CONCERT CALENDAR See page 1 Beethoven I 1 pm Friday May 1 Fitters’ Workshop 6 2 Beethoven II 3.30 pm Friday May 1 Fitters’ Workshop 6 3 Bach’s Universe 8 pm Friday May 1 Fitters’ Workshop 16 4 Beethoven III 10 am Saturday May 2 Fitters’ Workshop 7 5 Beethoven IV 2 pm Saturday May 2 Fitters’ Workshop 7 6 Beethoven V 5.30 pm Saturday May 2 Fitters’ Workshop 8 7 Bach on Sunday 11 am Sunday May 3 Fitters’ Workshop 18 8 Beethoven VI 2 pm Sunday May 3 Fitters’ Workshop 9 9 Beethoven VII 5 pm Sunday May 3 Fitters’ Workshop 9 Sounds on Site I: 10 Midday Monday May 4 Turkish Embassy 20 Lamentations for a Soldier 11 Silver-Garburg Piano Duo 6 pm Monday May 4 Fitters’ Workshop 24 Sounds on Site II: 12 Midday Tuesday May 5 Mt Stromlo 26 Space Exploration 13 Russian Masters 6 pm Tuesday May 5 Fitters’ Workshop 28 Sounds on Site III: 14 Midday Wednesday May 6 Shine Dome 30 String Theory 15 Order of the Virtues 6 pm Wednesday May 6 Fitters’ Workshop 32 Sounds on Site IV: Australian National 16 Midday Thursday May 7 34 Forest Music Botanic Gardens 17 Brahms at Twilight 6 pm Thursday May 7 Fitters’ Workshop 36 Sounds on Site V: NLA – Reconciliation 18 Midday Friday May 8 38 From the Letter to the Law Place – High Court Barbara Blackman’s Festival National Gallery: 19 3.30 pm Friday May 8 40 Blessing: Being and Time Fairfax Theatre 20 Movers and Shakers 3 pm Saturday May 9 Fitters’ Workshop 44 21 Double Quartet 8 pm Saturday May 9 Fitters’ Workshop 46 Sebastian the Fox and Canberra Girls’ Grammar 22 11 am Sunday May 10 48 Other Animals Senior School Hall National Gallery: 23 A World of Glass 1 pm Sunday May 10 50 Gandel Hall 24 Festival Closure 7 pm Sunday May 10 Fitters’ Workshop 52 1 Chief Minister’s message Festival President’s Message Welcome to the 21st There is nothing quite like the Canberra International Music sense of anticipation, before Festival: 10 days, 24 concerts the first note is played, for the and some of the finest music delights and surprises that will Canberrans will hear this unfold over the 10 days of the Festival. year. Not only is this my first year Under the leadership of its as President of Pro Musica, new Artistic Director, Roland taking over from our supremely committed last Peelman, the 2015 Festival has a program that President, Dorothy Danta: it is also the first year ranges across the centuries, from Hildegard for our new Artistic Director, Roland Peelman. of Bingen to Deborah Conway. For lovers With the invaluable support of our General of the classical canon, it will provide a rare Manager Kathleen Grant, Roland has produced pleasure: the complete cycle of Beethoven’s a program continuing the traditions built up by piano sonatas, as well as three Bach cantatas, our previous artistic directors, as well as striking chamber music by Brahms, and a program from out in new and exciting directions. the Russia of 1915. The CIMF prides itself on being a festival which Taking its inspiration from the centenary of truly reflects the national capital and its ideals. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, this Thus, the 2015 Festival draws its inspiration year’s Festival celebrates the links between from the connections between music and science, with their shared ambition for pursuing music and science. It will visit several of truth, the one in knowledge, the other in art. Canberra’s leading scientific institutions, and will feature the music of Australia’s most This festival has two other main features. The enterprising composers and performers. first is the number of new works specially commissioned for the Festival, and supporting Canberra is delighted to extend a welcome the ongoing development of Australian music. to the first-class international musicians The second is our deep commitment to young participating in the Festival, and to the many performers, and to integrating them in rehearsals young musicians from across the country and performances with more experienced and overseas who will join the seasoned musicians. Watch out for these young artists professionals on the Festival stages - not least during the Festival concerts: you will be seeing the remarkable Moorambilla Voices. and hearing the stars of the future. I encourage Canberrans and visitors to this city I wish to express Pro Musica’s deepest thanks to to make the most of the many musical delights our sponsors and supporters across government on offer, and wish everyone involved all the and the corporate sector, and particularly to the large number of individuals who have best for the 2015 Canberra International Music contributed finance and resources. In addition Festival. I wish to pay tribute to the large number of volunteers and billeters