Night Tides

An intimate exploration of time, memory and mythos, Night Tides stirs with nature’s eternal currents. This tender collection of works shimmers with poetic delicacy; water trembles, mythological worlds shimmer in nocturnal hues, and the alluring sonority of the voice weaves its way through the shifting textures of Halcyon’s characteristically chameleonic ensemble. 

From Gordon Kerry’s evocative Three Malouf Songs, which paint a striking vision of Queensland’s Glasshouse Mountains, to Christine McCombe’s plaintive Ebb Tide, Australian composers lie at the heart of this program. Between these luminous, tidal movements flows the world premiere of a new arrangement of songs from Kevin March’s Mythweaver, composed of Sappho’s fragmented and ardent poetry. Lisa Cheney’s No Distant Place: I. The Soul’s Eternity, is a spellbinding instrumental interlude, as clarinet, piano and violin emerge and bloom like pinpricks of light. Elena Kats-Chernin’s Moondust, wordless melodies wax and wane in a nocturnal reverie. Paul Stanhope’s brief song My Love in her Attire features sinuous dovetailing lines for soprano, vibraphone and clarinet, which glimmer with a subtle wittiness.

Three Australian premieres further affirm Halcyon’s unfaltering devotion to new music curation: Moonlight, Summer Moonlight is Estonian Tõnu Korvits’ elegy to a solemn evening, while the frozen moment of a perfect shade of blue is illuminated in Hilary Tann’s …Slate, blue-gray. Quiet Songs is Jeremy Thurlow’s translucent sculpture of Yves Bonnefoy’s murmuring poetry. 

As Halcyon celebrate 26 years of music-making, join artistic director and mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong for a breathtaking evening, as alongside a cast of Halcyon musicians both old and new, spectres of grief and reminiscence mingle with stunning evocations of nature’s radiance.

WORKS
Gordon Kerry - Three Malouf Songs (2015)
Christine McCombe - Ebb Tide (2016)
Kevin March - Two songs from Mythweaver (2009, 2021 chamber version) - world premiere
Lisa Cheney - The Soul’s Eternity from No Distant Place (2015)
Elena Kats-Chernin - Moondust (2019)
Paul Stanhope - My Love in Her Attire (2013)
Hilary Tann - Slate, blue-gray (2012)
Jeremy Thurlow - Quiet Songs (2014)
Tõnu Kõrvits - Moonlight, Summer Moonlight (2013)

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano and artistic director
Amy Moore – soprano
Jane Bishop – flute
Alex McCracken – clarinet
Maria Lindsay – violin
Heather Lloyd - viola
James Larsen – cello
Will Hansen - double bass
Stephanie McCallum - piano
Kaela Phillips – harp
Alison Pratt - percussion

Night Tides
18 October at 7pm
Chippen St Theatre
Home of the Sydney Eisteddfod
Level 1, 45 Chippen St, Chippendale

Tickets $58 full price/ $48 senior concession/ $33 student concession
Tickets available through Humantix here

All enquiries: info@halcyonartmusic.com.au

1st performance - The Silences Inside Me - Lunar Festival 2024

Jenny will be performing the world premiere of Corrina Bonshek’s The Silences Inside Me for voice, yehu and cello at the Chinese Gardens in Sydney on February 11. The program, curated by composer/performer/researcher Nicholas Ng and presented by NSW Government as part of the 2024 Lunar Festival, will feature Corrina's new piece and other small works for voice, cello and Chinese instruments. 

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The Silences Inside Me was commissioned by Halcyon’s artistic director, Jenny Duck-Chong, and developed by Corrina in collaboration with writer/director Tasnim Hossaim, using Jenny’s own Chinese heritage as the frame for the work.

Corrina says:
“"The Silences Inside Me (2024), was born from a collaboration with Jenny and Tasnim that sits with the complex relationships with ancestry in the context of 1st and 2nd-generation Australians with migrant roots. Each collaborator has heritage / family in different parts of the world, and it was fascinating to chat and reflect on our shared and different experiences with family stories, cultural rituals, and the absence of these. I love the way that silence in the music is multifaceted - evoking the gaps in memory or absence as well as a space of joyful possibility in reimagining/rebuilding and growth."

The resulting work, a little like the elegant simplicity of a calligraphic gesture, has pared back the text to its essence, taking the listener on an evocative and reflective journey of discovery.  Halcyon is delighted to present this work for the first time in this picturesque setting, in a program of Chinese and Chinese-inspired works for Chinese and Western instruments.

See program note below.

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Ng erhu, yehu, hulusi
James Larsen cello
Chloe Chung dizi, flute

Sunday 11 February at 12.30pm and 1.30pm
Peace Boat Pavillion
Chinese Garden of Friendship
Pier St Cnr of Harbour St
Darling Harbour

COST
$12 garden entry
The free program will be performed at 12.30pm and 1.30pm. 

NOTE: There are no seats for the event, but you can find plenty of places around the space to listen, or make a reservation for a table and banquet lunch in The Gardens tea room (garden entry price $8 for restaurant guests).

PROGRAM NOTE

The Silences Inside Me (2024)
Music by Corrina Bonshek, words by Tasnim Hossain.

