Acclaimed Pianist Lisa Moore took the stage on Saturday night for Tura New Music presenting a intimate concert that was both intellectual and enjoyable.
Moore, who has been described by the New York Times as “Beautiful, impassioned..brilliant and searching” delivered a personal program titled ‘From Me to You’ that featured six distinctive works.
Starting off with the Philip Glass pieces ‘Metamorphosis I and IV’, which is some of Glass’ most personal and stark works, Moore performed their pieces to perfection. This straight piano piece was just to settle the audience in though, because after the opening number things became more challenging as Moore delivered his signature combination of piano, song and spoken word.
‘Intimacy and Resistance’ was a piece by American composer Ted Hearne featuring a text by poet Alison Carter, following this was a piece Moore herself wrote the text to, a world premiere of a piece by Australian composer William Gardiner that drew on letters written by young Irish girls sent t Australia during the famine. As the composer mentioned in his introduction, possibly Australia’s first ‘boat people’ – giving a deeper meaning to the work. The first half was rounded out with Martin Bresnick’s piece ‘Ishi’s Song’ which tackled the topic of native American languages dying out.
The second half opened up with Brett Dean’s comical piece ‘Equality’ which drew it’s text from the work of Michael Leunig. A comical piece that saw Moore having a lot of fun with it’s loud claim that “All Men Are Bastards!”
The highlight of the show was a 25 minute long piece ‘De Profundis’ by Frederic Rzewski. Utilising this content of a long letter Oscar Wilde wrote while he was imprisoned this confronting performance piece saw Moore slamming her hands across the keys of the piano to make loud discordant jabs of sound, loudly banging on the wood of the piano and lapping her thighs, cheeks and arms to make confronting sounds. Finally she began blowing a bicycle horn as the emotional horror of Wilde’s incarceration was vocalised.
The final number was a charming rendition of Randy Newman’s tune ‘I Think It’s Going to Rain Today’, Moore described the song as one of depressed optimism and her rendition made me eager to hear more of Newman’s work.
Tura New Music is a local organisation that promotes new work across a variety of different musical genres. Find out more about their upcoming events at their website.
Lisa Moore’s ‘From Me to You’ was presented at the Dolphin Theatre, University of Western Australia on Saturday August 9th, 2014 as part of Tura New Music’s Scale Variable Concert Series.
Graeme Watson, Image:i Matthew Fries