who have committed Andrew Barr MLA their time and their hospitality to the Festival. ACT Chief Minister Without this level of community commitment the Festival could not go ahead. So, like you, I will sit back, take in a deep breath, and enjoy the 10 days of music making ahead of us. Arn Sprogis President, Pro Musica, Inc. 2 Artistic Director’s Message Whether we like it or not, Canberra is a city of government and governance. But equally, Canberra is a city of knowledge, a city of science and serious fact- seeking, whether on terra firmaor in the depths of outer space. Canberra is also a place where the nation keeps its treasures, its bank accounts, its jewels, its books, archives and artworks, an enviable wealth of relatively recent history. Barely one hundred years old, she bears the imprint of Burley-Griffin’s vision combined with the presence of a strong international community and a sense of duty, service and scholarship amongst its citizens. The result remains a work in process, but Canberra strikes me as an a-typically modern city that has proven remarkably resilient, given its proximity to the political epicentre and the inevitable ebbs and flows of the electoral cycle. But none of this would mean anything if we could not stand back and admire the sunset, or wonder at those mountain peaks around Canberra. They remind us of an ancient land with a history that looms much larger than our mere century-old construct. All the things we have built and achieved would mean nothing if we did not have the time or space to think beyond that which meets the eye – if it weren’t for our ability to listen and to imagine. This Festival carries music in its heart. Unashamedly it celebrates the great Western classical tradition, not just because we love it, or because so many great musicians have a past or current association with Canberra’s School of Music. We have a Music Festival because the way we enjoy and make music remains one of the most potent, even wilful steps in the march of history. Its central tenet is the ability to create something out of nothing, and in doing so to explore uncharted territory. Hence Albert Einstein’s thoughtful frown and rigorously unkempt mane of hair gracing our posters this year. During his formative years leading up to the 1915 publication of the General Theory of Relativity, he saw more than any of his learned contemporaries did. Even amidst the ravages of war he still could imagine a greater world – a more peaceful world. Einstein too was a musician. Roland Peelman Artistic Director 2015 Canberra International Music Festival 3 Beethoven and the Piano Sonatas court musicians. Thus, even before travelling to Vienna, Beethoven was able to gain a considerable knowledge and mastery of the principles of composing in what we now call ‘sonata form’, a sophisticated way of constructing large-scale musical forms through the rhetorical coordination of melody and rhythm grounded in musical tonality – a sense of home ‘key’. Beethoven’s first piano sonatas, juvenilia for which the composer did not give an ‘opus number’, date from this time. His self-conscious coming-of-age as a composer would only hatever views we might hold about the begin in earnest when he travelled to Vienna in Wongoing significance of classical music 1792. The court in Bonn sponsored him to go in, and for, Australian society, we need have no there, as one patron famously put it, ‘to receive doubt about that of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770- Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands’; in the end 1827). He is one of the few composers whose he would not so much absorb their influences as completely transform them. In Vienna Beethoven image, basic biography and of course music is also began a career as a virtuoso pianist and widely known far beyond the concert hall. For brilliant improviser, and from 1795 his published classical musicians and music lovers alike, his compositions attracted increasingly favorable standing is colossal. If all Western Philosophy attention – among them his first ‘official’ piano is a footnote to Plato, all classical music since sonatas, the two that make up his Opus 2, both c.1800 is a footnote to Beethoven. To understand dedicated to Haydn. the reasons for this, we must consider both the music itself and the world that surrounded it. One way to understand how Beethoven’s composition developed from these two sonatas Unlike his older contemporaries, Mozart and across the 30 sonatas that followed is to map Haydn, Beethoven was a child of the French them onto the traditional ‘three periods’ division Revolution, and in the midst of those best and used both by scholars and biographers.