The Silences Inside Me is a musical/poetic musing on ancestry that draws upon imagery from conversations with Jenny Duck-Chong about her Chinese roots. Jenny, Tasnim Hossain (writer) and myself as composer, each have heritage / family in different parts of the world. It was fascinating to reflect how we all use family stories, cultural rituals, and even objects to connect, or reconnect, to our ancestors. The silence in the title is multifaceted. It refers to the absence or loss of family connection, but also to a powerful space of reimagining and possibility. Musically the work journeys from a recognition of absence (the halting, gapped musical statements of the opening), to a rebuilding to connection (via imagery of a golden hummingbird and music that consciously references Chinese folk music), and finally to a third part where silence is refigured a space of flowering joy and connection. In this part, the ensemble gets to improvise and develop earlier musical ideas in new ways using their imagination and creative gifts.
- Corrina Bonshek

I've lost something precious
We lost things once precious
In the gaps
In the silence

Language, stories, family.
Holding onto absence.
Stories gone untold.
Ashamed to have lost what has gone.

A hummingbird.

Somewhere in memory
a story untold
A picture
raised leaves and flowers.
Leaves of gold,
shining.

I found something special
in the liminal spaces,
in the piecing together.
Learning, finding, building together.
Imagination,
silent, no more.
- Tasnim Hossain

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The Silences Inside Me was created with support from Halcyon, the Australian Cultural Fund, and Corrina Bonshek & Collaborators (who are supported by the City of Gold Coast).

The event is presented by

The Dance of Life

Featuring artistic director and co-founder, Jenny Duck-Chong, alongside an extended cast of Halcyon friends and familiars, 25 years of craft, collaboration and creation are at the heart of this celebration of art music. The Dance of Life is a celebration of existence in all its varied shades, and a tribute to Halcyon’s longevity, as well as the rich diversity of music and people that have characterised its history.

A collection of intimate chamber music, from Elliott Carter’s spectral atmospheres to Ross Edwards’ lush depictions of nature, the duet is the starring form of the program. Halcyon’s ensemble, a chameleon in its configuration, evolves and blooms across the program, the narrator of life from its smallest corners to its largest, most symbolic networks. As it blossoms, life is reflected in the smallest flutter of insect wings in Rachel Clement’s fracture, to the spellbinding glow of the moon in Rósa Lind Page’s ‘Claire de Lune.’

The culmination of the program, Elliott Gyger’s This Kind of Life, is a nod to both these moments of simplicity and to the significance of connection and friendship. This culinary narrative, a series of letters between chef Julia Child and her pen-pal, Avis DeVoto, is part of a long history of collaborations between Elliott Gyger and Jenny Duck-Chong, friends since university. Commissioned by one of Halcyon’s most significant supporters, Ian Dickson, for his partner Reg Holloway as a birthday gift, the piece was premiered in Halcyon’s 20th year and Elliott’s 50th.

Each of the works in The Dance of Life are as much a celebration of the growth and perseverance of the ensemble as they are a testament to the cultivated circle of musicians, artists and people who have become part of Halcyon’s community. Join Halcyon for a jam-packed concert of reminiscence and celebration.

The program features works by Kaija Saariaho, Rósa Lind Page, Rachel Clement, Alisha Redmond, Elliott Carter, Nigel Butterley, David Lumsdaine, Ross Edwards and Elliott Gyger.

PROGRAM

Nigel Butterley Nature Changes at the Speed of Life... (2014)
Ross Edwards The Forest from Five Senses (2012)
Elliott Carter Alba (1952) from Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008)
David Lumsdaine Fire in Leaf and Grass (1990)
Alicia Redmond a dance with a jelly-fish (2022)
Rachel Clement fracture (2000)
Kaija Saariaho Ariel's Hail from The Tempest Songbook (2000)
Rósa Lind Page Claire de lune from Apollinairesongs (2007)
Elliott Gyger This Kind of Life: a culinary correspondance (2018)

Artists
Jane Sheldon soprano, Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano, Jane Bishop flute, John Lewis clarinet, James Larsen cello, Rowan Phemister harp, Jo Allan piano, Jack Symonds conductor

The Dance of Life
Friday 20 October at 7pm
Choirs Rehearsal Studio, Walsh Bay Arts Precinct
Wharf 4/5, 15 Hickson Rd Dawes Point

The Choirs Rehearsal Studio can be found behind the STC Box Office, in the breezeway, opposite the Sydney Dance Company.
The 324 and 325 bus runs directly to Wharf 4/5 on Hickson Rd from near Town Hall.

Tickets $50/$35 senior concession/$30 student concession
Click here to buy. Online ticket sales close at 3pm on the day of the concert. Tickets will then only be via the door.

All enquiries: info@halcyonartmusic.com.au

Image: ‘Fireworks’ © Kathryn Cooper.
’Fireworks’ depicts a flock of starlings reacting to a bird of prey. Click on the link to learn more about it. Or read more about her fascinating work with starling murmurations here.

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New Music Studio: The Space Between Us

The New Music Studio and Halcyon collaborate to present two vocal chamber works by Conservatorium composition staff spanning almost 15 years. No Ordinary Traveller (2006), composed by Katy Abbott to a libretto by Jacki Holland, was inspired by shipboard letters and diary entries, written by 19th-century European settlers on their way to Australia. It captures their vulnerability and uncertainty as they navigate the transition between their old and new lives. Elliott Gyger’s Autobiochemistry (2019), for voice and cello, sets words from the collection of the same name by Sydney poet Tricia Dearborn. Each poem is titled after a chemical element, exploring its resonances with human experience via biology, personal anecdote and vivid metaphor. It was the winning work in the 2022 Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize. Both works will be sung by mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong, for whom they were written.

The program celebrates long working relationships and demonstrates Halcyon’s continuing commitment to showcasing Australian composition of the highest calibre.

