TEAM OF PIANISTS

Tickets are selling fast for next weekend's C & C Rigg Bequest recital at the National Trust's historic house Como, in South Yarra, Melbourne.

The Hollywood Connection at Como House & Garden
Sunday April 21, 2024 at 2:00pm and at 4.30pm

Vivien Hamilton - mezzo-soprano, Josephine Vains - cello, and Robert Chamberlain - piano, will perfom a fascinating "Hollywood program" with major works by André Previn (1929 - 2019) as the centrepiece.

Previn's musical career began in Hollywood at age 18, arranging and composing film scores during the golden age of the Hollywood studios. As his interest in Classical music grew, he moved onto the concert hall stage, to a major international career as an orchestral conductor and as a jazz and classical performer, collaborating world-wide with the top musicians and orchestras. His popular autobiography No Minor Chords: My Days in Hollywood (1991) as well as comedy skits with English comedians Morecombe and Wise (1971) brought his name beyond the world of purely Classical music.

	André Previn (1929 - 2019) & Toni Morrison (1931- 2019)

Previn's Four Songs for Soprano, Cello, and Piano (1994) are settings of four poems by American novelist, editor and poet Toni Morrison (1931 - 2019), who in 1993 became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Presented from a woman's perspective, the themes in these texts range from how the media views starvation, blood and misfortune in settings such as Ethiopia (in Mercy), to poetry based on an old blues song Rocks in my bed and inspired by the singing style of blues singer Bessie Smith (in the jazz- influenced Stones). These works for voice, cello and piano bridge the Classical and Jazz worlds - they are particularly admired by performers and enjoyed by audiences!

The Hollywood Connection at Como also features Previn's hauntingly beautiful Vocalise, composed in a mere two hours at Tanglewood in 1995 for American soprano Sylvia McNair and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, plus the upbeat show-tune I Said Good Morning to the Sun, which Previn wrote for a 1955 Hollywood film musical It's Always Fair Weather. You'll also hear fabulous works by other composers with a connection to Hollywood: Erich Korngold - Four Shakespeare Songs Op. 31, Leonard Bernstein, Nino Rota, George Gershwin and Australian composer Luke Severn's When the world was young... (2018). See full program details here.

With this concert you will glimpse also the privileged lifestyle of the former occupants of this stunning National Trust mansion in South Yarra, as well as enjoy interval refreshments on the Eastern Verandah, served by the Friends of the Team of Pianists.

There is limited seating capacity at the Como Ballroom - just five tickets remain for the 2.00pm recital while the 4.30pm performance has more seats available - so do book soon!

Sunday April 21, 2024 at 2:00pm or at 4.30pm

The Ballroom (inside main house)
Como House & Garden
Corner of Williams Road & Lechlade Aveneue,
South Yarra, VIC, 3141

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Do join us for this next Autumn concert in the C & C Rigg Bequest Classic Music in Historic Venues Series 2023 - 2024!