IT’S been too long since we’ve heard from Canberra New Music Ensemble. 

Now one of its founders, Canberra pianist, Margaret Legge-Wilkinson, plans to perform a selection of Shostakovich’s “intimately expressive” Preludes and Fugues at the NGA on Sunday.

Composed in 1950-51 during a period of extreme repression of the arts in the former Soviet Union, she points out, the Preludes and Fugues convey “an intense and diverse kaleidoscope of moods and emotions from the comic to the satirical, the mournful to the sublime.”

No doubt this can in part be put down to the facts that at that time, performances and broadcasts of his music were banned.  The Preludes and Fugues are widely considered to be among Shostakovich’s most intimately expressive works.

Legge-Wilkinson is a graduate of the Canberra School of Music. After post-graduate studies in the performance of contemporary music at the Amsterdam Conservatorium, Margaret returned home toCanberrato establish Canberra New Music Ensemble in 1987. She has given many local and international premieres of works by Australian and international composers.

Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 performed by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson,    piano, at the James O Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery ofAustralia, 3pm, Sunday, December 2, Tickets at the door.