A Selby & Friends concert is always as welcome an event in Melbourne as it is in their home – for most, that’s Sydney, with some “friends” coming from much further afield. I was recently able to chat with Kathryn Selby about her forthcoming Melbourne tour, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Romantic – 19:30, Jun. 27, 2018 at Tatoulis Auditorium, Methodist Ladies’ College, a venue which the pianist is evidently thrilled to have found. She speaks warmly of its position in Hawthorn, its accessibility, size and sound, even the parking!
Classic Melbourne agrees with Kathryn about the importance of musicians within Australia touring and showing audiences the breadth of talent within the country – and those visiting it. It’s been 30 years since the already acclaimed pianist found a way to indulge her love of chamber music, with the first collection of “friends”.
“ It was just a lovely thing to do,” she muses. “And it happened to work for everybody”. One thing that worked from the outset, was having the musicians speak directly to their audience, about their instruments, the works, anything that increased appreciation of the music.
To get an idea what’s in store for Melbourne audiences very soon, we turn to “friends” of our own at Sounds like Sydney. They report:
“Selby & Friends presents the 19th century Romanticism of Schubert, Brahms and Mendelssohn in A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Romantic.
This special winter program by Selby & Friends is a tour through Romantic-period chamber music performed by Artistic Director and pianist Kathryn Selby AM with her illustrious guest artists Andrew Haveron, Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Umberto Clerici, SSO Co-Principal Cellist.
Bursting with beautifully sweeping melodic passages, a hallmark of 19th-century Romanticism, the cornerstone of the program is Franz Schubert’s dramatic Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major D. 929, a pinnacle of the chamber music repertoire composed by a poverty-stricken, terminally ill young man near the end of his life.
Both Haveron and Clerici are showcased with Selby in solo sonatas on this concert program with Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata in F major and Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2 ….”
(Read the whole ar1icle).
From the archive : Suzanne Yanko’s 2015 review of a Selby & Friends performance of Romantic music. 1
Finally, check details of the Melbourne concert – we advise booking without delay.
