Vincent Plush, The Australian, 2 February 2009
In September 2003, American soprano Dawn Upshaw strode onstage at the Brisbane Concert Hall with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. There was cheering before she had sung a note, and there were tears after her last.
After that single concert, Upshaw fell ill, her tour abandoned. Over the intervening years, she has performed with the ACO in North America and now she has returned for a national tour.
Their musical love affair continues today. Rarely does this level of empathy and affection manifest itself in performances of such celestial standard. Upshaw's angelic voice is pure, crystal clear, rapturous and every bit as enchanting as heard on her 50-plus recordings.
In a sense, the program was almost irrelevant. Upshaw could have sung wedding telegrams and utterly captivated her audience. Folk music launched this musical honeymoon, five quirky epigrams from Bartok, orchestrated by Richard Tognetti, and three touching songs from Osvaldo Golijov that moved beyond Luciano Berio's Folk Songs in their subtle simplicities.
Cat-gut strings and period horns and oboes ensured Mozart was in good form. A skittishly robust rendition of his 29th Symphony led to a similarly animated performance of the E flat Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola.
In this first glimpse of a new ACO recording project for the BIS label, Tognetti was joined by violist Christopher Moore. Their musical banter was beguiling and persuasive, but for the perilously fast tempo of the final movement.
Perth-based composer James Ledger provided Restless Night, the first of several commissions celebrating Tognetti's 20th year with the ACO. The piece groaned under the weight of too many ideas for its meagre six minutes, as Ledger's Bartok-like insect sounds were swatted by gratuitous rock rhythms.
The final work left the most enduring memory, with Upshaw returning to sing Richard Strauss's Morgen. In these few minutes, five years of absence were abundantly rewarded. I want this music at my funeral.
Pleasingly, Katherine Kemp's acutely perceptive notes in ACO programs are now available free and online.
While the acoustic of the refurbished Llewellyn Hall is bright and cheering, being there can be a trial: traffic jams in the aisles, inadequate foyer space and no water bubblers. And why is a centre aisle OK for graduations but not for concerts? A new national performing arts centre for Canberra's centenary in 2013 would be a very good thing, and the ACO should engage Upshaw immediately for their first performances there.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Dawn Upshaw Review (Melbourne)
Clive O'Connell, The Age, 2 February 2009
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is on tour with soprano Dawn Upshaw, who had to cancel her 2003 concerts here due to serious illness. Clearly her recovery has been solid, with no signs of fatigue or production problems in her contribution of works by Osvaldo Golijov, Bartok and Richard Strauss.
In fact, the obvious shortcomings came from the ACO itself; not the central core of strings, but some guest wind players for two Mozart works.
To celebrate artistic director Richard Tognetti's 20th anniversary leading this hallmark ensemble, Perth composer James Ledger produced Restless Night, a spiky, entertaining bagatelle with a wry conclusion well suited to its dedicatee's personality. The following performance of Mozart's A Major Symphony No. 29 came across as finely prepared by the strings but the pairs of horns and oboes playing original or replica instruments sounded shaky, particularly at entry points, unsettling the ACO's usual flawless fabric. Matters improved after interval with a firm account of the Sinfonia Concertante K. 364, Tognetti taking the solo violin line and ACO principal Christopher Moore supplying a solid counterweight viola.
But the afternoon belonged to Upshaw, displaying her artistry not just through technique but in consistently involving interpretations, even in music that reveals a distracting wealth of references and influences.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is on tour with soprano Dawn Upshaw, who had to cancel her 2003 concerts here due to serious illness. Clearly her recovery has been solid, with no signs of fatigue or production problems in her contribution of works by Osvaldo Golijov, Bartok and Richard Strauss.
In fact, the obvious shortcomings came from the ACO itself; not the central core of strings, but some guest wind players for two Mozart works.
To celebrate artistic director Richard Tognetti's 20th anniversary leading this hallmark ensemble, Perth composer James Ledger produced Restless Night, a spiky, entertaining bagatelle with a wry conclusion well suited to its dedicatee's personality. The following performance of Mozart's A Major Symphony No. 29 came across as finely prepared by the strings but the pairs of horns and oboes playing original or replica instruments sounded shaky, particularly at entry points, unsettling the ACO's usual flawless fabric. Matters improved after interval with a firm account of the Sinfonia Concertante K. 364, Tognetti taking the solo violin line and ACO principal Christopher Moore supplying a solid counterweight viola.
But the afternoon belonged to Upshaw, displaying her artistry not just through technique but in consistently involving interpretations, even in music that reveals a distracting wealth of references and influences.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
From Sundsvall, Sweden
Finally I had the opportunity to return to Sundsvall (where? – well where’s Wollongong?). I was there 3 years ago. Sundsvall is the main city in the Swedish area of Norrland on the Bothnian coast. Not the most familiar names on the map, but some of the most beautiful Scandinavian parts. It’s a stone’s throw – a massive one at that - across the Gulf of Bothnia to Finland.
Sundsvall is a city of under 100, 000 inhabitants and is the home of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra of which Christian Lindberg is the Artistic Director. I was here to perform and record Dvořák’s violin concerto in A minor.
Sundsvall became wealthy from the forest industry and hence it used to be a city of wood. After its fourth fire in the 1880s they commissioned a city of stone and it’s one of the nicest towns in Sweden. Some exquisite buildings here that you would hope may inspire the construction of modern cities.
