With the magical sound of bird-song, Gareth Farr takes us to where music begins in his vivid rendering of spring in New Zealand. Mozart’s richly expressive Clarinet Quintet intimately mingles sorrow and comfort, while Beethoven discovers new joy in the thrilling, limitless invention of his ‘Harp’ Quartet.
Concerts & Events
The Music Performance Unit produces a variety of concerts and events throughout the year, including Australia Ensemble UNSW, Collegium Musicum Choir, UNSW Wind Symphony, Corde chamber choir, UNSW Orchestra, Composer Conversations and Cushion concerts.
Keep checking throughout the year as new events are added!
Dive into the matters of the heart and explore spirituality.
Join Collegium Musicum Choir and Corde for their first concert of the year.
Collegium Musicum Choir
Corde
Sonia Maddock, conductor and choral director
BRYSON The Field
GJEILO Northern Lights
GJEILO Unicornis Captivatur
LAURIDSEN O Magnum Mysterium
ELGAR Lux Aeterna
Reminisce the rich tapestry of music from around the world at UNSW Orchestra and Wind Symphony's first concert of the year!
A combined concert of UNSW Orchestra and UNSW Wind Symphony
UNSW Wind Symphony
Paul Vickers, conductor
CAPALDO Moreton Bay
DAUGHERTY Lost Vegas
GRAINGER Colonial Song
THOMAS A Mother of a Revolution
UNSW Orchestra
Dr. Steven Hillinger, conductor
So maybe Mozart didn’t write his Kegelstatt trio at the bowling alley, but he would have loved the earthy rhythmic power of the popular gumboot dances of South Africa that inspire David Bruce. Stuart Greenbaum depicts the cosmic dance of the northern aurora in a work of shimmering colour, contrasting with the lyrical drama and formal poise of Schumann’s Piano Quartet.
Imagining times past, Dvořák evokes the Balkan bagpipe with the accordion in his Bagatelles, where Piazzolla’s instrument depicts the sacred and profane moods of Buenos Aires, and Sofia Gubaidulina conjures sounds growing out of silence. Turina’s Circulo meditates on the rhythms of daily life, which are marked for Bloch by the set prayers of Jewish devotion, as Poulenc transfigures grief into beauty in his great Clarinet Sonata.
Music is so often a response to love: the pain of a failed affair suffuses Glinka’s unusually scored trio, while Carl Vine’s Strutt Sonata was commissioned to celebrate a long and happy marriage and Elena Kats-Chernin offers deep solace to a suffering child. Beethoven’s celebrated Septet pays loving homage to the fast-fading tradition of 18th-century chamber music for winds.