Brahms and Colin Brumby may be worlds apart in the music they’ve produced, but the two composers will share centre stage at the Maleny Autumn Music Festival next month.
Taking place on the weekend of April 11 – 12, the festival will include five different concerts featuring students and staff from the University of Queensland’s School of Music.
Festival director Robert Harris said this year’s program was designed to mark both 175 years after Brahms’ birth and Brumby’s 75th birthday.
Dr Brumby was a Reader in Music at UQ for many years, and is renowned as one of Australia’s most prolific and versatile composers – creating pieces for choirs, strings and brass.
“All of the music selected in each of the programs is approachable. Colin has such a concept of beautiful sound, balance and shape that I think people will enjoy his works very much, perhaps to their surprise,” Mr Harris said.
“This is an attempt to use his 75th year as looking afresh at his repertoire.”
Features of the festival include Brahms’ String Sextet No.2 in G Major and a performance of Brumby’s Five English Lyrics by the So-la Voce chamber choir.
“We try on the one hand to provide repertoire that audiences already know and enjoy, so in the course of the weekend they’ll hear certain things like Pachabel’s Canon and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,” Mr Harris said.
“Such popular fare will contrast with works that perhaps none of the audience have heard before, but we think is good music that provokes the imagination.”
Mr Harris, a long-time guest teacher of viola at UQ, said the annual event would showcase student and staff soloists including Spiros Rantos and Gwyn Roberts.
“All these ideas kept popping off the page and it struck me that every program has a high UQ presence.
“I think at a time when universities are increasingly conscious of their community responsibility, the sense of outreach, of taking music from the campus to regional centres is so important.”
Members of the public are invited to attend a free preview – part of UQ’s popular Sunday concert series – which takes place at Customs House on April 6 at 11.30am.
For further information about the Festival contact (07) 5494 2708.
Media: Cameron Pegg at UQ Communications (07 3365 2049, c.pegg@uq.edu.au)
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