C8 Sibling Revelry
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Monday, 1 May 2023
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Fitters' Workshop
Printers Way, Kingston, ACT 2604
The history of music is full of talented siblings and multi-generational musical families. Fanny Mendelssohn was as musically gifted as her brother Felix and their personal bond remained strong until the end. Her untimely death in 1848 prompted the dramatic outpouring of Felix’ string quartet op 80, his sixth and last.
The contrasting fate of the Boulanger sisters is also documented. The elder of the two, Nadia, lived well into her nineties and taught composers from Gershwin to Glass. Her younger sister Lili died at the age of 24, her creative potential largely unfulfilled.
Closer to home, the Wesley-Smith twins, Peter and Martin share a knack for words and wit. Using Lewis Carroll’s double persona as a source of inspiration, they left us countless songs and music theatre works including Boojum!, first performed at the 1984 Adelaide Festival in front of Queen Elizabeth. Brother Jack is Martin’s four-hand piano take on the old French round ‘Frère Jacques’.
Flora and Theo Carbo, two young musicians out of the Melbourne jazz scene, surprised us all at the 2022 festival. They are jointly creating a new work for ensemble for this sibling occasion.
Program
Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, Four Songs op 8
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, String Quartet op 80
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Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Two Songs
Martin Wesley-Smith, Brother Jack
Martin Wesley-Smith, Three Songs from Boojum!
Flora and Theo Carbo, Momentually (WP)
Artists
Quatuor Van Kuijk
Edward and Stephanie Neeman, piano
Susannah Lawergren, soprano
Anna Fraser, soprano
Luminescence Chamber Singers
Roland Peelman, piano
Theo Carbo, electric guitar
Flora Carbo, saxophone
Katie Yap, viola
Donald Nicolson, keyboard
ARTIST Learn more about the artist
Artist Roland Peelman AM, Artistic Director
“His encyclopaedic understanding of performing and visual arts and his theatrical instinct place him in constant demand as a musician of flair and imagination.” – Antony Jeffrey, Many Faces of Inspiration.
At the helm of the Festival since 2015 is Artistic Director Roland Peelman, an acclaimed musician of great versatility who has established a reputation as one of Australia’s most innovative musical directors.
Artist Donald Nicolson
Listed among Australia’s best classical performers by the ABC in 2019, harpsichordist, organist and pianist Donald Nicolson is a prominent figure in performance and research of the music of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, and in high demand as a keyboardist, composer, and arranger.
Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Donald commenced harpsichord studies with Douglas Mews at Victoria University, and subsequently at the Royal Conservatorium, The Hague with early music legend Ton Koopman. There he focussed on the performance of sixteenth-century English virginal music and the seventeenth-century French clavecin school.
Donald graduated with a PhD in Musicology at the University of Melbourne in 2018, submitting a thesis that focussed on the relationship between seventeenth-century French social history and the keyboard preludes of Louis Couperin. An avid reader of the classics and ancient rhetoric Donald teaches historically-informed performance practice at the University of Melbourne, and gives regular talks and lectures on music and history.
Artist Katie Yap
Katie grew up playing the violin and piano in her hometown of Brisbane. Shortly before starting her Bachelor of Music at the University of Queensland (UQ), she fell in love with the viola and has never looked back since! Katie studied with Patricia Pollett at UQ, graduating with Honours and a University Medal in 2011. She then spent three years studying at the Australian National Academy of Music under Caroline Henbest and Christopher Moore.
Katie likes to keep her musical life varied, and her favourite kind of music making is with chamber groups. She is violist in the Chrysalis Harp Trio (2019 ANAM Artists), early music chamber groups Ironwood Ensemble and The Muses’ Delight, and joined the Australian String Quartet in 2016 in programs of quintets and sextets. In 2017, Katie spent a month in Central Queensland touring with the Orpheus Club, presenting 10 public concerts, 8 schools concerts and workshops, and recording four new Australian works. In 2018, she joined Van Diemen’s Band in a national tour of chamber music of the late baroque period, including performances at the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, and UKARIA Cultural Centre.