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong, mezzo-soprano
Rosanne Hunt, cello
Patrick Vaughan, clarinet
Leah Columbine, percussion
Tina Tao, piano

Wednesday 5 April at 7.30pm
Hanson-Dyer Hall
Level 3, The Ian Potter Southbank Centre
43 Sturt St, Southbank

Image: © Linden Gledhill

Autobiochemistry

Artistic Director, mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong, is joined in Halcyon’s final 2023 performance by two stellar performers, soprano Jane Sheldon and cellist Rosanne Hunt.  Both artists work across a range of media and styles.  Highly active as both a performer and composer, this year alone Jane Sheldon has won Work of the Year (Dramatic) at the 2022 Art Music Awards, performed with Sydney Chamber Opera in productions in Holland, Canberra and Sydney and released a new solo album, I am a tree, I am a mouth. Renowned Melbourne cellist Rosanne Hunt used one of the recent lockdowns to record Elliott Gyger’s virtuosic solo cello work, Shifting, for Forest Collective. She is sought after by leading state and national ensembles and orchestras on modern and period cello and was a founding member of both ELISION and the Melbourne Baroque Orchestra. 

The third and final installment of Halcyon’s trilogy of voice and cello programs, Autobiochemistry features the music of Elliott Gyger, Nicola Lefanu and Madeleine Isaksson.

The centrepiece of the program is Elliott Gyger’s new work Autobiochemistry (2019). The work has just been announced as the 2022 winner of the prestigious Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize. Completed late in 2019, the new 13-movement work is scored for voice and cello, each one named for a different chemical element. It is his seventh piece for the ensemble. Due to lockdown delays, this will be the world premiere performance.  

The composer says:
“When Jenny Duck-Chong asked me to write for mezzo-soprano and cello, I had a fairly immediate idea of the kind of text I needed:  something personal, intimate and conversational, and probably fairly contemporary in idiom and viewpoint.  In the absence of anything to hand that quite fit the description, I visited a bookshop in Carlton and browsed the shelves of new poetry, where a slim volume entitled Autobiochemistry caught my eye.  The author, Sydney poet Tricia Dearborn, was new to me, but I was immediately intrigued by the concept – a cycle of poems on the chemical elements and their intersection with human experience, both universal and particular – as well as by the clarity, freshness and honesty of Dearborn’s writing.”

Also on the program is the Australian premiere of  Nicola LeFanu ‘s The Tongue and the Heart (2008), to poetry by John Fuller, and Madeleine Isaksson’s Blad över blad/Feuille sur feuille (2000/2019), which Halcyon premiered in 2019. 

Program

Elliott Gyger Autobiochemistry (2019) - World Premiere
Nicola LeFanu The Tongue and the Heart (2008) - Australian Premiere
Madeleine Isaksson Blad över blad/Feuille sur feuille (2000/2019)

DATE & TIME: Thursday 8 December at 7pm
VENUE: Summer Hill Church, 2 Henson St Summer Hill

Tickets: $45/$35 Available here
Socially distanced options are available when you select your ticket type

Halcyon aims to keep ticket prices accessible.  However, as we approach our 25th anniversary in 2023, you may like to 'top up' that amount and add a donation at the time of purchase to help us as we prepare for this significant milestone or just click here to donate.

Enquiries: info@halcyonartmusic.com.au

THE ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano
Jane Sheldon soprano
Rosanne Hunt

Image ‘Liquid Crystal DNA’ © Linden Gledhill

After Dark

Halcyon returns to the stage with After Dark - new Australian music for voice and cello.  The program features works that have been a long time in limbo.  Four works commissioned by Halcyon early in 2020 will receive their long-delayed premieres - Luke Styles’ Starfish, Anthony Moles’ Mantoux, Cameron Lam's Persephone as a Whistling Moth and Ghosts, a new song cycle by Nicole Murphy.  The performance also includes premieres by Aristea Mellos, Alisha Redmond, Brad Taylor-Newling and Andrew Ford and recent works by Alan Holley, Gordon Kerry and Gillian Whitehead.

The four commissions were part of a large voice and cello project, conceived in 2019. Due to Covid and the nature of the pieces themselves, this has morphed into a three stage project with three cellists - the digital concert Holding Light in mid 2020 with Geoffrey Gartner, After Dark with James Larsen and a final program in early December with Rosanne Hunt.

Contemporary Australian writers feature abundantly in the program with words by Richard James Allen, Laurence Barratt-Manning, Margaret Bradstock, Sarah Holland-Batt, John Kinsella, David Malouf and Mark Treddinick. 

There has been so much 'pivotting' in recent years as artists have tried to make viable plans in an uncertain world and weathered the dark times of isolation.  Live performance, where an audience experiences that moment of musical creation in real time in a shared moment with the performers, is unlike anything we can conjure on a screen.  Showcasing a wealth of contemporary Australian composers across several generations, join Halcyon's artistic director, mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong and cellist James Larsen for this intimate performance.

PROGRAM

Brad Taylor-Newling After Dark  (2019-20) ^
Anthony Moles   Mantoux (2020) ^
Aristea Mellos         Morning from Songs for a Day (2014 rev.2015)
Sadie Harrison         Ethne’s Lullaby (2010 rev 2020) ^
Gillian Whitehead     Because of the Child (2013)
Cameron Lam          Persephone as a Whistling Moth (2020 rev.2022) ^
Aristea Mellos         Stimmung (2021, cello version) ^
Nicole Murphy     Ghosts (2020) ^
Luke Styles          Starfish (2020) ^
Alisha Redmond     a dance with a jelly-fish (2022) ^
Gordon Kerry          My Sorrow’s Flower (2020)
Andrew Ford          Hymn of the Garden (2020) ^
Alan Holley         First Light (2020)

^ World Premiere

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano
James Larsen cello

DATE: Saturday Sept 10 at 7pm
VENUE: Summer Hill Church
2 Henson St Summer Hill

Attendees are encouraged to wear masks during the performance.  The space is generous and there will be a section allocated for those who would also prefer to maintain social distance.  Please indicate your preference when booking.

