Image by Dylan Evans
Queensland’s chamber orchestra, Camerata of St. John’s, is increasingly being recognised for their rendition of stimulating and challenging repertoire of classical music mostly for the 14-strong string players of the ensemble. Concerts are always stylish and imaginative, often including the addition of guest artists from different genres of the arts to spice up the program.
The Halloween concert, Things that Go Bump in the Night, was a case in point, offering an eclectic, entertaining program curated by Artistic Programming Director and leader of the ensemble, Brendan Joyce. Themed around Halloween, this innovative take on the tradition of American Halloween concerts, added spark to the musical fabric of the evening. Front of house staff suitably attired in Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster or zombie outfits, showed patrons to their seats; stage crew attired as zombies, and one as Quasimodo, amused the audience during scene changes, while the ghostly-looking stage was adorned with cobwebs, a skeleton with his own chair and suitable blood-red lighting. Orchestra members arrived on stage dressed as zombies or devils.
An exciting element was the ensemble’s integration with the work of local filmmaker, Anthony Lucas, and his independent film company, Spindly Figures. Specially commissioned short films were screened alongside many of the musical interludes. Mostly black and white, depicting macbre and often bizarre scenarios, the films engaged with a mischevous lightness of touch, allowing the music to speak but also giving context.
Billed as a surrealistic torture scene, The Disassembly Macabre, a humorous take on a 1930’s-styled Frankenstein films, accompanied the opening two musical pieces. Gluck’s fast-paced spirited Dance of the Furies from Orphée et Euridice, with the addition of horns and oboes, was the perfect opener. It was followed by a clever arrangement of Saint-Saens famous Danse Macabre, that perfectly suited the available instrumentation.
Franz Schubert’s piece, Der Erlkönig, is a dark story of a boy wooed by a supernatural being into the woods. Accompanied visually by Lucas’s touching black and white cartoon, The Erlking Calls for Me, and preceded by Goethe’s poem, these additions added richly to the sonic landscape.
Special praise must go to violinist, Helentherese Good, who played the fiendish trills and arpeggios of Tartini’s Sonata in G Minor, based on a dream of selling one’s soul to the devil, with panache and intelligence.
Mystery guest, soprano Clare Candy, sang two pieces: the Verdi Prati from Handel’s Alcina and Always With Me from the movie Spirited Away by contemporary Japanese composer, Youmi Kumura. She sang prettily but the presentation sat uneasily with the main programming for the orchestra appearing at odds with the overall repertoire theme.
From a joint visual and musical perspective, Bernard Hermann’s Suite for Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, was beautifully played, accompanied by Lucas’s interesting atmospheric visuals. Musically the work was lush and spine-tingling with its fast-paced, demonic Murder section, followed by the slow dark strings of the Finale.
The finale of the concert, Stravinsky’s dark and brooding Concerto in Re, is a challenging and emotive piece that was well-handled and confidently played by Joyce and the Camerata. It was accompanied by Lucas’ final film of the evening, The Housefly, a 1950’s-styled film in colour in the genre of Hitchcock with the fly dominating in a bizarre twist of events that was both startling yet amusing.
Camerata of St.John’s showed in this concert their maturity as an ensemble who not only play great music together, but have an ability to mix interesting classical repertoire with other artforms to create visual and sonic pictures that both eduate and entertain. They have the mix just right.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Things that Go Bump in the Night
Camerata of St. John’s
Anthony Lucas – Filmmaker
Clare Candy – Soprano
Conservatorium Theatre, QCGU, Brisbane
Friday 23 October 2015