After performing in the City Hall, we moved to another hall to record over the next four days.
I love cold weather and was rewarded with -22 Celsius and then a good dose of snow.
This BIS CD will be released in May 2010.
Richard Tognetti
Artistic Director and Lead Violin
Sundsvall is a city of under 100, 000 inhabitants and is the home of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra of which Christian Lindberg is the Artistic Director. I was here to perform and record Dvořák’s violin concerto in A minor.
Sundsvall became wealthy from the forest industry and hence it used to be a city of wood. After its fourth fire in the 1880s they commissioned a city of stone and it’s one of the nicest towns in Sweden. Some exquisite buildings here that you would hope may inspire the construction of modern cities.
After performing in the City Hall, we moved to another hall to record over the next four days.
I love cold weather and was rewarded with -22 Celsius and then a good dose of snow.
This BIS CD will be released in May 2010.
Richard Tognetti
Artistic Director and Lead Violin
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
An ACO First: Free Program Books
Our first FREE concert program book is now available for download ahead of our tour with Dawn Upshaw which begins this week.
Click here to download the PDF file and read about the music in this concert.
Of course, hard copy programs will be distributed at our concerts. Please help us save trees: share one program between two of you (your companion or, if you're going solo, why not get to know the person next to you?).
Happy reading from the ACO.
Click here to download the PDF file and read about the music in this concert.
Of course, hard copy programs will be distributed at our concerts. Please help us save trees: share one program between two of you (your companion or, if you're going solo, why not get to know the person next to you?).
Happy reading from the ACO.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Diva Finds a New Dawn
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 9 January:
Bryce Hallett speaks to a soprano whose experience with breast cancer has added depth to her performance.
Dawn Upshaw goes straight to the heart of the matter. She likens her voice to an instrument and describes herself as a musician. "Who am I making this music with? What can you [the composer or director] share with me that will be new? How can I investigate different parts and rooms of my voice?"
These are among the core questions the soprano asks herself each time she commits to a song cycle, opera or recital. It is this very curiosity and experimentation which, aside from her vocal range and dramatic instincts, have made her a favoured colleague of the director Peter Sellars, the composers Osvaldo Golijov and John Adams, and such musicians as Richard Goode, James Levine and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Upshaw's musical choices and partners have enabled her to forge a distinctive and adventurous career, one which began in a typically low-key manner with an offstage role as a shepherd in Wagner, quickly graduating to Mozart heroines before plunging into the largely untested waters of contemporary fare.
Read the full article.
Bryce Hallett speaks to a soprano whose experience with breast cancer has added depth to her performance.
Dawn Upshaw goes straight to the heart of the matter. She likens her voice to an instrument and describes herself as a musician. "Who am I making this music with? What can you [the composer or director] share with me that will be new? How can I investigate different parts and rooms of my voice?"
These are among the core questions the soprano asks herself each time she commits to a song cycle, opera or recital. It is this very curiosity and experimentation which, aside from her vocal range and dramatic instincts, have made her a favoured colleague of the director Peter Sellars, the composers Osvaldo Golijov and John Adams, and such musicians as Richard Goode, James Levine and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Upshaw's musical choices and partners have enabled her to forge a distinctive and adventurous career, one which began in a typically low-key manner with an offstage role as a shepherd in Wagner, quickly graduating to Mozart heroines before plunging into the largely untested waters of contemporary fare.
Read the full article.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
The Ballad of Slowness
by Herman de Coninck
(translated by David Colmer)
I love the slowness of lying on grass, like a king:
me, looking out and surveying my adherents,
my extremities, telling my left arm:
you there, convey my hand to my mouth
that I might yawn, that’s right,
and now lie down again, excellent,
I must have discipline.
I love the slowness of being,
Zen, they say in the East, I believe
it’s the same thing.
I love the slowness of lying in bed,
you next to me, with your knees behind
my knees, like a double S, the slowness with which
you haven’t told me yet that you’re awake,
your responsiveness consisting of lips,
the slowness with which I come faster and faster,
the calmness with which I grow wilder and wilder,
the slowness of your diplomatic body
that gives and takes, your corps diplomatique,
and the slowness of a cigar afterwards,
the slowness of grandeur, the slowness of someone
smashing his car into a tree in slow
motion, the majesty of explosion, solemn,
solemnly ends this life.
(translated by David Colmer)
I love the slowness of lying on grass, like a king:
me, looking out and surveying my adherents,
my extremities, telling my left arm:
you there, convey my hand to my mouth
that I might yawn, that’s right,
and now lie down again, excellent,
I must have discipline.
I love the slowness of being,
Zen, they say in the East, I believe
it’s the same thing.
I love the slowness of lying in bed,
you next to me, with your knees behind
my knees, like a double S, the slowness with which
you haven’t told me yet that you’re awake,
your responsiveness consisting of lips,
the slowness with which I come faster and faster,
the calmness with which I grow wilder and wilder,
the slowness of your diplomatic body
that gives and takes, your corps diplomatique,
and the slowness of a cigar afterwards,
the slowness of grandeur, the slowness of someone
smashing his car into a tree in slow
motion, the majesty of explosion, solemn,
solemnly ends this life.
Upshaw Online
Dawn Upshaw sings 'With Darkness Deep' from Handel's Theodora.
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