Mini-Festival of Classical Music

An afternoon of classical music. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon—listening to classical music as you sip your favourite aperitif—and take in the sunset over beautiful Lake Tuggeranong.

Hear some of Canberra’s finest up and coming young musicians in the opening concert (3:30–4:30pm) followed by the main concert (5.00pm) featuring the celebrated New England Ensemble and guests performing a program of classical favourites including Saint-Saëns’ delightfully witty Carnival of the Animals.

3:30pm – Rising Young Stars
Get into the mood with an hour of beautiful music performed by outstanding young musicians from the ANU School of Music including various combinations of harp, guitar, oboe, soprano, tuba and piano. The Program includes:

Dussek: Harp Sonata in C minor; Watkins: Fire Dance; Debussy Clair de lune
- Ella Ryan - Solo Harp

Dyens: Saudade No 3; Mangore: El Ultimo Tremolo
- Shane Campbell - Solo Guitar

Chopin: Variations in E Major; Miramontes: Duo for Oboe and Harp
- Zoe Loxley Slump - Oboe, Ella Ryan - Harp

Marcello: Sonata No 5 in C Major
- Robin Hall - Tuba, Xiaodan Zhu – Piano

5:00pm – Carnival of the Animals featuring the New England Ensemble and guests

A truly captivating program of classical favourites for music lovers and the whole family, the centerpiece of this concert is Camille Saint-Saëns’ ever popular Carnival of the Animals. Saint-Saëns’ witty musical portraits of the various animals (and humans) will be accompanied by narration of Ogden Nash’s highly amusing, tongue in cheek poems in this version for strings and duo pianists.

In addition, Debussy’s delightful Petite Suite will be played in the seldom heard piano quintet version, as well as selections from Schubert’s Trout Quintet and more. Echoing the Tuggeranong Centre’s CONTRA theme for this year—the contrabass features throughout the program.

Artists performing in the feature concert:

The New England Ensemble
The acclaimed New England Ensemble was Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of New England from 1975 to 1982 during which time it performed throughout Australia and the world, broadcasting for major radio networks including the BBC London, Sender Freies Berlin, Suisse Romande, NHK Japan, Singapore Radio and Television and many others. They commissioned and premiered many new works from Australian and international composers and released a number of successful commercial recordings.

Andrew Lorenz (violin), Robert Harris (viola), Janis Laurs (cello) and Wendy Lorenz (piano) were ambassadors for the New England region and UNE and forged a very loyal and supportive concert audience wherever they performed. The group has recently re-formed and are very much enjoying working together after pursuing highly successful individual careers during the intervening years.

And special guests Dorit Herskovits, contrabass and Edward Neeman, piano.