Australian Brandenburgs come full circle 30 years on
They can fill City Recital Hall six times over in a week and now happy Baroque band ‘the Brandies’ turns full circle after 30 years.
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The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra have come full circle for their 30th anniversary with a concert of works which started it all, and from which they take their name, complete with a stage festooned with bouquets, a speech from former Governor-General Dame Quentin Bryce and a flurry of streamers from the audience.
Bruce Applebaum and artistic director Paul Dyer founded the Baroque band, playing on period instruments, in 1989 specifically to perform music like Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, and for this gala tour they are revisiting five of these six magnificent works.
It was an opportunity to showcase the talents of the orchestra with its huge following – enough to fill all three levels of the City Recital Hall over six concerts – as well as launch a season which promises top international players as well as our local stars.
After the speeches from Applebaum and Dame Quentin the ABO opened with the fourth in the set, featuring with some deft passagework between the twin recorders of Melissa Farrow and Mikaela Oberhausen with Shaun Lee-Chen’s violin lending virtuoso flourishes, occasionally a little hurriedly.
SECURE
This was followed by the sixth, the twin violas of Monique O’Dea and Deirdre Dowling, with Jamie Hey’s cello and Bob Nairn’s double bass pegging down the foundations, well supported by Dyer’s keyboard and a pair of viola da gambas.
The popular fifth concerto which followed was perhaps the strongest of the first half performances with Ben Dollman excellent on violin and Farrow as ever secure and articulate on flute.
Dyer’s bravura handling of the mighty harpsichord cadenza at the end of the first movement prompted a spontaneous standing ovation which, though surprised, he happily took.
The biggest of the concertos, the majestic first, opened the second half with Doree Dixon and Michael Dixon heroic in the challenging natural horn passages, and the night came to a lively and joyful end with Dyer improvising solo in the enigmatic adagio, flanked by some adventurous string playing in the outer movements.
The concert is repeated at 7pm at City Recital Hall Angel Place on Friday, March 1; Saturday, March 2; Wednesday, March 6, and Friday, March 8, with a 2pm matinee on Saturday, March 2.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
● WHERE: City Recital Hall
● WHEN: Wednesday, February 27
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