Arts in the Valley, Kangaroo Valley’s multi-arts festival, announces their music season for 2023 with performers including Aria award winning artist Katie Noonan and Canberra’s International Music Festival director Roland Peelman. Arts in the Valley, a community led arts organisation, will present three concerts in the Kangaroo Valley Hall and two intimate house music concerts at a private residence in Bellawongarah.
“We are delighted to offer such a musically varied program for 2023” said Greg See, Musical Director at Arts in the Valley. “We have been able to offer occasional concerts through the Covid and flood years but are thrilled to put on such a musical feast in 2023. We are especially keen to hear the new work we have commissioned from Robert Constable to be played by the Acacia Quartet.”
Leading the 2023 music program on Thursday 20 April will be Josie & the Emeralds, a critically acclaimed chamber group performing The French Connection. A performance from medieval to modern, tracing the evolution of French courtly music from the early chanson of the Renaissance to the grand opera of the High Baroque. The program features virtuosic works for solo and duo bass viols by Marin Marais and Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, as well as compositions by Josie & the Emeralds Artistic Director Brooke Green.
Arts in the Valley’s signature Concert Weekend will be held on the Mother’s Day weekend of 13 and 14 May. There will be two intimate Hausmusik concerts, and one concert in the Kangaroo Valley Hall. Notturno, a trio consisting of Melissa Farrow (flute) Karina Schmitz (viola) and Simon Martyn-Ellis (period guitar) will present the first Hausmusik concert at 11am on Saturday 13 May with music from the early romantic period. The second Hausmusik concert at 11am on Sunday 14 May features Roland Peelman (piano) and Lisa Stewart (violin) playing the Debussy sonata for violin and piano and pieces from Moya Henderson, Elena Kats-Chernin, Margaret Sutherland and Ralph Vaughan-Williams (The Lark Ascending). The highlight of the Concert Weekend in the Kangaroo Valley Hall will be the Acacia Quartet concert on Saturday 13 May at 5pm. They will be playing Beethoven’s ‘Harp’ Quartet and a new quartet by Kangaroo Valley resident composer Robert Constable commissioned by Arts in the Valley. Acacia will then be joined by Roland Peelman on piano for the Schumann Piano Quintet.
The 2023 music season concludes with a final Kangaroo Valley Hall concert from AVÉ the Australian Vocal Ensemble, presented in association with Musica Viva Australia, at 5pm on Saturday 7 October. AVÉ is the recently formed Australian Vocal Ensemble consisting of artists of international excellence – Katie Noonan (Artistic Director and soprano, QLD), Fiona Campbell (mezzo-soprano, WA), Andrew Goodwin (tenor, NSW) and Andrew O’Connor (bass-baritone, NSW). The ensemble explores extraordinary vocal music from the late Renaissance and Baroque era alongside new Australian works and featuring an engagement with our First Nations People.
Arts in the Valley’s 2023 music season tickets and individual performance tickets are available via their website artsinthevalley.net.au/music
Natalie Harker
Manager, Arts in the Valley