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.