Concertmaster showcases Spring music festivals

Volume 11 Number 8 August 10 - September 13 2015

Two chamber music festivals will include leading Australian players and distinguished principals from top US orchestras, writes Alix Bromley.

The Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (MCM) will host leading Australian and international artists at two large music festivals in the University of Melbourne’s Melba Hall this spring.

Frank Huang, the newly appointed concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, will headline the Mimir Chamber Music Festival, from 31 August to 7 September, alongside principal musicians from the Houston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient Alessio Bax and the LA-based Calla Quartet.

The Melbourne Cello Festival, over three days from 27 to 29 September, will feature renowned cellists Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi (Japan), Inbal Megiddo (New Zealand), Ray Wang (Hong Kong), and Howard Penny and Alvin Wong from Melbourne.

 “The template for Mimir is one of chamber music immersion with a clear educational impetus,” says Dr Thompson, Head of Strings at the MCM, who founded the event in Texas in 1998. The event has been held in Melbourne since 2013.

“It is an intense period of performances, rehearsals and master classes that brings together professional musicians, students and audiences who share a love of chamber music.”

MCM string quartets will be presented in public masterclasses, demonstrations and rehearsals where they will receive intensive daily instruction from Mimir artists. The evening concerts will feature the international musicians demonstrating their craft.

Dr Alvin Wong, lecturer in cello at the MCM and artistic director of the Melbourne Cello Festival, recently moved to Melbourne from the US after receiving his doctorate from Yale University. He says the aim of the Cello Festival is to bring together cellists from Australia and the world to celebrate the power of the cello.

The opening concert features canonic cello works from the 20th Century, followed by a Beethoven marathon the next evening. The Festival concludes with the much-anticipated “CelloXtravaganza” finale, featuring an orchestra of 100 Cellos and the world premiere of Gathering, a new work commissioned for the Festival for 24 cellos by Professor Barry Conyngham.

Mimir Chamber Music Festival, 31 August- 6 September, Melba Hall.
Melbourne Cello Festival, 27-29 September, Melba Hall.

http://www.mcm.unimelb.edu.au/