Tickets: $45/$35
Book here

Halcyon aims to keep ticket prices accessible.  However, as we approach our 25th anniversary in 2023, you may like to 'top up' that amount and add a donation at the time of purchase to help us as we prepare for this significant milestone or click here to donate.

Holding Light

As performers, creating music is a delicate and mysterious process allowing us to make the intangible tangible for a moment, as if Holding Light.

Holding Light is an intimate and diverse duo program for voice and cello. Performed by mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong and cellist Geoffrey Gartner, colleagues who have shared the stage for almost twenty years, this pre-recorded event features five world premieres by Larry Sitsky, Andrew Schultz, Nicola LeFanu, Gordon Kerry and Kate Reid introduced by Jenny, Halcyon’s artistic director, and the composers.  

The macro image of an opal above captures the vibrant colours and the carefully etched marks of human work upon its surface. It felt like the perfect metaphor for the crafts of composing and performing as we hone pieces to bring out their natural beauty. Like the iridescent hewn opal, each piece is unique, shining with its own character and colour.

You Tube Premiere event click here
Date: 12 November at 7pm

The program is free to view, but was not free to create. If you enjoy the show, please show us your support at www.halcyon.org.au/donate.

Enquiries: info@halcyon.org.au

PROGRAM

Kate Reid          The Wagtail
Andrew Schultz    Flock of Angels
Nicola LeFanu      Three Songs for Jane
Larry Sitsky          Two Songs on a C-Pedal
Gordon Kerry      My Sorrow's Flower

Artists:
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano
Geoffrey Gartner cello

Audio and video production: Liz Duck-Chong

This performance was previewed to subscribers on 26 September 2020

Image © Linden Gledhill

In Nature

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Image: ‘Cymatic Flower’ by Linden Gledhill

Halcyon has been performing stellar programs for twenty one years, full of rare and eclectic works from Australia and around the globe. It has commissioned, premiered and presented more than 250 works from over 15 countries, developed long relationships with composers and institutions both here and abroad and featured ever-changing combinations of more than a hundred seasoned and emerging chamber music performers in intimate settings. While every concert is a fresh experience, the consistent craftsmanship and careful curation of each event remains a hallmark.

In Nature, on October 12 at 8pm, is no exception and definitely one not to miss!  The program features four world premieres by Larry Sitsky, Elena Kats Chernin, Melissa Hui and Madeleine Isaksson, the Australian premiere of Andrew Ford’s new song cycle, Nature and Matthew Hindson’s engaging Insect Songs, (also featured on our latest EP release Waves IV). 

The works, drawn from three continents and relationships old and new, feature texts and poetry from Australia, the UK, Finland, Sweden, France, Japan and China.  Jenny will be joined by a fantastic line up of artists: flautist Sally Walker, cellist Geoffrey Gartner, guitarist Vladimir Gorbach, percussionist Tim Brigden with tabla player Maharshi Raval and soprano Jane Sheldon.  

Andrew Ford’s new song cycle Nature, is a delicately wrought and thoughtful exploration of the natural world.  The composer has drawn together eight diverse texts to create a through-composed work of great sensitivity. The unusual palette of instruments - flute, cello, guitar, tabla, percussion and voice - creates subtle shades of colour that draw you deeply into his imaginings.  Co-commissioned for Halcyon and soloists and ensembles in Stockholm, Oslo and Dublin, it premiered in Sweden earlier this month. Together with renowned tabla player Maharshi Raval, Halcyon will present the Australian premiere before further European performances in October and November.  

Commissioned by flautist Sally Walker and dedicated to Dr Philip Spradbery, the renowned entomologist, CSIRO scientist and passionate environmental advocate, Elena Kats-Chernin’s Moondust is a wordless reverie for voice, flute, cello and vibraphone; drones and gently mesmerising melodies interweaving over shimmering percussive chords.

Soprano Jane Sheldon joins Halcyon for the premiere of Swedish-born French-resident Madeleine Isaksson’s Blad över blad. Written to a bilingual poem of the composer’s own devising, this is another piece of subtle colouration which blurs the line between voice and instrument,  the two languages and three instruments branching across each other continually so, in the composer’s words, their timbres ‘melt together’.

Canadian composer Melissa Hui’s works featured in Halcyon’s very first concert series in 2001. For the concert, she has transformed two of her aptly named songs - Snowflakes and Nature - for Halcyon, adapting them into chamber works for voice, flute, cello, guitar and vibraphone, giving both composer and performer the opportunity to reconnect with them and each other after so many years.

Larry Sitsky, whose extraordinary song cycle, A Feast of Lanterns II features on Halcyon’s latest release, Waves IV and who celebrated his 85th birthday this month, is featured in a brief and soulful duo, The Bamboo Flute, composed recently for Jenny and flautist Sally Walker.  

With outstanding works by Matthew Hindson, Hilary Tann, Nigel Butterley and Cathy Milliken also on the program, don’t miss the opportunity to immerse yourself in another fantastic evening with Halcyon. 

