Genevieve Lacey is an Australian musical icon – she is one of those truly rare artists who expand our understanding not only of the possibilities of the instrument they play, but also of the experience of listening. ABC describes her as "a celebrated story-teller, a courageous risk-taker, an enabler, a fearless adventurer and truth seeker. A joyful force for good in our world."
Lacey has performed at the BBC Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall, played for Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey, and collaborated with countless orchestras and ensembles from Australia to Europe and Asia. Critics describe her as one of Australia's most original musicians – an artist who, with her exquisite musicality and concert ideas that captivate audiences, continually expands the boundaries of what her instrument is capable of and what a concert can mean. She has gained international recognition for her ability to transcend the boundaries between the ancient and the contemporary; she is characterised by a remarkable musicality, theatrical grandeur, and the ability to transform every concert into a multi-layered artistic experience in which early music seamlessly blends with contemporary art and the sounds of nature. Lacey has received several of Australia's most prestigious music awards and is one of the most sought-after performers in her country.
"Bird Songs of Australia" was created by Genevieve Lacey along with the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Kaspars Putniņš, and it will serve as the opening concert for the artists' joint tour of Australia. Following the concert in Latvia, the programme will be performed in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, and Sydney.
The programme is created as a labyrinth of time, in which music from different centuries does not follow a linear sequence but rather winds through time and space. Polyphony from the Renaissance meets Romantic music and masterpieces by Baltic composers, alongside contemporary Australian works created specifically for this programme, revealing unexpected connections between seemingly distant cultures and eras.
Bird songs have fascinated composers throughout the ages – from Beethoven to Britten and Messiaen. Here, the concert revolves around a duo of Australian composers: violinist, composer, and one of the world's leading zoomusicologists, Hollis Taylor, and composer and violinist Jon Rose. For twenty years, Hollis Taylor has been studying the singing of the Australian pied butcherbird, analysing its songs as a musical structure and as one of the most striking examples of how bird songs possess a musical logic, rhythm, and form of their own. Her research has made a significant contribution to science, while in her compositions, bird songs reveal themselves as valid forms of music in their own right. Jon Rose is one of the pioneers of Australian experimental music, the author of more than a hundred albums, and a recipient of the prestigious Don Banks Music Award. The two artists' long-standing collaboration combines science, improvisation, recordings of natural soundscapes, and composition, creating a unique world of sound. Specifically for this concert programme, the composers have created works in which human and bird voices engage in a mutual dialogue.
The soundscape created by Australian composers resonates well with the music of Arvo Pärt, Pēteris Vasks, and Ēriks Ešenvalds, who continue the pastoral themes, while the music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Jacob van Eyck, Mendelssohn, and Caroline Shaw weaves a thread of continuity through this labyrinth of time, allowing music from more than five centuries to reveal unexpected connections and create a multilayered musical landscape, in which the human voice, singing birds, and Genevieve Lacey's exquisite musicality and stunning virtuosity merge into a unified sonic experience.
Programme
Part I
Caroline Shaw And the Swallow
Jacob van Eyck Engels Nachtegaeltje (The English Nightingale)
Arvo Pärt Magnificat and Nunc dimittis
Felix Mendelssohn Psalm XXII Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen (My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me)
Hollis Taylor and Jon Rose Bird on Byrd
Part II
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Diminutions on Pulchra est anima mea
Pēteris Vasks Mūsu māšu vārdi (Our Mothers' Names)
Hollis Taylor and Jon Rose Etheridge River
Ēriks Ešenvalds Gulbja dziesma (The Swan's Song)
Participants
Recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey (Australia)
Latvian Radio Choir
Conductor Kaspars Putniņš
