Music / Bowral Autumn Music Festival. March 23-26. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

WHAT’S not to like about this festival? Glorious music performed by top professionals, autumn leaves falling and the ambience of St Jude’s Church in Bowral.

I caught five of the seven concerts on the way home from “Madama Butterfly” on Sydney Harbour and was struck by the notable Canberra component of the festival, although I missed flautist Sally Walker on the Friday night.

The festival, led by artistic director, the violinist Myee Clohessey, covered an impressive repertoire, but one of its main focuses was on original Australian music, with works by Canberra’s Sally Greenaway as featured festival composer, Southern Highlands composer Andrew Ford and Elena Kat Chernin.

On Saturday morning, Canberra’s Luminescence Chamber Singers, with crystal-clear articulation, performed Alice Chance’s ode to wine, followed by Ford’s “Between Birds” to words by Canberra poet Merlinda Bobis, Greenaway’s own choral work, “If I Could (Have Given You a Note)” with lyrics by Canberra poet Sarah Rice,” Yangaa” by Yuin composer Brenda Gifford, and “I hear you sing to me” by Canberra jazz artist Jess Green.

Then, as the opening highlight of an afternoon “Floreat” [flourish] concert by young local musicians, Southern Highlands pianist Sienna Hagan played the world première of a composition by Greenaway.

The final concert in the festival opened with Greenaway’s first piano trio, “Le Parc Monceau”, a gentle Monet-like pictorial piece commissioned by Canberra musical identities Margaret and Michael Tatchell to mark their 50th wedding anniversary.

That was matched by “Ways of Enchantment”, also relating to marriage, commissioned from Kats-Chernin as a gift from Dr Stephen Barnett for his cellist wife Catherine Barnett (cellist with the Southern Highlands Music Collective) on the occasion of their silver wedding anniversary.

Clohessey’s mind was plainly on young musicians, for in two of the concerts she announced that an inaugural scholarship gifted by Dr Timothy Pascoe in memory of his late wife Ewa would go to Cedar-Rose Newman, who later joined the Southern Highlands Music Collective to play the solo violin part in Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires”. This was a breathtakingly virtuosic performance, so it was no surprise to find that Newman is already studying at the Manhattan School of Music.

The central part of the festival featured a varied organ recital by Albury musician James Flores, exploring all the different moods of the St Jude’s instrument. Flores also played opening preludes to the concerts each night, including the playful “Cat Suite” by Canadian Denis Bedard, written in memory of his cat.

When it came to programming, however, the centrepiece of the festival was the Saturday night concert by Dave Elton on trumpet, Scott Kinmont on trombone and Vatche Jambazian on piano. Their sumptuous program ranged through the “Schwanengesang” [swansong] songs by Schubert, a contemporary fandango by Joseph Turrin, concluding with a showy “Carmen Fantasy.”

Giving the lie to the notion that there is no humour in music, they had the audience and particularly the kids in stitches at times. Pianist Jambazian gave a fiery performance as he joined in the conversation between trumpet and trombone.

This was a case study in how to program a concert.