Alan Holley, Classikon, September 2022
Halcyon’s 13 new Australian compositions for voice and cello
Halcyon | After Dark
Saturday Sept 10, Summer Hill Church
In a concert of 13 new Australian compositions for voice and cello this review will necessarily be brief about some of the works. Some of the music was scheduled to be performed live during the Covid lockdown time and in order to clear the backlog the music director of Halcyon, Jenny Duck-Chong, mezzo-soprano and James Larsen, cello gave an abundance of music in one evening. A truly Herculean effort and one that all the composers and poets would have been pleased about. Voice and cello were perfect in the generous acoustic of the late 19th century church originally built for the Anglicans of Summer Hill.
Jenny Duck-Chong started the concert with After Dark an effective little solo by Brad Taylor-Newling to a text by David Malouf. This was followed by three works for singer and cello, Mantoux by Anthony Moles, Morning from Songs for a Day by Aristea Mellos and Sadie Harrison’s Ethne’s Lullaby.
Gillian Whitehead’s quaintly old-fashioned solo work Because of the Child was a protest work full of verve. Perfectly placed in the program order.
After the concert I heard one composer say how they enjoyed Cameron Lam’s Persephone as a Whistling Moth because they found it to be ‘channelling’ 1970’s prog rock! I missed that completely but found energy at the beginning, intriguing intertwining lines and moments of concentrated beauty at times and here, as in every work in the concert, a totally committed and wonderful performance from Duck-Chong and Larsen.
With an opening pair of lines that go, ‘The taxi stopped and let out its ghosts, You were among them’, Nicole Murphy’s Ghosts, a setting of evocative and lyrical poetry by Richard James Allen probably needed a reasonably sized chamber ensemble to do justice to a most singable text.
Two short works, Starfish by Luke Styles and Alisha Redmond’s a dance with a jelly-fish, explored slightly different soundworlds where the voice was not necessarily the most important aspect. Maybe these composers were more interested in creating an atmosphere possibly hinting at film music.
Two of the senior composers and the most experienced in the concert were Gordon Kerry and Andrew Ford. Kerry’s My Sorrow’s Flower was a perfect contrast of sweetness and tension. The shimmering cello harmonics to highlight the text talking of snow and bare branches was a magical moment. John Kinsella’s poem Hymn of the Garden had exactly the right rhythmical flow for Andrew Ford to create a charming folksong over a dancelike cello part. Its brevity was part of its charm.
Rarely in a concert do you find so many fine poets and apart from Malouf, Allen and Kinsella, Mark Tredinnick was represented with his evocation to spring, First Light. To have four of Australia’s leading poets printed in one concert program is a delight. And it is worth commenting that the younger composers were also setting poets who are still emerging on the national poetry scene. Wonderful.
Next year Halcyon celebrates 25 years of great concert giving. Over the years this band of diverse musicians has done much for locally made culture and introducing important international vocal compositions. I look forward to attending the 2023 concerts and sharing in the celebration of vocal music.
Alan Holley
This review first appeared in Classikon, September 2022