By Matt Romania
An extraordinary concert featuring musicians with vast classic music experience, such as performing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, will celebrate journeys – literal, metaphorical, and musical.
The upcoming concert will bring classical music from grand stages like Hamer Hall to the heart of the Ballan community on Sunday 3 December.
The event features musicians Miranda Brockman (cello), Elise Millman (bassoon), and Wendy Clarke (flute), as well as Kenji Fujimura (piano/composer), who will perform music from the likes of Elgar, Schubert, Faure, Martinu and more.
For Ballan resident Ms Brockman, it’s about community connection.
“I’ve spent so many of my years playing in Hamer Hall in Melbourne, up on a stage separate from my community. This is about playing with my own community and that has a whole intimate dimension,” she told the Moorabool News.
At the core of this event is the blending of unusual instrumental combinations.
“There’s no music written for this combination… [it] gives us a lot of opportunity to highlight each instrument,” Ms Brockman said.
The event approach is unique. Rather than whole works, there will be featured movements from classical pieces, “making a program that is much more diverse and easier to relate to”.
“We’re exploring the journey within a piece of music and the audience will be led through love, grief, and the effervescent energy of life itself, encapsulated in a musical format designed to engage and enlighten.”
Each piece will be framed with introductions and talking throughout the show, offering the audience a map to navigate the rich emotional and historical performance.
“Classical music tradition is so diverse, so rich, so inspired,” Ms Brockman said.
The aim of the event is to present classical music not as an alien genre but as something already woven into the everyday, something locals have often encountered without necessarily realising it, in films and adverts.
“People will find they do know snippets of the big symphonies because they’re famous like Beethoven.
The concert will also bring a specially commissioned work by pianist and composer, Kenji that celebrates journeys through, around and within Ballan.
Ms Brockman encourages everyone to come and celebrate through music, “the many journeys we travel as human beings from train rides to adventures of love and passion.”
Tickets are available at https://www.trybooking.com/CJUDB and children under 18 are welcome for free.
