Sirens

Recorded live at Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, July 2004 by ABC Classic FM.

No longer available

The allure of the female voice has long been recognised as having irresistible charm.  Throughout history many legends tell of sailors being lured to their deaths by the dangerous but beautiful sounds of mermaids, sirens or nymphs.  According to Greek mythology Odysseus stuffed his companions’ ears with wax and had himself lashed to the mast of his ship so he and his crew could resist the rich and seductive power of the Sirens’ song.  

Track List

1-3 Dan Walker King Ludwig’s Swans

4. Kerry Andrew luna-cy

5-9 Ruth Lee Martin Carmina Gaedelica

10-11Kaija Saariaho  Nej och inte

12. Edward McGuire  Celtic Knotwork

13-17.Graham Hair  O Venezia Part 1

Artists

Alison Morgan soprano, Belinda Montgomery soprano, Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano, Jo Burton mezzo soprano, Genevieve Lang harp

Closeups

Recorded live at Trackdown Scoring Stage, Fox Studios, Sydney, June 2004  Engineer/editor: Patrick Mullins Assistant editor: Daniel Brown

Available as CD from Halcyon, CD and mp3 from cdbaby.com and mp3 from itunes,

CLOSE UPS was a highlight of 2004 for Halcyon; an intimate program bringing together just a handful of artists for each work, set in the beautiful acoustic of Trackdown Scoring Stage, and accompanied towards the end by a fantastical Sydney rain storm.

Track list

  1. Kaija Saariaho Du gick , flög

  2. Rachel Clement Fracture

  3. Sally Beamish Buzz

  4. -6. Edison Denisov Archipel de songes

7-8 Libby Larsen Do you know and Liebeslied From Beloved, thou hast brought me flowers

9. Jonathan Harvey Lullaby for the Unsleeping

10-11 Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki Good Night , (movt 2 & 3)

Dai Fujikura Still sweet…

13-17.Earl Kim Now and then

18. Ross Harris …inside the rainbow air…

19.Fung Lam Amitabha (World premiere)

Artists: Alison Morgan soprano, Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano , Steven Meyer flutes , Alexandre Oguey cor anglais , Alison Eddington percussion , Sally Whitwell piano , Lucy O'Shea harp , Alex Norton violin , Nicole Forsyth viola , Sally Maer cello

Fauré Requiem

For this ABC Classics recording, the Australian choral group Cantillation and the Sinfonia Australis, under the direction of Antony Walker, perform the 1893 chamber orchestra version of Gabriel Fauré's masterful Requiem, Op. 48, along with two less significant but beautiful choral works, the Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11, and La Naissance de Vénus, Op. 29.

Jenny features in the opening of La Naissance de Venus

  1. Requiem

  2. La Naissance de Venus (world premiere recording - orchestral version)

  3. Cantique de Jean Racine

Cantillation, Sara Macliver, Teddy Tahu Rhodes
Orchestra: Sinfonia Australis
Conductor: Antony Walker

ABC 472 045-2
Available on iTunes.

Maria Morning Star

Australia's longest-lived early music ensemble, the Renaissance Players were first assembled in 1967 by multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger Winsome Evans. With a revolving lineup typically employing nine to ten musicians in tandem with a poetry reader and miming clowns, the group amassed a vast repertoire of over 2,500 songs spanning from the ninth century to the present; in addition to their regular concert performances, in 1973 the Renaissance Players also founded the annual Runnymede Pop Festival. (Another yearly tradition, their Christmas Pudding Concert, was conceived three years later.) Their recordings include the multi-chapter Sephardic Experience series, released on the Celestial Harmonies label during the late '90s and as a box in 1999.