In its third year, 3MBS’ Music, She Wrote Festival has quickly become one of the chamber music highlights in Melbourne’s musical calendar. Celebrating a diverse range of music by women composers, this brilliant festival, curated by the well known violist Katie Yap, kicked off last night with a program of works for voice and piano titled Turning In. This program aimed to explore the moment of reflection before executing something bold, exploring the “inner landscape of the soul.” This high calibre performance achieved this goal, with a broad range of works that encompassed contemporary opera, post minimalist solo piano music, 20th century art song and more.
Pianist Georgina Lewis is well known on the Melbourne chamber music scene. Her supple and expressive playing was on display in the intimate surrounds of Alpha60’s concept store Chapter House, where she balanced the dual responsibilities of accompanist to soprano Billie Tumarkin and soloist in a number of works. Of particular highlight in the solo playing was her seamless performance of Kate Moore’s Spin Bird and Hania Rani’s F Major. The colouration and subtle sense of touch Lewis displayed on the keyboard was truly beautiful, and she moved seamlessly between these two striking works.
Billie Tumarkin, noted in her biography being at the tail end of a Bachelor of Music at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, was a true revelation. She controlled her impressive instrument with class, grace and ease, bringing a sophisticated colouration to her lower register and an ease and cathedral like chamber to her upper notes. I was especially taken with her text work and acting through song – she moved effortlessly from Italian, to Ukranian, Czech to English. Again, she notes in her biography of being from a Ukrainian family, and so the poignancy in her performance of two songs by Stefania Turkevich in Ukranian, especially in the current geo-political climate, was not lost on the audience.
The other virtuosic display of text came in two songs from Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová, who tragically died at age of 25 in 1940. Again, Tumarkin displayed an ease and confidence across these songs, which were challenging both musically and in their text setting. Offering a highly sophisticated harmonic and rhythmic language, this composer unknown to myself, must surely be one requiring further investigation from musical institutions. On a quick Google search, the music of this student of Martinů was championed by the great Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík, and encompassed a broad range of styles and genres, well worth further investigation.
Tumarkin and Lewis worked brilliantly as a team. Often in vocal performances one feels the pianist is there as accompanist alone, but in this pairing you got a real sense of the team as a duo proper, with equal moments for each to shine. Of particular note in this area was the performance of baroque composer Barbara Strozzi’s L Eraclito Amoroso where Lewis drew out a rich colour pallet on the modern piano and Tumarkin portrayed with brilliance the sense of lost love found in the poetry.
This ease of text and balanced accompaniment was further highlighted in the two english language works for the evening, Missy Mazzoli’s robust You Are the Dust and Andrea Keller’s poignant If Death is Kind. These demanding pieces were performed with mastery, perfectly balanced with impeccable english pronunciation throughout, no easy feat in a sometimes boomy acoustic.
My only disappointment in the evening was that the post-minimalist solo piano works sometimes melded into each other, forming a bit of a wash of textures. This however helped highlight the contrasts and drama found in the vocal works.
All in all the concert was a brilliant opening to the festival, a true achievement for 3MBS and the artistic director of the festival Kate Yap, as well as the performers, and gave one a sense of hope about the future of programming diverse music, from varying perspectives from around the world.
This review was published in Classikon.