Above: Koto in the spotlight- Satsuki Odamura performs at City Recital Hall.

In this latest tour for a trio of cello and koto virtuosi, Musica Viva continued this year of concerts with high production values as well as unique performance formats and rare instrumental combinations on the stage.

Cellists Jean-Guihen Queyras and James Morley teamed with the Director of the Koto Music Institute of Australia, Satsuki Odamura on an atmospherically lit stage. There was expressive use of spotlights, slow fade and full or partial  blackouts.

The three delighted the responsive audience  in a programme of music ranging from traditional solo dan-mono koto music, through Bach solo cello right through to a stunning new work with modern effects and manipulation on all three instruments.

The commission and performance of Jakub Jankowski’s Eclogue brought this concert and the world a remarkably apt and inimitable atmosphere for this combination of instruments.

Musica Viva concert series are standout in any year with regard to so many concerts featuring new Australian works in world premiere. Eclogue was a spellbinding moment at this event.

Its edge-of-the-seat soundscape formed an edgy pastorale for our times and fragile ecology, it added to the canon of works for this ensemble, showcasing and celebrated the artists, instruments and cultures curated for this concert.

An exciting concert thread in this event’s ecology was the chance to hear two cello suites from visiting cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. From Bach to Britten, his fluid interpretations of the solo cello music brought us gentle eloquence, sensible freedoms and a facile realisation of technical challenges so the emotion and intent shone joyously through the airy clarity of his interpretations.

The Bach Cello Suite No 1 in G major BWV 1007  opened the concert with the cellist in centre stage flooded in a single spotlight. His colleagues were seated beside him, waiting for the lighting to shift for their turn in the programme in the first half, where the works followed each other swiftly.

Above : Cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras performs using innovative string effects in one of the  World Premiere performances of Jakub Jankowski’s ‘Eclogue’ (2023) for celos and koto.

This well-known suite with six movements reached us with great emotional intensity, a successful individuality of shaping as well as some extremes preciously soft playing which even in this venue’s responsive acoustic, made us willingly strain to receive the delicate communication.

In his delivery of Britten’s first cello suite during the second half of the concert, Queyras once more delivered the sprawling set of nine movements  with adroit confidence and superb directness of utterance. Difficult technical passages were well measured in the delivery and at all times the modern effect and bravura did not obsure the composer’s narrative or expressive intent.

This formidable storytelling on the cello was cheeirly maintained when this cellist was joined by James Morley for a colourful rendering of Offenbach’s Duo for two cellos in B-flat major Op 53 No 1.

This was a beautifully balanced advertisement for this work, perhaps new to many of the audience. It contained superb dialogue exchanging and an exquisite playing of the central Adagio to make the listener crave a second hearing soon.

Above: (l-r) : James Morley, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Stsuki Odamura perform ‘Eclogue’ by Jakub Jankowski in world premiere.

A recording of this entire concert from the successful match of this trio and the fine works introduced would be a welcome one. This, the seventh concert of the national tour, was at least recorded for later broadcast by ABC Classic FM.

A definite treat during  this event was the versatile, profound music making on koto by satsuki Odamura. Her provision of some traditional seventeenth century Koto music – Midare by Yatsuhashi Kengyo- with perfect meditative control and scintillting articulation was rewardingly extended in the second half with a twentieth century treatment of the instrument by Robin Williamson.

The Letter fom a Stranger’s Childhood (1943) with its soft plucking by fingers alone and Western Music patterning with building of shapes demonstrated the success possible through cultural fusion and the skill of an exponent of the instrument.

In this substantial and thoughtful programme, all three exponents of string instruments regardless of cultural origin left us satisfied by their promotion of the possibilities of their instruments in solo and ensemble communication.

The creation and re-creation of expansive, thought-provoking vistas and a kaleidoscope of colour during established and the brand new work brought excitement, admiration and hope for a collaborative, innovative musical future.