Date: Saturday 12 October at 8pm
Venue: Summer Hill Church, 2 Henson St Summer Hill
Tickets: $40/25 through Classikon

Enquiries: info@halcyon.org.au 

PROGRAM

Catherine Milliken             Kazuko adapted by the composer from Earth Plays, Movement III: Gohyaku-Rakan (2015)
Larry Sitsky                        The bamboo flute from Two Songs of Li-Po (2016) WP
Elena Kats-Chernin        Moondust (2019) WP
HilaryTann                          Llef (1995)           
Madeleine Isaksson           Blad över blad/Feuille sur feuille (2000) WP
Matthew Hindson              Insect Songs (1998)     
Melissa Hui                         2 songs on poems from Longfellow (1988/2019)
Nigel Butterley                   Nature changes (2014)
Andrew Ford                     Nature (2019) AP      

WP    World premiere
AP    Australian premiere

Artists
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano, artistic director
Jane Sheldon soprano
Sally Walker flutes
Geoffrey Gartner cello
Vladimir Gorbach guitar
Tim Brigden percussion
Maharshi Raval tabla

Extended Play

Date: 31st August 2019
Time: 4.15pm
Venue: City Recital Hall

All day Festival Pass only $35 (+ booking fees) Buy here

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Halcyon appears as part of this exciting 12-hour festival of new music in an intimate program of duo works for Jenny with guitarist Vladimir Gorbach and cellist Geoffrey Gartner at 4.15pm. Works by Matthew Hindson, Kerry Andrew, Ross Edwards, Moya Henderson, Julian Yu, Cathy Milliken and Michael Berkeley. Read more here

Jenny will also appear with Geist Quartet for Kammerklang in The Art of Disappearing at 12.15pm.

City Recital Hall presents
Extended Play

Co-produced with Lyle Chan and Vexations840

Extended Play is back in 2019 with over 20 concerts of eclectic, contemporary, challenging and dynamic new music across the entire four floors of the venue in 12 hours! The inaugural event last year was hailed as “the best new classical music initiative Sydney has seen in years” (The Australian), and an “exhilarating festival, wonderfully supportive of local artists and ensembles, emerging talent and an audience eager to engage.” (Real Time).

If you missed out on Extended Play last year, this is your chance to be part of something truly special in the Sydney music scene; and if you have been before, you know you can’t possibly resist coming back.

The Art of Disappearing

Date: 1 June
Time: 8pm
Venue: Annandale Creative Arts Centre, 81 Johnston St, Annandale

CO-PRESENTED BY HALCYON & KAMMERKLANG

Join Halcyon and the Geist String Quartet for the world premiere of The Art of Disappearing, a poignant new song cycle by Sydney composer, Cameron Lam inspired by the raw and profound poetry of Queensland writer Sarah Holland-Batt.

The composer writes, "Written for and dedicated to mezzo soprano Jenny Duck-Chong after years of mentorship and friendship, The Art of Disappearing is an hour-long song cycle for voice and string quartet. I was drawn to the poetry of Queensland writer, Sarah Holland-Batt for its intimacy, musicality, and immense sense of self. The striking thing about Sarah’s poetry for me, was that it was arresting, it stopped me in my tracks – it sang all by itself and I just wanted to add to that.”

Limelight Magazine has described Cameron’s music as “a fantastical world in which mythological stories comes to life”. But drawn to the raw and profound poetry from Sarah’s collection Aria, in this new work he has set aside mythic grandeur and has delved deep into the traditions of art song and string quartet repertoire in search of a work of intimate connections. These eight songs and four instrumentals together tell stories of reminiscence, loss and grief through time. The cycle doesn’t present loss as something to solve; instead, it paints the inexorable journey from stasis, as we learn to move again…

Halcyon first worked with Cameron back in 2010 in his Kammerklang VOX project and we are looking forward to this opportunity to present a very beautiful new work created and crafted especially for us.  Though we recorded the work last year, this is the first time we will be performing the full work in front of a live audience.

Join us for The Art of Disappearing.

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano
Geist String Quartet: Sonia Wilson violin I, Mia Stanton violin II, Hayasa Tanaka viola, James Larsen violoncello

TICKETS

$35/$25 through Halcyon

Read more about the project on Kammerklang’s website or the facebook event page

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The evening will also be official launch of two digital albums: The Art of Disappearing, Cameron’s fifth solo album release, on Kammerklang’s 10th anniversary and Waves IV, the latest of Halcyon’s self-releases featuring significant works by Larry Sitsky, Ross Edwards and Matthew Hindson.

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Image: Luke Moseley

Photo: Linden Gledhill Design: Liz Duck-Chong

Shining Shores

DATE: 1 December
TIME: 8pm
VENUE: Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music

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Celebrating 20 years of performing, promoting, recording and curating new music, Halcyon’s last program for 2018, Shining Shores, collects together pieces inspired by the natural elements of water and moonlight. Taking time to reflect on the world around us, we wander beside the flowing Seine in Rosalind Page’s Apollinairesongs, are transfixed by the minute life in rockpools or towering mountains reflected across the bay in Gordon Kerry’s Three Malouf Songs and walk in the wet sand beside the seashore, following the lark’s song or a boat adrift on the tide, in Gillian Whitehead’s Girl with a Guitar. The night sky appears - ‘the sleepy stretch and dazzle of it’ ablaze with stars ‘like bees’ - and the changing moon is ‘like an apricot’, ‘honeyed’ or ‘silvering shores’.

In our 20th anniversary year, this program again features composers of outstanding vocal music with a deep responsivenes for the poetry that inspires them, many of whom have had long associations with Halcyon. Works have been drawn from Australia (Rosalind Page, Gordon Kerry, Sadie Harrison, Ross Edwards), New Zealand (Gillian Whitehead) and the UK and USA (Hilary Tann and Robert Lombardo) and the program sees the return of a two signifcant and quintessentially Halcyon works, Rosalind Page’s Apollinairesongs (2002) and Gordon Kerry’s Three Malouf Songs (2016).

On December 1, come and experience again the magic of Halcyon in performance and the artistry refined over 20 years of musical exploration.

