In a series of blogs in 2023, Halcyon’s Artist Director, mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong, reflects on highlights of the last 25 years.
It does not feel like twenty-five years since soprano Alison Morgan and I formed Halcyon ‘to promote and champion new and recent music for voice and instruments’. It was a bit of a mouthful to describe, but it is exactly what we did then, and Halcyon has continued to do over all these years. Looking back over a quarter of a century of creative practice, there are many extraordinary experiences, achievements and works I’d love to shine a light on. So in this irregular blog I’ll be looking at Halcyon’s history month-by-month - sharing stories and pointing you to works, videos and recordings from our now substantial catalogue along the way. You can also take a look at the online Concert Archive where you will find details of every major performance across the ensemble’s lifespan.
FEBRUARY - 1998 and 2014
With no January performances on record, across all the months of February there were only ever two programs.
14/2/1998 MVI & SYDNEY ALPHA ENSEMBLE
This was Halcyon's first ever concert - we launched Halcyon in a collaborative program with acclaimed new music giants Sydney Alpha Ensemble (we were imaginatively called MVI at the time). Recorded by ABC Classic FM, it was one of the largest programs we ever staged with works by George Crumb, Luciano Berio, Maurice Ravel and Maurice Delage.
I've already written about this special night on a previous blog here.
LISTEN: to the full archival program here
Find the full program details, including links to reviews by Fred Blanks and John Carmody on the Concert Archive program page here
18/2/2014 HALCYON at the DELMAR GALLERY
Presented in conjunction with the annual Blake Art Prize touring exhibition, it featured solo and duo works for voice and cello by Ross Edwards, John Tavener, Michael Finnissey, Gavin Bryars, Peter Sculthorpe, John Cage and Libby Larsen.
LISTEN to two of these pieces: Ross Edwards’ Maninya I and Libby Larsen’s Liebeslied
VOICE AND CELLO
The combination of voice/s and cello has been in our programming since our very first concert series in 2001 which included my first performance of Ross Edwards' Maninya I with cellist Geoffrey Gartner in the distinctively named Concert 2 (which we recorded years later on Waves II). It was the featured combination of the most recent trilogy of programs in 2020-22 - Holding Light, After Dark and Autobiochemistry - with cellists Geoffrey Gartner, James Larsen and Rosanne Hunt and soprano Jane Sheldon.
Halcyon is now responsible for a signficant increase in the repertoire for voice and cello. The 2020-2022 programs alone contained a dozen world premieres for this combination - from full-blown song cycles to short vignettes - by Andrew Ford, Elliott Gyger, Gordon Kerry, Sadie Harrison, Cameron Lam, Nicola LeFanu, Nicole Murphy, Alisha Redmond, Kate Reid, Andrew Schultz, Larry Sitsky and Luke Styles. Further premieres across the years include works by Katy Abbott, Moya Henderson and Brad Taylor-Newling. You can find them all listed here.
Beyond adding new work to the repertoire, Halcyon is actively engaging with new generations of composers and students in practical settings with this compact combination, presenting composer workshops and performances in secondary and tertiary institutions in Sydney and Melbourne as well as our vocal intensive program, First Stones 2022.
MARCH - 2008, 2010 and 2014
26/3/2010 SIRENS@CARRIAGEWORKS
21-22/3/2008 SIRENS at the FOUR WINDS FESTIVAL
SIRENS
Normally Halcyon is what I call a chameleonic ensemble. The ensemble is built based on the needs of the program and excellent artists are drawn together to work collaboratively on each project. Sirens was different. This vocal quartet and harp combination first performed together in 2004 and went on to perform major commissions by Elliott Gyger, Dan Walker and Raffaele Marcellino and a world premiere and Australian premiere by Graham Hair. Composers recognised the skill of this elite group and wanted to write for us.
