Music with Aiko Goto and ACO musicians

A weekend listening to Australian Chamber Orchestra musicians is a weekend to appreciate.

On Saturday last Aiko Goto gave a violin recital with pianist Ian Munro. This is the third Goto solo recital I have heard and I think she only gets better. Not only is she a whizz on the violin, she is a little package of charm and much loved by her audiences.

Ex-convict prison: the marks where the stairs went up to
higher levels are visible on the end wall.

 Then on Sunday I attended a Mozart/Beethoven concert given by five ACO members in the former women's convict prison, now National Art School lecture theatre.

I studied there a few years back and heard a lot of lectures there but I never 'saw' the prisoners in my mind's eye as I did last Sunday. The building has massive sandstone walls and must have been a dark forbidding place when the internal walls were still there. They were removed and a new roof installed when the building was rescued from dereliction after WW2.

ACO musicians play Mozart

I hope the time/space warp makes it possible for lovely music to travel backwards and lighten the burden of the poor women who were incarcerated there. Theirs must have been a sad existence indeed.

A Tognetti/Leschenko treat

Battered sheet music waiting to be played.

The Polina Leschenko (piano) and Richard Tognetti (violin) concert at the Angel Place hall last week was a winner. They will play together in November this year at the Barbican in London and this was a sort of preliminary concert. After a marvelous Beethoven/Sculthorpe/Pärt/Brahms concert they played three encores, so lucky were we.

I was seated behind the musicians and couldn't help but notice that when Tognetti has room to move about the stage he gets on his surf board to play the energetic parts.  I couldn't resist drawing the surfboard into the little postcard sketch I made while they played.

Spring has sprung (at my place)

Azaleas

What a difference 5 days make in Sydney. Last week it was still cold enough to need a heater and warm jumpers then over the weekend spring arrived.  Flowers seemed to spring up overnight and bushes burst into blossom.

Every year people plant pansies and other spring flowers when it is wintry cold, then all at once the weather turns. Suddenly it is hot and the pansies wilt in the sun.

Last week there was barely a flower on my azalea hedge, but now it is overflowing with blossoms. Don't blink or you'll miss them.

Azalea hedge