PROGRAM

Gilian Whitehead Girl with a Guitar (2000)^
Robert Lombardo Two Love Songs (2014)^
Sadie Harrison We sit late from Little Gifts (1996)^
Ross Edwards The Forest from Five Senses (2012)
Gordon Kerry Three Malouf Songs (2015)
Hilary Tann Winter Sun, Summer Rain (1986)^
Rosalind Page Apollinairesongs (2002)

^ Australian Premiere

ARTISTS
Elizabeth Scott conductor Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano Laura Chislett flute Jason Noble clarinet Anna McMichael violin
Nicole Forsyth viola Geoffrey Gartner cello Daniel Herscovitch piano/celeste

TICKETS
$40/$25 through Classikon

Image: Linden Gledhill

art:music

art:music

A New Way of Looking at Music
Presented by Halcyon and Artsite Galleries

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Date: 9 Sept 2018
Time: 3.30pm
Venue: Artsite Galleries, Camperdown

Halcyon is celebrating the start of Spring by trying out something new this September. We’re scaling things down to their barest form and offering a very intimate experience of music and visual art

Contemporary arts often look to find new connections across art forms.  A recent article about one such crossover of music and visual art at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival concludes:

“Contemporary art was no longer either audible or visual: it was simply art.”

The intersection between visual art and music has always been part of Halcyon’s history. Our logos, concert programs and album covers have regularly featured a wide array of local and international artists and photographers such as Catherine Abel, Robert Boynes, Lorenzo Cortelletti, Linden Gledhill and Richard Woldendorp.

art:music is our latest experiment.  With the support of Artsite Galleries, we wanted to create a more informal space for people to experience contemporary art - to let you engage with the music and the visual artworks in your own ways - perhaps sitting and watching with focused intent, moving around the space or just listening in and reflecting on the visual works on display while enjoying a complimentary glass of wine and nibbles. 

The performance will feature Jenny and flautist Sally Walker presenting a short program of contemporary works predominantly by Australian composers, in conjunction with the art exhibition From the Blue House by contemporary Australian artist Victoria Peel.  

Performed in two short sets, with time to wander in between, this informal afternoon is the perfect place to invite someone to get a taste of some small-scale new music in an intimate setting. While we will give occasional insights into the works being performed, there are no rules of concert etiquette to be observed and we hope that you will simply enter the space with expectation and curiosity. 

The performance starts at 3.30pm, but feel free to come anytime from 3pm to pick up a glass of wine and take some time to look around the gallery before it begins.  If you have an artistically curious friends, now’s your chance to bring them along to this low key event and share in an afternoon of contemporary art.

PROGRAM
Gillian Whitehead Because of the child (2013)
Claude Debussy Syrinx (1913)
Brad Taylor-Newling Ombrone (2014)
Larry Sitsky The Jade Flute from Two Li-Po Settings (1973/2016)
Robert Lombardo At Parting Now, Harvest Moon from Three Haiku (c. 2000) [AP]
Andrew Ford “Once upon a time there were two brothers…” (2013)
Elliott Gyger Unfractured Light from giving voice (2012)

[AP] Australian premiere

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano, Sally Walker flute/alto flute/piccolo

All tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the store here but as there are limited numbers they MUST BE PRE-BOOKED. Sales will close on Saturday 8th at midday and there will be NO tickets available at the door. 

Art:Music
A New Way of Looking at Music

Sunday 9th September at 3.30pm
Artsite Galleries
165 Salisbury Rd Camperdown
For directions to the gallery click here

Artsite is an Independent Australian Contemporary Art Gallery dedicated to promoting exemplary local and Australian artist practices.  Read more about the gallery

This Kind of Life

Date: 21 July 2018
Time: 8pm
Venue: Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music

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As Halcyon celebrates 20 years of exceptional music-making, come and join us for a midwinter evening of intriguing and eclectic new chamber music. 

The program features Australian premieres by mid-career composers Japanese-born Dai Fujikura and Belgian Annelies Van Parys alongside a couple of songs from our Kingfisher project and a brand new work by Elliott Gyger, celebrating his 50th birthday this year. 

Halcyon’s long and fruitful relationship with composer Elliott Gyger, spanning more than three decades, has produced a series of outstanding vocal works.  Beginning with From the hungry waiting country in 2006 (commissioned for Halcyon by the first Aurora Festival) through giving voice (winner of the 2013 Paul Lowin Song Cycle Award) to Un poilu australien in 2015 (for our War Letters project), these pieces have been some of the most challenging and rewarding works in Halcyon's repertoire. Each one is a tour-de-force for both performers and composer, as Elliott descirbes here:

“From the hungry waiting country (2006) weaves together fifteen texts – seven in English, eight in ancient languages – each sung by a different soloist or subset from its female vocal quartet; at times two or three texts are superimposed, working in independent tempi.  Petit Testament (2008), by contrast, comes as close as possible to multitracking a single voice in live performance; Jenny and Alison are called upon to play vocal hide-and-seek with one another, merging into a single line featuring unison, heterophony and interior dialogue."

This year as the ensemble and composer both celebrate significant milestones, it seemed the perfect time to join forces again.  

"This kind of life (2018) is written once again for Alison and Jenny’s voices, but rather than blending and blurring they are kept quite distinct, as they sing the words of two people in dialogue with one another.  Each is supported by her own miniature ensemble of two instruments (clarinet and piano with the soprano; cello and harp with the mezzo), although as the work progresses these ensembles begin to overlap and fuse. 
A musical celebration of friendship, This kind of life seems an apt choice for a program highlighting the rich network of collaborations that has developed across Halcyon’s 20-year history – a network which I am grateful and proud to be part of.

