Ensemble Q, one of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s (QPAC) Company’s in Residence has this week locked in its 2024 concert season, featuring a trio of thematic concerts throughout the coming 12 months.
The season commences on Sunday 14 April 2024 with The Trout, highlighting five quintets by composers Schubert, Reicha, Beach, Skipworth, and Glazunov. This concert, themed around the number five, will showcase varied instrumentation and culminate with Schubert’s renowned Trout Quintet.
The second concert, Boots & All, scheduled for Sunday 4 August 2024, promises an exploration of folk influences in classical music, traversing centuries and various nations. It will feature folk-inspired music from Ireland, America, Japan, Italy, Sardinia, and Norway, offering a globally encompassing experience. UK soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is set to perform Berio’s Folksongs, complemented by the music of Australian composer Melody Eötvös.
The season will conclude with Frankenstein!! & The Goose’s Mum on Sunday, 3 November 2024. This family-friendly concert will feature HK Gruber’s Frankenstein!!, a whimsical piece for baritone, chansonnier, and ensemble. The program also includes Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre, and Bolcome’s Poltergeist for String Quartet.
Ensemble Q’s Co-Artistic Director, Trish Dean, expressed their delight in presenting this diverse and dynamic program:
Following on from our visually based series in 2023, we have curated three concerts that explore different aspects of thematic programming. Our first concert embraces the concept of simply having five performers on stage in quintet formation and illustrates the incredibly diverse soundscapes that can be created by combining a single wind instrument with string quartet.
The program will be beautiful and entertaining – from Reicha’s virtuosic work for the bassoon, American composer Amy Beach’s deeply reflective and pictorial work for flute and strings, Glazunov’s dreamy Idyll for horn and strings, and Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth’s fantastically atmospheric Clarinet Quintet. Of course, it’s all tied together by the piece that was voted Australia’s favourite chamber work on the ABC Classic hit list just a couple of years ago, Schubert’s Trout Quintet.
In Boots & All we welcome back UK based soprano Lotte Betts-Dean for a performance of Berio’s Folksongs. Lotte has the perfect voice and energy for these songs, and the fascinating instrumentation of viola, cello, harp, flute, clarinet and percussion really creates a global sound world that allows the songs to shine. We’re also delighted to showcase the music of incredible Australian composer, Melody Eötvös
HK Gruber’s Frankenstein!! takes centre stage in the final concert of the year and we can’t imagine anyone better than Jason Barry-Smith for the role of the chansonnier. In this fun but furiously virtuosic work we are required to play kazoos, slide whistles, harmonicas and whirly instruments that are something like tuned pool cleaner tubing. Jason is absolutely brilliant in this role dressed up like a scientist, singing about little mice and running around the stage doing Superman impersonations – it will be a load of fun. This will be a concert for people who simply love being entertained by brilliant music played by the best musicians.
Paul Dean, Ensemble Q’s other co-director, shared that the company had gone from strength to strength, with the plan for 2024 to be no exception:
We are excited to be presenting our three-part QPAC series in reverse mode again. It’s become one of the highlights of my year to be able to talk directly to everyone in the audience and feel such a powerfully positive response.
We’re absolutely thrilled to welcome three new musicians into the fold – Sophie Rowell and Christopher Moore, both from Melbourne, and Emily Granger who moved to Brisbane this year. Sophie is an incredible violinist, Artistic Director of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and a former leader of the Australian String Quartet. Christopher is Principal viola of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and for ten years toured the world as Principal viola in the ACO and Emily is an American harpist who has played all over the world including with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has just accepted the role of Principal harp with the QSO.
We can’t wait to share our exciting 2024 QPAC concerts with new and current audiences.
Ensemble Q’s growth and acclaim are further evidenced by their upcoming national tour with William Barton for Musica Viva and international invitations to tour Portugal and Spain.
Do any of these three productions sound interesting? Contact the QPAC Box Office on 136 246, or visit the QPAC Website for more information.
