Music for Halloween From The Australia Quartet
The Australia Quartet presents a programme of Halloween themed music with a one-off concert on Thursday 31 October. Schoenberg’s gothic masterpiece Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) anchors a programme which includes a world premiere and performance by Elena Kats-Chernin. In a unique collaboration, and a rare opportunity to hear her perform, Kats-Chernin will join the Australia Quartet’s Tamara-Anna Cislowska in four hands at the piano, to transform and improvise her new arrangement of Scherzino (2013), written especially for the Australia Quartet.
In keeping with their commitment to support contemporary Australian composers, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) takes a new arrangement by Sydney based composer, Barton Staggs. The programme concludes with a landmark chamber work, Schumann’s popular Piano Quartet in E flat major, op.47.
“This is music that will transform and transport its listeners,” says Tamara-Anna Cislowska, cofounder of the Quartet. “Essentially, these works are richly coloured, vividly imaginative sound portraits that really inspire the heart and mind… perfect for a night out on Halloween!”
Australia Quartet brings together four of Australia’s most highly regarded young chamber musicians – pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska, violinist Veronique Serret, violist James Wannan and cellist Thomas Rann – who each enjoy busy soloist and chamber music careers, playing for the major Australian symphony orchestras, the ACO, Sydney Festival, Musica Viva, and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Sharing numerous international awards between them, the musicians’ overseas engagements include London Philharmonic Orchestra, Verbier Festival, the Frick Collection (New York), and at the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall and St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Since 2011 they have presented a popular annual 4-concert series at the University of Technology, where the Quartet is Ensemble in Residence. They have been broadcast live broadcasts on ABC Classic FM and Fine Music FM, and have undertaken a successful national tour to Melbourne’s Recital Centre and Adelaide’s Elder Hall, as well as their inaugural concert series at the Independent Theatre, North Sydney.
In 2014 their association with UTS will expand in new directions, with six projects across the university, including collaborations with the Animation, Architecture and Design Departments and leading Sydney-based composers.
Tickets: From $45.
Book at www.sydneyoperahouse.com or call (02) 9250 7777
