THE concert marked the second year of entrepreneurial guitarist Matt Withers’ Australian Music Composition Competition. 

He has cleverly found sponsorship to offer three cash prizes for works written for classical guitar and three prize-winning compositions were given their first public hearing. All three of these works were a musical response to an impressionistic painting of a forest which was also the inspiration for to another work commissioned from composer Robert Davidson, also the Competition’s judge. The remainder of the performance was a selection of other, mostly, more familiar works.

The recital was held in Margaret Whitlam Pavilion at the Arboretum with spectacular views of the city framing Withers as he played, although the wind whistling under the doors was slightly disconcerting. The concert opened with two standards of the Spanish guitar repertoire, “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Francisco Tarrega and “Asturias” by Issac Albeniz. The Tarrega is known for its challenging right hand tremolo work and may not have been the best selection as an opening work. Any slight imprecision was erased by a spirited performance of the Albeniz and two tasty latin-jazz arrangements of Broadway standards by Lourindo Almeida.

This brought us to the first of the competition winning compositions. “Forest” by Mitchell Newton, awarded third place was, at first hearing, disappointing. It seems mostly unrelated musical snippets, some of which sounded like blowflies. The second prize went to “a l’aube” (at dawn) by Kirsten Milenko and was more interesting with some sense of development through the work. The first prize was awarded to James Mountain for “Between Tall Trees”. This took much more advantage of the possibilities of the guitar and its tonal characteristics. It is worthwhile noting that all three of these composers are under 25 years old and will surely have interesting careers ahead of them.

Robert Davidson’s reaction to the painting (also titled “Forest”) showed what a more experienced composer can do writing for the guitar. There was even a melody or two. The final two works were a pretty arrangement of a couple of folk-songs and a sprightly ‘Tango en Skai” by Roland Dyens. This ‘non-dancing‘ tango was perhaps the most interesting piece of the concert. I suspect it is quite technically challenging and a fine way to end a well played and considered performance which mixed standard repertoire and new work in an intriguing manner.