An Extraordinary Concert

Dot and I went to a live concert in our town-hall last night and came away thinking that it was one of the most unheralded and remarkable performances we’d ever heard. To start with, I'd never heard of either of the two pianists who performed duets most of the evening, both of whom I gather are Australian citizens. One was Elena Kats-Chernin, who was born in of all places, Tashkent, in what is now Uzbekistan. Given that she's now about 60 years old, she was a citizen of the Soviet Union, but somehow managed to escape and her English is excellent.  The other performer was Tamara-Anna Cislowska, who turns 40 this year, so we had two female pianists. Despite her name, Tamara appears to have been born here in Australia and has the unusual distinction of being the youngest person to have won the Australian Broadcasting Commission's (ABC's) 'Young Performer of the Year Award' when she was only 14 years old.

Well this duo were extraordinary people. Their techniques were flawless, indeed excitingly brilliant, as had to be the case for the avalanche of notes that they unleashed in works that almost seemed almost impossible to play. Both, throughout their careers, have won numerous awards for their virtuosity, including in Tamara's case two recent albums of the year ... and yet have not become household names, or at least not in the wilds of Armidale. Elena is not only an accomplished pianist, but also an established composer in just about every genre, something I didn't know either. And last night the program mostly contained her own works, apart from one or two items by some lesser composers like Schubert and Rachmaninoff! By the way I think the program got the latter's birth-date wrong so that he was born in 1973 and died in 1943, leaving me wondering how anyone can die at -40 years old. 

Anyway, Elena's music includes music for film, opera, ballet, adverts, popular genres, symphony orchestras and so on. Do my UK readers remember Lloyds TSB celebrated ad campaign 'For The Journey'? The music for that was Elena's. She wrote works played at the opening of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Recently, she premiered works with such unlikely titles as 'The Divorce', a TV Opera; 'The Witching Hour', a concerto for 8 double basses and orchestra; and 'Unsent Love Letters - Meditations on Erik Satie', just released on CD!

All this said, the town-hall was completely packed; the works were hugely complex and remarkable; and, at the end there were calls for encores twice! The audience was really enthusiastic and humming. I keep on asking myself ‘how can a small town like ours a long way from a large city put on such a stunning concert?’ I was so taken that I bought a double CD of works by Elena with most of the items involving two pianists – duets. Then I was surprised to discover that the CDs were produced by the Australia Broadcasting Corporation. Not only that, but of the 31 works on the CDs, no less than 14 were world premier recordings. Would anyone be interested in receiving the CDs as a present? Despite my enthusiasm for this pair, I suspect that I'm not going to be rushed with requests!

Anyway, here's a picture of the duo who wore highly creative clothing yesterday evening - but not here. Guess which is which.

AS