playing of the final piece in the medley, “There’s a Place for us”, touched us with the relevance of the human story with themes of tragedy and loss still relevant today in changing city populations, and felt in this lighter concert arrangement.
The Albury Festival features a shared feasting of drinks and fine food in the elegant gardens and rooms of the historic Albury Club. This is where friends are made for life, and Russell and Dobernig deliver the unexpected. From Hobart Symphony, Michael Fortescue, master of the double bass, became a familiar figure in the town, dressed in concert attire and seen regularly wheeling his instrument most happily along the pavement for several kilometres over the weekend. A motley crew of musical stars from several states formed an Art of Sound Salon Orchestra with increasing hilarity as their “Radetzky March” enticed brave diners to compete in frolicking equestrian manoeuvres on helpless wooden horses, a brilliant mime artist enhanced a version of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, and an unexpected Albury brass band marched through and around the long dinner tables.
With Passports in hand, it was a short walk across the road to the Church to hear A Venezuelan Candlelight Delight, with music from Spain and Venezuela by the young and beautiful harpist Glavier Aldana, which perfectly closed the evening. There is nothing like an angelic harpist performing Latin folk music with vibrant incisive dance rhythms, delicate rippling open chords and colourful glissandos to bring a warm and “otherworldly” atmosphere to a candlelit church. The program closed with the well-known Malaguena from Andalucia by Cuban composer and pianist Ernesto Lecuona. Aldana’s playing was admirably mature and technically exact as she produced a fine range of dynamics and timbral variation – a beautiful young girl who followed her dreams to travel to the inspiring music and harp training program El Sistema in Venezuela.
Legendary ABC and BBC radio presenter Mairi Nicolson took us to a different part of the world with the Festival audience enjoying a warm and engaging discussion in the stunning art deco Theatre Royal, a place where Nellie Melba had once packed out the place in 1909. Most splendid were sessions in the historic Adamshurst mansion and gardens, where variety was in abundance with vino on hand. Fresh and different was a contemporary sounds program that included Latvian composer Peteris Vasks’ “Landscapes with Birds” for solo flute (Sally Walker), Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s “Chonguri” for Solo Cello (Ye Jin Choi), and Yuin Australian composer Brenda Gifford’s “Mungala” (Clouds) for alto flute and percussion, which preceded the main feast in this contemporary session: Luciano Berio’s “Folksongs” for chamber ensemble. Popular mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell excelled in this most engaging song cycle of eleven folk songs of various national origins, with engaging warmth and artistry, admirably connecting the essence of language, character and emotion in these finely crafted pieces.
Adamshurst was certainly the place to be for Sunday’s sessions of Brass & Brie (the fine food provided was not all brie!), where festival goers enjoyed the heritage listed gardens, sharing cheese platters and wine as the Wodonga Brass Band added most fitting music to this musical picnic. In the magnificent ballroom, Festival favourite bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes with pianist Konrad Olszewski were loved and admired by all attendees for two professionally delivered evocative and emotive song cycles: Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel and Gerald Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring. Hearts were touched and long-time fans would have loved more poetry and song from this highly respected artist.
Photo supplied.
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Julie McErlain reviewed performances given as part of the Albury Chamber Music Festival 2024, 8-10 November.
