CANBERRA International Musical Festival director Roland Peelman is probably used to hearing himself described as a one-man band, but he put the description into practice when he stepped up at the recent Bowral Autumn Music Festival to replace a whole brass ensemble.

When the expected Australian Brass Quintet pulled out of the opening concert on Thursday, March 24, because of covid, director Myee Clohessy was forced to cast around for a sudden replacement.

She contacted Sydney soprano, Amy Moore, who had performed at the festival last year and after some phoning around, Moore, with Peelman at the piano, opened the festival with music by Bernstein, Copland, De Falla and Poulenc.

I couldn’t get to Bowral until the final day, but was reliably informed that most  of the brass aficionados who had signed up for the initial program, stayed on for the Moore-Peelman performance, and applauded enthusiastically.

The opening program also included a two-day focus on education workshops for talented young musicians, one of Clohessy’s directorial points of focus.

In all, 11 artists withdrew because of the virus, but the following days proceeded very smoothly, with highlight performances on the Saturday by the Acacia Quartet, and legendary New York pianist Andrea Lam, with Ensemble Offspring’s children’s musical entertainment going ahead in the adjacent hall, so that the whole event looked seamless and pre-planned.

Sunday was to have begun with English organist Simon Nieminski performing music by Bach, Mozart and Rachmaninov, but he too succumbed, and was quickly replaced by youthful. organist Callum Knox from St James, King Street in Sydney.

An affable raconteur, Knox took us through his chosen repertoire of works by music by Dallier, Vierne, Bach, Sweelinck, Duruflé, Howells and Widor.

Although showing remarkable aptitude at the more delicate end of the new organ console at St Jude’s Bowral, where the festival was located, Knox’s forceful renditions of Herbert Howell’s Rhapsody number 3, intended to replicate a Zeppelin attack in World War I, and Charles-Marie Widor’s thunderous “Toccata from Cinquieme Symphonie” showed a different side to his playing.

One of the satisfying aspects of the weekend was a recital on the final day by the Highlands Music Collective, directed by Clohessy and featuring soloist Alexandra Donaldson, a clarinettist who has made her home in the region.

A select trio led by Donaldson performed Haydn’s Trio No. 2 in A Flat for clarinet violin and cello, while an expanded ensemble performed works by Respighi and Finzi to a packed house of local music lovers keen to see their own artists at work.

A  distinctive feature of this festival  is seen in the organ interludes, curated and often performed by of Allan Beavis, principal organist and director of classical music at the church and chair of the festival.

Fittingly, the festival concluded with  a very musical evensong, strongly supported by St Jude’s Chamber Choir and a string quartet.