Acclaimed Australian recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey is set to astonish in this program celebrating the simple sweetness of birdsong, following its musical influence from Baroque to modern day.

Featuring

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Paul Kildea conductor
Genevieve Lacey recorder

Program

Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin) Bird of Paradise
Hollis Taylor / Jon Rose Absolute Bird: Concerto for recorder and orchestra
Rebel Les élémens
Vivaldi Concerto in C major for Flute (Recorder) and Orchestra

About the performance

• The Australian bush, brought to the stage
  Genevieve Lacey is particularly familiar with the idea of birdsong as a creative source, having recorded an entire album that uses the song of the pied butcherbird as its principal theme. Here Lacey performs a work by the same composer, Hollis Taylor’s Absolute BirdConcerto. A combination of found sound, field recordings and live music, it conjures up the unmistakable soundscape of the Australian bush.
• Birdsong across the ages
  Lacey tackles one of Vivaldi’s most fiendishly difficult yet effortlessly beautiful examples of birdsong, with his Concerto in C Major. Jean-Féry Rebel’s Les élémens astounds with attacking strings and evokes the flocking of birds as a chaotic dance. Also included is idiosyncratic contemporary American composer Moondog’s Bird of Paradise.
• An expert leader
  Conductor Paul Kildea has worked extensively across Australia and Europe, held artistic posts at the Aldeburgh and Perth festivals and is a former Artistic Director of London’s Wigmore Hall. After returning to Australia in 2017, he was appointed as the Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia.

Duration: approx. 60 minutes with no interval