In the 65th year of Musica Viva, the International Concert Season is returning to Perth for 2010, bringing audiences some of the best musicians in the world, playing the best chamber music repertoire in the best way.

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But what is it that sets a season of chamber music performances apart from, say, an orchestral season?

Carl Vine, the artistic director of Musica Viva, describes chamber music as an inherently intimate form of conversation – a conversation between friends, between the performers and most importantly, between the musicians and their audiences.

‘It is a different experience than an orchestra or an opera because it’s a conversation, individual voices having the same conversation. There are some who love the orchestra, the sound wash, the massive sound effect, but you can lose the intimacy, and that’s what we have.’ He says.

The chamber music program may be seen as very specific and not of particular interest for those who are not widely familiar with the chamber style. However, Mr. Vine disagrees. He is a composer himself, with a background in contemporary music, and is widely acknowledged and recognized in that field. Even with his extensive background, being involved with Musica Viva has influenced him in the way he composes.

‘Musica Viva has introduced me to the 19th century music, something that up until I started had never really terribly interested me as a composer. Now that I’ve been forced to learn a lot about a lot I’d never done, it’s been very useful. For example, the way that Debussy and Ravel write for strings is remarkable, and has had an influence on how I write string quartets.’

The season this year includes international luminaries the Borodin Quartet, The Harp Consort, pianist Paul Lewis, the Pavel Haas Quartet, the violin and piano duo of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien and the Atos Trio.

While a choir may not fit in with the purists who assert that it’s just not chamber music, however audiences who attend in Perth have an added bonus with the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge performing.

‘The choir have two programs depending on the venue. In Perth we are very lucky that the choir can do their program with the pipe organ, which can’t be done for example in Melbourne or Sydney as the chamber venues have no grand organ.’

And for those who are still unsure of what a chamber music performance actually is – with the mention of the term ‘chamber music’ causing shuffling of feet and a reminder of that feeling at school when you got called up to speak when you hadn’t done your homework?

Well Chamber music is where for the ensemble member, there is nowhere to hide – everyone is performing to their highest level at every moment of the performance. And as that happens, the audience is drawn into a world where the music becomes its own universe and each individual talks directly to each musician, using only the music.

Mr. Vine likens each season to a feast – a diverse a season as possible – with every course in the feast having to be perfect of its type, and equally balanced across its entirety, something that the 2010 season promises to be.

David Gray