PROGRAM
Elliott Gyger This Kind of Life  WORLD PREMIERE
Dai Fujikura  Being as One  AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Annaliese Van Parys  Three Mew Poems  AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Ross Edwards The Tranquil Mind
Rosalind Page Aquila’s Wing

ARTISTS
Alison Morgan soprano, Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano,  Laura Chislett flute, David Rowden clarinet, Georgina Oakes bass clarinet, Geoffrey Gartner cello, Jo Allan piano, Rowan Phemister harp

TICKETS
Tickets $35/$25 through Classikon

Image: Linden Gledhill

A Child of Earth and Heaven - Halcyon & Inventi Ensemble

Date: 15 November 2017
Venue: Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

Presented in collaboration with Inventi Ensemble and Melbourne Recital Centre

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A Child of Earth and Heaven celebrates two generations of Australian vocal writing, showcasing works by award-winning composers Nigel Butterley and Elliott Gyger inspired by childhood and the natural world.

In an all-new collaboration, drawing together renowned performers from around the country, Inventi Ensemble (Melbourne) and Halcyon (Sydney) with guest conductor Matthew Wood (Darwin) present two intriguing song cycles for voice and chamber ensemble.

Gyger’s Paul Lowin Award winning composition, giving voice (2013), is an intimate exploration of the theme of early childhood. With diverse texts drawn from eight female Australian writers including his own daughter Sophia, giving voiceencapsulates a roller-coaster of emotions – such as fear, wonder, joy and frustration – in eight highly individual songs. Drawing inspiration from the Orpheus myth, Butterley’s Orphei Mysteria (2008) is a work of great beauty whose subtlety painted colours bring forth a richly evocative soundscape and show a master craftsman at the height of his powers.

PROGRAM
Elliott Gyger - giving voice (2013)
Nigel Butterley - Orphei Mysteria (2008)

ARTISTS
Matthew Wood  conductor  Alison Morgan  soprano  Jenny Duck-Chong  mezzo soprano  Vladimir Gorbach  guitar  Inventi Ensemble

The Fire In Which We Burn

Date: 10 October 2017
Venue: Recital Hall West, Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Presented by the Sydney Conservatorium of Music

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The fire in which we burn is an all-Australasian program featuring works by Ross Edwards, Sadie Harrison, Tim Dargaville and Gillian Whitehead with texts that span two centuries, seven countries, and the complete cycle of seasons.  By reflecting on the cycles by which we live, we gain a glimpse of the turning wheels of history seeing ourselves mirrored in the shifting backdrop of the natural world.

Sadie Harrison’s With what does winter’s summer’s sing takes us on a journey through the seasonal patterns of nature and love, interspersing them with a series of exaltant ‘calling' songs, reminding us of those moments of joy in the midst of the passing of time. An Australian composer who has been resident in the UK for many years, her song cycle speaks of how the passing of time resonates with our own cycles of love and loss. This has been a common poetic conceit for centuries, with Spring heralding new love and Winter marking the coldness of a dying relationship, or a life which is at an end. Her texts draw on both ancient and modern literature in English translation, creating a fresh vernacular for words that span centuries.

Ross Edward’s Five Senses is inspired by the poetry of Judith Wright, renowned not only as a poet but as an environmental activist. Every poem’s images are so clearly drawn - from the fiery wheel of creation, the ageless columns of dark foreboding rainforest or the delicate dew-encrusted spider webs, right down to the individual flowers on the forest floor. At times ominous and mysterious or exuberantly joyful, it is a celebration of the Australian landscape and the capacity it has to touch us and inhabit our senses.

Gillian Whitehead’s Because of the child, a short unaccompanied song, was composed for a group of people keen to raise awareness of environmental issues and draws our attention to the role man plays in his environment. She spends time between both Australia and New Zealand, and the many natural and cultural references in her life are clearly present in her prodigious body of work.

Tim Dargaville’s Kolam, movement III for solo piano is inspired by the ancient art of Kolam, an art of symmetry, precision, and complexity, where circular patterns of geometric lines are created on the ground using curved lines and dots and drawn with powder made from rice and other natural materials. Often drawn by women at the threshold to the house, throughout the day the drawings get walked on, washed out in the rain, or blown around in the wind only to be re-made the following day. This intricate art reflects both the movement and constant nature of time, but also the renewal it will always bring.

PROGRAM
Sadie Harrison - with what do winter’s summers sing? (2004)
Tim Dargaville - Kolam, Movement III (2014)
Brad Taylor-Newling - Ombrone (2014)
Ross Edwards - Five Senses: Five Poems of Judith Wright (2012)

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano, Bernadette Harvey piano, Joshua Hill percussion

Image: Linden Gledhill

The Poet's Voice

Date: 10 September 2016
Venue: St Bede's Anglican Church, Drummoyne

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“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate; it goes on to become.”
— W.H. Auden

Each art has a language of its own that can ’speak’ to us. Poetry can resonant within us, its chosen words honed into crystallised form. Music, wordless, can stir, move, shake or provoke us.  In song, these two powerful languages are synthesised, the poet’s and the composer’s voices intertwining, shining new light on the words while drawing out fresh musical ideas. Yet no one song or poem speaks in the same way to us all; our responses are as diverse as our human experience.

The songs and cycles in The Poet’s Voice are the work of contemporary Australian composers, inspired by Australian poets and writers, who explore their shared understanding of our world, our environment and our everyday life with works spanning a period of almost 50 years. Captured moments of simple lives often have a surprising depth when words and music combine; love letters and clotheslines, birds and birth, gazing in rockpools or at mountain ranges.  Alongside songs by Margaret Sutherland, Brett Dean, Elliott Gyger and Katy Abbott Kvasnica are the words of Judith Wright, Michael Leunig, the fictional Ern Malley and Christopher Wallace-Crabbe.  Andrew Schultz is both poet and composer in his recent song cycle Paradise, setting his own words to music.

