Musica Viva: Van Diemen’s Band

Australia’s finest early music specialists invite you to experience the beautiful melding of cultures in Europe’s historical borderlands for Musica Viva Australia.

Artists

Julia Fredersdorff – artistic director & violin
Simone Slattery – violin & recorder
Lizzy Welsh – viola
Laura Vaughan – Bass Viol
Anton Baba – bass viol & cello
Donald Nicolson – harpsichord & organ

Program

Borderlands

Dietrich Becker
Sonata No.5 in F (1668)

Borderlands Suite – assembled by Julia Fredersdorff
Samuel Scheidt
Galliard Battaglia

Dietrich Becker Paduan

Jean de Sainte-Colombe Les Pleurs

Samuel Scheidt Courant

Philipp Heinrich Erlebach ‘Chaconne’ from Ouverture No.2

Tomaso Albinoni Sinfonia à 5, Op.2 No.3 in C (1700)

Georg Muffat Sonata No.1 in D (1677)

María Huld Sigfúsdóttir Clockworking (2013)

Anonymous – attr. Biber Sonata Jucunda

Donald Nicolson Spirals (2022) – world premiere performances*

About the concert

Tasmanian Baroque ensemble Van Diemen’s Band invites you to explore the historic borderlands of Europe on their national tour with Musica Viva Australia. For centuries, generations of musicians wrote dances and masses, symphonies and quartets, as their homelands changed ownership under their feet. Or their nations remained steadfast, allowing the most magical cultural overlaps at the border fringes.

Through composers such as Samuel Scheidt and Dietrich Becker, you will hear the trials of battle – loss, regret, resentment – and, at long last, healing. Listen to composers who were touched by the Thirty Years’ War within the Holy Roman Empire, their countries crumbling around them.

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (Iceland) and Donald Nicolson (Australia) are living composers who will bring you closer to our time. Just as Van Diemen’s Band invites instrumental guests from across Australia’s state borders, these composers remind us how we’re still united through music – no matter what borders lie between us.