Artistic director of the Canberra International Music Festival, Roland Peelman.
Flanked by physicist Prof John Rayner, who observed that music and science shared the common attribute of “creating masterpieces from very simple beginnings”, Peelman made it plain that he saw Einstein as a revolutionary whose four papers delivered in 1915 had changed the world.
And what does that have to do with music? Well, apart from the fact that Albert Einstein was a pretty fair violinist, he was the perfect example of an individual who turned things upside down.
With that in mind, Peelman has programmed a series, running from May 1 to 10 next year, of musical masterpieces that in their time, “defied the limits”.
And who more revolutionary than Beethoven, whose complete piano sonatas will be performed at the beginning of the festival by brilliant artists such as Ian Munro, Anna Goldsworthy, Arnan Wiesel, Daniel de Borah, Lisa Moore, and the recent Chopin competition winner, Kotaro Nagano.
“There could not be a Canberra Festival without Bach,” Peelman asserted, and sure enough, one of the earliest items, “Bach on Sunday” on May 3, would feature Tobias Cole, Paul McMahon and the Festival Bach Ensemble directed by Erin Helyard.
Last year’s formidable theme relating to World War I was by no means forgotten, seen in “The Memory of Gallipoli and the Western front: traditional Sufi music and Western music of loss and redemption” at the Australian War Memorial on May 4.
Despite having promised to put the “fun” back into the festival after a budget-breaking 2014, which he told “CityNews” was “not fun”, Peelman is also insisting on some hard work from his audiences.
There’s the cult event “Music in 12 Parts”, the 209-minute work by Philip Glass, to be performed in Gandel Hall at the NGA on May 10. Peelman said he expected it would be fine for audience members to come and go during the performance.
And science? The Shine Dome will be the location for “String Theory,” described as “a strung-out performance in the round”, with music by Smalley, Ligeti, Wesley Smith and Canberra’s own Kristian Winther.
At Mount Stromlo, in the concert “Space Exploration”, music by artist-in-residence Kate Moore, Bach and others will be performed, enhanced by a high-level talk by Nobel Laureate Prof Brian Schmidt.
The Canberra International Music Festival 2015, May 1-10 2015, bookings now open to cimf.org.au
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