Roger Smalley's Piano Trio (1991), commissioned for the 1st Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and still one of his most popular and recorded works, acknowledges the anniversary of the composer’s death in 2015.  Inspired not by words, but by the music of another composer, this tour-de-force piece is one of several that Smalley wrote based on Chopin's Mazurkas. 

Gordon Kerry is renowned for both his words and music.  He is an author and experienced music journalist and the composer of vocal works of many forms: among them operas, choral works and chamber songs (including a work for Halcyon’s 2013 Kingfisher project).  The Poet's Voice will feature the world premiere of his new work Three Malouf Songs (2015).  Commissioned by John and Denise Elkins, the piece celebrates a place of special significance to them - the Glasshouse Mountains.  Kerry's own love of the Australian bush and the beach drew him to three poems by David Malouf -  Stars, Rockpools and Glasshouse Mountains.  With his sensitivity to text and ear for delicate sonorities, Kerry has created a substantial through-composed chamber work for mezzo, violin, cello and piano.

PROGRAM
Gordon Kerry - Three Malouf Songs*
Andrew Schultz - Paradise (2013)
Roger Smalley - Piano Trio (1991)
Elliott Gyger - Petit Testament (2008)
* World Premiere

Katy Abbott Kvasnica - The Domestic Sublime Part 1
Margaret Sutherland - Woman's Song, Midnight and Winter Kestrel from Six Songs: Settings of Judith Wright
Brett Dean - Literature & A Child is a Grub from Poems and Prayers

ARTISTS

Of Earth and Stars

Date: 16 April 2016
Venue: St Bedes Anglican Church

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Halcyon begins the year with an intimate program featuring the sonorous and captivating combination of voice and cello. 
In Of Earth and Stars long-time collaborators Jenny Duck-Chong and Geoffrey Gartner present a program of duos and solos spanning four decades and three continents. 
You will be introduced to gems by Julian Yu, Moya Henderson, Martin Wesley-Smith, Sadie Harrison, Brad Taylor-Newling, Simon Holt and Michael Berkeley, and to celebrate Alberto Ginastera's centenary year there will be a special performance of the composer's tour-de-force for solo cello, Puneña No. 2.

PROGRAM
Martin Wesley-Smith -  Uluru Song (1993)
Sadie Harrison -  Aster I and Aster II from Aster (1995 rev. .2014)
Michael Berkeley -  Typewriter Music (2014) 
Brad Taylor-Newling -  Ombrone (2014) & Stars (2014)
Alberto Ginastera -  Puneña No. 2 (1976) 
Julian Yu -  Three Haiku (1987)
Moya Henderson -  I Lost A World The Other Day (2014)  
Simon Holt -  Three songs from Six Caprices (1998)

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong  mezzo soprano  Geoffrey Gartner  cello

War Letters

Date: 7 November 2015
Venue: Ku-ring-gai Town Hall

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War Letters commemorates through music, the service and sacrifice of Australian servicemen and women in the First World War during the ANZAC centenary. Four Australian composers, representing four generations, have taken excerpts from original letters written during times of conflict, and set the words to music for singers and ensemble. The letters are filled with both hope and despair, offering deep insight into life for all involved in the war zone, but especially for family and friends receiving and sending them. War Letters explores this interface between letter writing and music, bringing into focus the day to day experiences of the men and women taken up by war.

PROGRAM
Diana Blom - Triptych (war letters) *
Elliott Gyger - Un poilu australien *
Nicole Murphy - 'Dearest Mother...' *
Larry Sitsky - Letter from the trenches *
* World premiere

ARTISTS
Alison Morgan  soprano  Jenny Duck-Chong  mezzo soprano  Clive Birch  bass  James Wannan  viola  Kaylie Dunstan  percussion Jo Allan  piano

The Cavalcade of History and Fashion will present a display, Home Front Keepsakes and Nurses Uniforms at the concert.

The project was made possible through funding received from the Australian Government's ANZAC Centenary Local Grants Program with support from the University of Western Sydney.

Paradise

DATE: 17 September
TIME: 1pm
VENUE: Io Myers Studio, University of New South Wales Kensington Campus

Halcyon presents a captivating chamber music program for voice, cello and piano by Australian composers Andrew Schultz and Rosalind Page. Includes the Australian premiere of Schultz' Paradise and Prelude and Postscript. 

PROGRAM

Andrew Schultz To the evening star, Opus 80 (2009)
Rosalind Page Being and Time III: Paradiso (2015) for cello and dice
Andrew Schultz Prelude and Postscript, Opus 100, No. 1 (2015) for piano
Andrew Schultz Paradise, Opus 95 (2013) for soprano, cello and piano

ARTISTS
Alison Morgan soprano Geoffrey Gartner cello Jo Allan piano

This is a FREE event

Ditties

DATE: 15th September
TIME: 6pm
VENUE: Wyselaskie Auditorium, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Part of the Guitar Perspectives series

Ken Murray (guitar) and Jenny Duck-Chong (mezzo soprano) present a recital of Australian songs written for voice and guitar over the past three decades.

PROGRAM

Christine MCCOMBE Halcyon (1994)
John PETERSON Three songs from Of Quiet Places (1998)
Elena Kats-Chernin Purple Patch (1998)
Andrew SCHULTZ Three songs from Ditties (1983)
Helen GIFFORD Spell Against Sorrow (2003)
Kerry Andrew Two songs from fruit songs (2001-2)
Matthew HINDSON Insect Songs (1998)

ARTISTS
Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano Ken Murray guitar

This is a FREE event