‘A crazy risk’: Why this new music festival is defying the odds

When violinist Asmira Woodward-Page was trying to make it professionally, she had little choice but to leave Australia for New York to catch a break and perform with the best.

Returning from 20 years overseas in 2017 to raise three daughters in NSW’s idyllic Megalong Valley, Woodward-Page found the cultural cringe not entirely vanquished.

Violinist Asmira Woodward-Page is launching the first-ever Megalong Music Festival.Credit: Wolter Peeters

This is why Woodward-Page has ignored the rush of rock music festival cancellations to take a “crazy risk” and establish a bespoke festival dedicated to chamber music.

The first Megalong Music Festival opens this Easter weekend, featuring intimate concerts in which eight young prodigies will train and perform with such distinguished international guests as Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute (who collaborates with the violinist Midori) as part of a fellows program for piano and strings.

The festival has been inaugurated with support from a crowdfunding campaign and aims to raise $20,000 by curtain close.

It is not the only new festival kicking off in regional NSW. On the same weekend former Opera Australia’s artistic director Lyndon Terracini is launching Handa Opera at Millthorpe, near Orange. 

“There is something about classical music and chamber music that brings people together in a way other music genres don’t,” Woodward-Page says. “It’s like friends gathering to have dinner together and a good time – that’s the way I see chamber music, and that’s important, especially since COVID.

“Plus, it’s not in a tight and formal setting, which makes for incredible energy everywhere. A festival like ours brings together artists from all the different classical music career paths – solo, chamber, orchestra, teaching, new music – in one place for a one-off experience. That aspect is a uniquely rare offering.”

Woodward-Page is the daughter of classical pianist Roger Woodward, raised solo by her mother, the Suzuki flautist Prue Page, and relied on scholarships and mentors to carve her own professional path.

“I was a daughter of a single mum who was a musician. She was my first mentor – she took me to everything,” she says.

The acclaimed Sydney composer Elena Kats-Chernin was Woodward-Page’s first piano teacher.

She went on to study violin at the Sydney Conservatorium before leaving Australia to study under Miriam Fried, the world’s pre-eminent violinist, and Robert Mann at the Juilliard School in New York.

“Violin is close to the human voice and its voice speaks to me, although recently, I’ve branched out to viola. I’m not ready for high-level professional playing, and maybe that deep, sonorous tone of the viola speaks to me, but the violin is my first love and main instrument,” Woodward-Page says.

The festival has been inspired by Ravinia and Marlboro, American festivals noted for their high-level chamber music concerts and exceptional mentoring programs for emerging professional talent.

“We are losing so many young artists overseas,” says Woodward-Page. “Why then send off artists when we can do this in our backyard?”

The Megalong Music Festival runs from April 18 to 20.