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Australia Ensemble: Espresso/Espressivo

21 August 2021
8.00pm – 9.30pm AEST
Sir John Clancy Auditorium
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Musicians in front of gold wall

Carl VINE | Café Concertino (1984)

Lili BOULANGER | Nocturne (1911/1914)

Lili BOULANGER |D’un matin de printemps (1917/1918)

Kevin PUTS | And Legions Will Rise (2001)

Robert SCHUMANN | Piano Quartet in E flat Op.47 (1842)


David Griffiths, clarinet; Dimity Hall, violin; Irina Morozova, viola; Julian Smiles, cello and Ian Munro, piano

with Emeritus artist Geoffrey Collins, flute; and guest artist Alison Pratt, marimba


Carl Vine’s cheeky and irreverent Café Concertino transports the audience from the first moment. Shifting tonal centres and colourful timbres of winds, strings and piano create lively impressions of opinionated and witty repartee. This is followed by two pieces for flute and piano by Lili Boulanger, the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome - a Nocturne to calm the mood, composed when Boulanger was 18 years old, and D'un matin du printemps, a virtuosic and joyous work from the end of her life. In the dreamlike And Legions will Rise, Kevin Puts harnesses the timbres of clarinet, violin and marimba to evoke the power inside all of us to transcend during times of tragedy and personal crisis. This sentiment is continued in the context for Robert Schumann’s masterful Piano Quartet in E-flat, a significant work composed during a time of ‘nervous irritation’ soothed by his wife Clara’s participation in studying the string quartets of Haydn and Mozart.