On this day, twenty-five years ago, Halcyon staged its first performance - Valentine's Day, 1998. Co-founders, soprano Alison Morgan and mezzo-soprano Jenny Duck-Chong had previously presented their first vocal chamber music together back in 1993. They had been working and performing together for some years at this point and an early review had already pronounced them as "two of Sydney's most enterprising and mellifluous singers" (Fred Blanks, Sydney Morning Herald), but this was their debut as a named ensemble.
With their inventive ensemble name, Music For Voices and Instruments (MVI for short) and a newly crafted logo, the budding singer/directors employed the services of new music heavyweights Sydney Alpha Ensemble for this inaugural concert, under the baton of Jenny’s University colleague, conductor Antony Walker. The last piece also featured the very young voice of Jane Sheldon, who they found for this program while she was still in high school.
Jenny notes:
The history of Sydney Alpha Ensemble is not easily found on the internet so I wanted to give some background for those who do not remember their influence. When Halcyon was forming, they were regarded as one of the stellar new music groups of the time - virtuosic solo and chamber music performers who presented and championed new repertoire of the highest calibre. Basically what we wanted to be when we grew up! You can read their bio in the program link below and learn more about the scope of the work they had been presenting as Halcyon was emerging. They were an ensemble at the height of their powers.
It is a shame that ensembles of this period - groups such as Roger Woodward’s Alpha Centauri Ensemble (which was the precursor to SAE), Seymour Group, Flederman, Symeron and many others - are not well-documented on the internet. While material on composers of this period is generally available, there is little material on the ensembles that were such forces for commissioning and performing contemporary repertoire of their era. I hope more work will be done to make their history and influence more widely known.
Halcyon started as they planned to go on - working with great musicians (both established and emerging) to present high calibre and rarely heard works. A courageous and challenging program, they presented four masterworks - Maurice Delage's Quatre Poèmes hindous (1913), Luciano Berio's Folksongs, Maurice Ravel's Trois Poèmes de Stephane Mallarmé and George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children (1970).
In this first program they wrote:
"MVI is dedicated to the performance of vocal chamber music spanning the twentieth century. The music for voice and instruments is rich and varied in its combinations and the written word when set to music can be powerfully compelling.
MVI envisages this as the first of a series of concerts which will provide the opportunity to perform a broad spectrum of works rarely heard in Australia, ranging from earlier in the century to recent works and new commissions."
Though the time span has narrowed (the 'earliest' works now presented are generally only a handful of decades in the past and the composers are primarily living) this still rings true across 25 years as the model for their practice. What has evolved is the inclusion of a far greater component of newly-created and commissioned work as relationships with composers have developed and deepened over the years. However, large ensembles works like these have been rare, with only a handful of programs equalling the number of players on the stage at this first performance.
Recorded by ABC Classic FM and attended by an audience of around 250 people (on the same night that The Song Company was performing Stockhausen’s Stimmung nearby) it was a memorable beginning for the ensemble that celebrates a quarter of a century today!
The performers were:
Conductor: Antony Walker
Soprano/Co-Artistic Director of Halcyon: Alison Morgan
Mezzo-soprano/ Co-Artistic Director of Halcyon: Jenny Duck-Chong
and soprano Jane Sheldon (Crumb)
with Sydney Alpha Ensemble:
Flutes: Geoff Collins, Emma Sholl; Oboe: Linda Walsh; Clarinets: Peter Jenkin, Philip Arkinstall; Violins Tony Gault, Alexandra D'Elia; Viola: Esther van Strahlen; Cello: Zoltan Szabo; Percussion: Daryl Pratt, Phil South, Greg Sully; Harp: Jane Rosenson; Piano Stephanie McCallum; Mandolin: Paul Hooper