Australian Brandenburg take us on exotic journey
ONCE Every season Paul Dyer and his Australian Brandenburg players break away from the formal concert template to present something a little different.
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ONCE every season Paul Dyer and his Australian Brandenburg players break away from the formal concert template to present something a little different.
It might be working with acrobats and circus performers, or presenting dramatised scenes from Monteverdi madrigals or Handel’s The Messiah, and this year with Karakorum they are collaborating with Australian star actor David Wenham and French ensemble La Camera delle Lacrime to take us on a fascinating journey along the Silk Road to Mongolia made by a Flemish monk 20 years before Marco Polo’s more famous travels.
William of Rubruck was sent by Louis IX of France to convert the Tatars to Christianity. The massive and thankless undertaking took two years to complete and he kept a meticulous journal — written in Latin — of the customs and people he met, including Mongke Khan, grandson of the infamous Genghis, who it turns out was fond of a drop of rice wine.
Wenham, dressed in the robes of a Franciscan monk, cut an imposing figure as he read excerpts from the journals, but the stars of this show were La Camera, under their dancing and singing music director Bruno Bonhoure. He and director Khai-dong Luong have been mining the rich vein of troubadour tunes and hymns from France, Spain and the Middle East for 15 years, at times working a parallel seam to that of the great Spanish musician and conductor Jordi Savall.
VERSATILE
Dyer on organ and a quartet of violins and cello from the ABO accompanied the more exotic instruments of La Camera, which included percussion, flutes, hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes and Yan Li’s expressive playing of the erhu, a two-stringed Chinese fiddle.
Bonhoure has a remarkably versatile voice with which he can sing like an angel (Salve Regina) or whoop and emote seductively like a troubadour out for a sexual conquest — all with graceful dance steps and precise conducting.
The climax of William’s journey — and of this musical pastiche — is a debate at Mongke Khan’s court among Christians, Buddhists and Muslims about God, the spirit and the soul. La Camera’s Mokrane Adlani, accompanying himself on violin, sang a Sufi chant, Vision of the Beloved, before the ensemble intoned the Buddhist mantra Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum.
In all it’s a highly enjoyable and entertaining journey, directed by Constantine Costi who has worked with the ABO on previous theatrical projects.
The concert is repeated at City Recital Hall Angel Place at 7pm on Friday, July 27; Saturday, July 28; Wednesday, August 1, and Friday, August 3, with a 2pm matinee on Saturday, July 28.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Karakorum
● WHERE: City Recital Hall Angel Place
● WHEN: Wednesday, July 25