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Australian String Quartet with Lou Bennett, William Barton, Stephen Pigram & Roma Winmar

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Australian String Quartet with Lou Bennett, William Barton, Stephen Pigram & Roma Winmar QUARTET & COUNTRY AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET WITH LOU BENNETT, WILLIAM BARTON, STEPHEN PIGRAM & ROMA WINMAR Image: Jacqui Way Founder Principal Partner Chamber Music Weekend supported by Perth Festival acknowledges the Noongar people who continue to practise their values, language, beliefs and knowledge on their kwobidak boodjar. They remain the spiritual and cultural birdiyangara of this place and we honour and respect their caretakers and custodians and the vital role Noongar people play for our community and our Festival to flourish. QUARTET & COUNTRY WINTHROP HALL | 60MINS AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET WITH DR LOU BENNETT AM SAT 15 FEB AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET WITH WILLIAM BARTON SAT 15 FEB Image: Amy McKie AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET WITH STEPHEN PIGRAM SUN 16 FEB AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET WITH ROMA WINMAR SUN 16 FEB BACKGROUND TO QUARTET & COUNTRY The Quartet & Country commissioning series seeks to create a body of work created by Indigenous musicians that has at its a heart a conversation between the Western European Classical canon (as written for string quartet) and the songlines of the country. With the newly commissioned work by Roma Winmar, there are now seven works in There is a special relationship in the performing arts between creator, performer and audience. Without any one of the series. The three works not heard this weekend are by esteemed Yorta Yorta woman Deborah Cheetham, senior those elements, the ceremony of performance ceases to exist. In choosing to be here, we thank you for your act of Yolŋu singer Djakapurra Munyarryun and actress, singer and playwright Ursula Yovich from Maningrida. community as we celebrate the artists on the stage and the imaginations of those who have given them environments The four works in this weekend’s concerts have their origins in the four corners of our continent. William Barton, to inhabit, words to embody and songs to sing. Kalkadungu man from North East Queensland; Lou Bennett, Yorta Yorta / DjaDja Wurrung woman from Victoria; Stephen Pigram, Yawaru man from the Kimberley; and Roma ‘Yibiyung’ Winmar from Noongar boodjar. Each work Perth Festival 2020 is a celebration of us – our place and our time. It wouldn’t be the same without you. reveals the profound connection between country and the artists’ ancestry within it. Iain Grandage, The Quartet & Country project is rooted inside collaborative theatre methodologies, where ideas are shared Perth Festival Artistic Director and workshopped, with the work being sculpted and changed in collaboration with the players of the Australian String Quartet. As such, the input of Dale, Francesca, Stephen and Sharon is happily acknowledged by each of the composers and celebrated during each and every performance. Iain Grandage BEETHOVEN’S STRING QUARTETS OP.18 Soon after Beethoven’s arrival in Vienna he was a sought-after performer and composer, but only at the end of the 1790s did he compose in the two genres which Haydn, with whom he’d gone to Vienna to study, dominated – the symphony and string quartet. Beethoven made no secret of his labours with the form, but while Op.18’s six quartets may lack the effortless mastery of the late works, they contain much wonderful music and prefigure later developments in Beethoven’s art. Roma ‘Yibiyung’ Winmar’s Waalwaliny commissioned by Ulrike Klein AO for Perth Festival 2020 The other Quartet & Country works commissioned by the Klein Family Foundation Beethoven String Quartet Notes Gordon Kerry © 2001/2020 Quartet & Country is a commissioning project between the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival and its 2016 – 19 Artistic Director, composer Iain Grandage, UKARIA and the Australian String Quartet. Third section Then the third voice is my voice and my family’s voice, Marl djuwenuar koomangoonong koomangoonong (x3) explaining where she is and where she’s come from, Marl djuwenuar koomangoonong koomangoonong she’s gone out on a journey and she’s back to rest nyilamum amongst the treetops. [She returns to rest, to rest (x3) She returns to rest, to dirt song rest, baby] Written by Lou Bennett and Alexis Wright. From the Echuca, Barmah region, the heartland of Yorta Yorta in Old voice country, this is a song about the connections between Nyungek kalk (x4) Bowun bang- nyi (x2) people, music and country. ‘Baiyan Woka’ is Yorta Yorta Nyungadak kalk (x2) Nyungingurrak kalk (x2) for ‘singing for country / land’. Bowun bang- nyi (x2) Ngulla tel- leen (x2) Yannaka Larr Woi noit yere bil, This song comes from the understanding that we all Woi noit yere bil, mel lu ra pyang have connections – we just