Katie Yap is supported by Peter Wise
Artist Stephanie Neeman
Dr. Stephanie Neeman is an active international performer and has performed to critical
acclaim across the United States, Asia, and Australia. Stephanie has won virtually all major piano competitions in Indonesia, including the first prize in the prestigious Yamaha National Piano Competition. She won first prizes in the Empire State International Piano Competition and the Lillian Fuchs Chamber Music Competition. She was also a top prizewinner and won the prize for the best interpretation and outstanding performance of Franz Liszt at the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition in the United States.
Dr. Neeman received her Bachelor and Master of Music at the Manhattan School of Music and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from CCM at the University of Cincinnati as a scholarship student of James Tocco. She is currently the head of the piano department at ELMS Conservatory of Music in Jakarta and has previously served as the CEO/Artistic Director of Music for Canberra (Canberra Youth Orchestra).
Stephanie Neeman is supported by Christine Goode
Artist Luminescence Chamber Singers
The unbound expressive potential of our original instrument: the human voice
Comprised of six professional singers, Luminescence Chamber Singers is a virtuosic vocal ensemble based on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country (Canberra, Australia). Performing music that spans Medieval chant and Renaissance polyphony as well as folk song, pop, and contemporary art music, Luminescence has rapidly emerged as one of Australia’s leading ensembles.
Artist Flora Carbo
Flora Carbo is a Melbourne based saxophonist who is quickly becoming one of the most exciting young artists in the Australian jazz scene.
Having studied with Julien Wilson, Melissa Aldana, Jeff Clayton and Scott McConnachie, Flora has performed extensively in Melbourne and around Australia and at festivals including Wangaratta Festival of Jazz, Melbourne International Women’s Jazz Festival and the Stonnington Jazz Festival.
Recently completing a Bachelor of Music (Degree with Honours) at the University of Melbourne, she has worked with world renowned artists including pianists Barney McAll and Andrea Keller, as well composing and playing with The Rest Is Silence, AAALTO and the Flora Carbo Trio (who released their debut album ‘Erica’ in 2018).
In May 2017 she won the prestigious James Morrison Scholarship at the Generations in Jazz Festival, in 2016 she was selected as one of the 10 finalists in the National Jazz Awards.
Flora was nominated for the Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2019 and 2018 and as a finalist for the Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2019 Australian Jazz Bell Awards. In 2018, Flora toured internationally with the ‘Company 2’ circus production ‘Scotch and Soda’ and participated in the 2019 Banff Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music in Banff, Canada. Flora’s sophomore recording ‘VOICE’ was released in April 2020.
Artist Quatuor Van Kuijk
“Style, energy and a sense of risk. These four young Frenchman made the music smile.” The Guardian
The Quatuor Van Kuijk’s international accolades boast First, Best Beethoven, and Best Haydn Prizes at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition; First Prize, and an Audience Award at the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition; as well as becoming laureates of the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy. They were BBC New Generation Artists from 2015-17, as well as ECHO Rising Stars for the 2017-18 season.
Following such high success early in their career, the ensemble is an established presence at major international venues, performing at the Wigmore Hall, London; Philharmonie de Paris, Auditorium du Louvre, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and Salle Gaveau, Paris; Tonhalle, Zurich; Wiener Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Vienna; Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Berliner Philharmonie; Kölner Philharmonie; Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg; Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Tivoli Concert Series, Denmark; Konserthuset Stockholm; and at festivals including the BBC Proms, Cheltenham, Heidelberg, Lockenhaus, Davos, Verbier, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier/Radio France, Evian, Auvers-sur-Oise, Stavanger and Trondheim (Norway), Concentus Moraviae (Czech Republic), Haydn/Esterházy (Hungary), and Eilat (Israel).
Quatuor Van Kuijk is supported by Sharon Green and Marcel Skjald
Artist Theo Carbo
Theo Carbo (b. 1999, Melbourne, Australia) is a guitarist, composer, electronic musician, producer and sound engineer. Growing up as an astute student of jazz, Theo’s proficiency as a guitarist has seen him working in groups of Australia’s most important improvising musicians including Barney Mcall, Andrea Keller, Sam Anning, Nadje Noordhuis, Joseph O’Connor and Paul Williamson. A keen philosopher of music and a student of composition at the Victorian College of the Arts, Theo has recently been developing a broader practise which involves elements of experimental composition, electronic processes, solo and ensemble improvisation and studio engineering.
“Theo is a naturally gifted artist with a unique and refined take on things. His musical maturity is a great argument for the collective unconscious” – Barney Mcall