THE new and the old combine in Port Fairy this weekend for the town’s 27th annual Spring Music Festival.
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New faces, new works, and new venues will be mixed with the familiar as the event embraces the theme of “re-invention”.
The first of the new venues – the Southcombe Park Stadium – will be put to use on Friday night for the gala opening, which will see Gunditjmara men Corey Theatre and Archie Roach combine for the new work Six Seasons, to be followed by Max Richter’s re-composition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
It’s part of what artistic director Iain Grandage calls “a strong indigenous stream running through the festival”.
“We have commissioned three new works from indigenous composers – Gunditjmara man Corey Theatre’s Six Seasons and two new works from Deborah Cheetham and William Barton for the Australian String Quartet,” Grandage said.
Roach will also launch his new album Let Love Rule on Saturday night.
Other highlights include:
- Cheetham, Katie Noonan and Meow Meow combine for Siren Songs
- Lost & Found Opera gives an “intimate" performance of La Voix Humaine at Seacombe House
- The Flinder String Quartet is joined by Ben Opie and Ben Martin for a program of Brahms and Britten
- Noonan and Zoe Black join Ensemble Liaison to perform Britten’s Les Illuminations
- Mondestrunken performs a program of Schubert, Schumann, Debussy and more
- Olivia Chindamo is joined by her father Joe and Ben Hanlon for an evening of jazz classics
- Meow Meow and Plexus reinvent the works of Schubert and Schumann
Eleven of the 24 concerts have already sold out.
The festival concludes on Sunday with a performance of a new operatic version of The Pied Piper featuring children from the two Port Fairy primary schools and the Port Fairy Spring Festival Chorus.