For 'Sirens' (the name came from the 2004 concert title), then co-director Alison Morgan and myself were joined by soprano Belinda Montgomery, mezzo-soprano Jo Burton and harpist Genevieve Lang. By 2010, six years after our first one-off gig, this group of amazing women had performed 7 different programs in 3 capital cities including the inaugural Aurora Festival of Western Sydney in 2006 (which featured the premiere of Elliott Gyger’s From the Hungry Waiting Country). The Sirens singers also featured in the landmark performance of Steve Reich's Tehillim staged by Halcyon, Ensemble Offspring and Synergy Percussion at City Recital Hall and Riverside Theatres attracting audiences of over 1000 to hear music by Reich, Ligeti, Vivier and Ricketson. But more on that another time…
The singers had also undertaken performances of Gillian Whitehead's epic Nga Haerenga for voices, percussion and narrator and two further performances of Tehillim. At the Four Winds Festival in Bermagui over the Easter Weekend in 2008 Sirens singers performed Reich’s Tehillim, Vivaldi’s Gloria (in a version for 4 female voices and ensemble) and a new work for voices and ensemble by Ross Edwards in the stunning outdoor ampitheatre.
Sirens@Carriageworks in 2010 was a celebration of this wonderful off-shoot ensemble of Halcyon and the long and fruitful creative relationship that had developed. The concert included the premiere of Raffaele Marcellino's A Strange Kind of Paradise (which became the first movement of the cycle of the same name, recorded on Waves III) and the completion of Dan Walker's song cycle King Ludwig’s Swans, with Movements IV and V created especially for this occasion.
The program also featured the singers in duos and trio combinations in works by Kaija Saariaho, Kerry Andrew, Roxanna Panufnik, Nicola LeFanu, Gordon Kerry and Gillian Whitehead and two solo performances of Ross Edwards and Younghi Pagh-Paan by our instrumentalists - flautist Laura Chislett and harpist Genevieve Lang.
LISTEN to these pieces from the live recording: Sappho’s reply, The Song of Doves, Dreisam-Nore and the premiere of A Strange Kind of Paradise.
You can hear more of Sirens in performance and recording in the Sirens playlist including the complete five-movement version of Dan Walker’s song cycle (as recorded on Waves II) and live performances of much more.
15 and 29/3/2014 KINGFISHER: SONGS FOR HALCYON
Over two programs we performed 21 new pieces composed for our 15th birthday. This delayed 15th birthday celebration took place early in 2014 (though our actual birthday was in 2013). I had spent the previous year recovering from cancer and we wanted to be match fit for this program of bespoke new works so we delayed these concerts until 2014. We did hold a wonderful celebratory birthday party at the MCA in October 2013 which saw us preview six of these pieces with introductions by our compere for the evening, Genevieve Lang. But the full program, which became the Kingfisher album, did not take place until six months later (and gave time for those last few pieces, which were still being penned, to be delivered for the March performances!).
From two solo voices to the full ensemble of soprano, mezzo, flute, clarinet, cello and vibraphone, the program was a fantastic showcase of the diversity of contemporary vocal writing from composers of many generations who we had formed connections with across our history and who we had asked to write for the project: Katy Abbott, Stephen Adams, Nigel Butterley, Sharon Calcraft, Ross Edwards, Andrew Ford, Stuart Greenbaum, Elliott Gyger, Graham Hair, Moya Henderson, Gordon Kerry, Raffaele Marcellino, Kevin March, Rosalind Page, John Peterson, Andrew Schultz, Paul Stanhope, Jane Stanley, Nicholas Vines, Dan Walker and Gillian Whitehead. It included the last work that Nigel Butterley was to complete, Nature Changes at the Speed of Life..., featuring text by one of his favourite poets, Kathleen Raine.
The whole program was recorded on the Kingfisher: Songs for Halcyon album released throughTall Poppies in 2015 .
LISTEN to many songs from the Kingfisher album here and hear short clips about the works by each of the composers here