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The Australian Recorder Project | La Follia
October 15, 2023 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm AEDT
The Australian Recorder Project presents La Follia, a thrilling concert of recorder music from the Baroque period at Robert Knox Hall, Gosford on Sunday 15 October, 2pm.
The Australian Recorder Project – recorder virtuosi and early music experts Central Coast Conservatorium teacher Jo Arnott and Senior Lecturer in Music at UNE, Dr Alana Blackburn – specialises in early and contemporary music for recorders. They are being joined by harpsichordist Anthony Abouhamad.
La Follia is a unique program that provides exciting music from the Baroque period. From Roman noblewomen to vivacious dances the program demonstrates virtuosic repertoire from the height of the European baroque period. The recorder is often underestimated when it comes to centre stage. This performance ignites curiosities from all audiences, making way for new approaches to early music performance.
Having commissioned several composers, the Australian Recorder Project has performed in Sydney, Canberra and regional NSW including the Sydney Vivid Festival. Education is one of the ARP’s central goals in their performance, promoting the instrument, demonstrating new performance techniques, or enlightening early music.
About Jo Arnott
Joanne Arnott is one of Australia’s leading recorder players and has a deep love for all things early music – baroque, renaissance and medieval. She also loves to explore and perform modern music with different electronic mediums including fixed media and live electronics.Jo is currently learning to work with Ableton Live software to create new music for recorders of all sizes, some inspired by the recorder’s early music tradition and some with the goal of exploring modern recorders and their capabilities within a duo setting.
Jo is passionate about spreading a deeper understanding and knowledge about the beauty of the recorder’s sound as well as its versatile capabilities in the context of modern music. She performs to metropolitan and regional audiences throughout Australia and teaches recorder and other wind instruments at the Central Coast Conservatorium of Music.
About Alana Blackburn
A highly regarded recorder player performing as a soloist and ensemble musician throughout Australia, New Zealand and Europe; Alana has performed with a number of ensembles including The Royal Wind Music, The New Dutch Academy, Salut! Baroque, The Bell Shakespeare Company, Pinchgut Opera, The Sydney Consort, The Tall Poppeas and The Sydneian Bach Choir.
As a soloist, she has performed concerti with The Early Music Ensemble of the Sydney Conservatorium, The Manly-Warringah Symphony Orchestra, Coro Innominata and The Bourbaki Ensemble; she has also teamed up with other Australian artists Rosalind Halton (Harpsichord), Riley Lee (Shakuhachi), Neal Peres da Costa & Daniel Yeadon (continuo), Ben Carey (sound technologist), and commissioned a number of composers, exploring the use of recorders and electronics in performance.
A graduate of both Sydney and Amsterdam Conservatories, she performs both early and contemporary music, and has performed in some of the world’s greatest recital and concert halls including; the Sydney Opera House, Wigmore Hall (UK), Amsterdam Concertgebouw (NL), and Konzerthaus Berlin (GR), appeared on six CDs, and performed live on radio broadcast in Australia, New Zealand, Germany and The Netherlands.
In addition to performance, Alana combines arts management with creative practice, investigating the internal and external influences on artist careers and ensembles.
About Anthony Abouhamad
Anthony grew up in Western Sydney, where he first began taking piano lessons at the age of 7. His main musical interests centre on eighteenth-century historical performance practices, and he is particularly fascinated by Italian chamber music as well as sacred music by Austrian composers.
In 2021, Anthony earned his PhD in musicology from the University of Sydney where he currently teaches theory and historical performance subjects. Prior to his doctoral research, Anthony studied the harpsichord and fortepiano at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
In addition to his teaching activities, Anthony enjoys being a part of Australia’s classical musical scene. Alongside engagements with symphony orchestras in the country’s state capitals, he regularly performs with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and the Australian Haydn Ensemble. In 2016, Anthony co-founded the Muffat Collective with violinist Matthew Greco; after years of performing together since their undergraduate years, the pair were inspired to share their love of baroque music with Sydney audiences.
Tickets $55, concs $45.
Bookings: www.trybooking.com/1120247