have to learn ‘Goopna Ngawar-l’ (listen deeply). [This my tree (x4) Don’t climb (x2) – Lou Bennett This our tree (exclusive) (x2) This our tree (inclusive) (x2) Don’t climb (x2) String Quartet in F major, Op.18 No.1 Don’t cut down (x2) Beethoven revised and refined the texture of this work AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET WITH Come home considerably and decreased the number of times its DR LOU BENNETT AM Family, first movement theme was repeated. That movement, Family, always] however, remains highly concentrated with its tautly LOU BENNETT SONG LYRICS coiled theme, tensile triple rhythm and extensive Jaara Nyilamum* Jaara Nyilamum REPERTOIRE NOTES repertoire of striking gestures. According to his friend Sung in Dja Dja Wurrung Nyungek kalk (x4) Jaara Nyilamum Amenda, the adagio was Beethoven’s response to the Bowun bang- nyi (x2) Nyungadak kalk (x4) This beautiful story was shared with by my Aunty Fay burial scene in Romeo and Juliet. The words ‘the last LOU BENNETT (with IAIN GRANDAGE) Ngulla tel- leen (x4) Nyungingurrak kalk (x4) Carter and her daughter, my big sister-cousin, Wendy sigh’ appear, in French, over a musical gesture on one dirt song Ngulla tel- leen (x2) Berrick, when we were sitting on country on Jaara of Beethoven’s sketches. The latter movements are Sung in Yorta Yorta Bowun bang- nyi (x2) Ngulla tel- leen (x2) djandaj or Jaara Jaara as we call it. considerably lighter in tone – the scherzo is genuinely Bowun bang- nyi (x2) Nyilamum koomanoongong witty; the finale is full of sudden harmonic turns and a BEETHOVEN It’s a story about a little girl and a young farmer. whirling motif which suggests that the coiled tension of String Quartet in F major, Op.18 No.1 [This my tree (x4) Around 120 years ago, this young farmer was felling the opening has been released. Allegro con brio Don’t climb (x2) trees to clear land for farming when he noticed this Adagio affetuoso ed appassionato This our tree (exclusive) (x4) Don’t cut down (x4) little bundle in a hollow log. On closer inspection, – Gordon Kerry Scherzo (allegro molto) & trio This our tree (inclusive) (x4) Don’t cut down (x2) he found a dead baby girl wrapped in a possum skin Allegro Don’t climb (x2) cloak. He took the bundle to the Police who handed Don’t cut down (x2) it to the State Museum where it stayed for 99 years, Performers alone, in a cold steel drawer – until my family found her Dr Lou Bennett Don’t climb (x2) Voice and repatriated her remains back to country to rest Dale Barltrop, Francesca Hiew Baby rests] Violin amongst the treetops. Viola Stephen King Main melody section Cello Sharon Grigoryan Jarra nyilamum gumbi, jaara nyilamum gumbi, oh jaara You see, my family were born at the place, in the cavity nyilamum gumbi … (x2) of a birthing tree. And when we pass over, when we *Commissioned by the Klein Family Foundation go to that next place, we are wrapped in our djukum [Jaara baby sleep, jaara baby sleep oh jaara baby djukum possum skins and set amongst the treetops to sleep (x2]) listen to our Ancestors singing and talking in the wind nyernila (to listen continuously). Second section Boitch ee nook, boitch ee nook, boitch ee nook My Auntie Fif and Sis they passed the story on and said nyilamum koomanoongong ‘write a song Lou, write a song for our Ancestor, our Boitch ee nook, boitch ee nook, boitch ee nook kalk little baby Ancestor’. gumbi gumbi … I wrote the story in three sections – a call out to the [Within, within, within, baby, rests Ancestors, to bring them down and make them aware Within, within, within, tree sleep, sleep] that we’re singing now, we’re telling the story of our little baby Ancestor. Then the second voice is an old voice even though she’s a little baby. It’s me singing in my chest register in an old voice. String Quartet in D major, Op.18 No.3 The D major work was the first written of the six quartets. Here, it is the overall design which matters, rather than individual details, though it would be hard to dislike any of the material in this work. Interestingly, in the slow movement Beethoven chooses to use the key of B flat, where convention would suggest A major. In doing so he heightens the tension between the keys, and therefore characters, of each movement, and it is a relationship which comes to occupy a fundamental position in his later music. The slow movement explores a variety of often complex textures; the dance movement which follows – significantly not identified as anything other than allegro, has as its contrasting middle section a simple but effective passage in the minor mode. The boisterous 6/8 finale may reflect Beethoven’s admiration for Mozart’s Quintet, K.593. String Quartet in C minor, Op.18 No.4 AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET Beethoven used C minor for works such as the Third WITH WILLIAM BARTON Piano Concerto, Fifth Symphony and the Pathétique Sonata, works whose emotional profile goes beyond WILLIAM BARTON SONG LYRICS anything of Haydn or Mozart.
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