4 stars
This year, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra finished the season with a long tour of Victoria and New South Wales. Being December, the program is features some Christmas Carol favourites but also a unique musical twist. This is a review of one of the concerts at City Recital Hall, Angel Place in Sydney Australia, December 2025.
Featured artists for the tour are concert solo guitarist Andrew Blanch and his real life partner mezzo-soprano María Eugenia Neiva. Blanch has become a great favourite with Australian audiences. He is the consummate professional, continually building on his technique, diversifying his repertoire and honing his stagecraft. Now one of the leading classical guitarists in the country, Blanch has been a prizewinner in more than 10 international guitar competitions and is a founding member of the Australian Guitar Quartet with the Grigoryan brothers and Vladimir Gorbach. You may remember his amazing album “Suite Mágica” released with harpist Emily Granger last year which has since attracted over 1.5 million streams online.
His choice of music reflected the recent tour he made of the US with Neiva. Their works drew on the strong flavours of Spanish music and songs from the 1500s up to modern, contemporary composers. Renaissance classics, inspired by Hespèrion XXI, were accompanied by theorbo, double bass and percussion. The crowd loved his version of “Leyenda” from “Asturias” by Albéniz. This has been previously arranged for full orchestra. With the cut back version used for the tour there were parts of the arrangement that worked very well (arr. Stefan Maiorana & Alex Palmer) and others that sounded a little muddy. These parts may have needed more visual leadership which was difficult without a conductor downstage.
Neiva has completed extensive studies in her homeland Argentina in a range of singing styles, performance work, conducting for choir and pedagogue. She is a striking woman with expressive face and hands. Her unique tilt of the gait adds a sexy sway to her presentation. The tone of her mezzo-soprano voice is rich with strong, clear notes and very little vibrato well suited to the early music. She delivered her songs with absolute faith in herself and very quickly became the darling of the concert. The songs again varied from 16th Century early music to a fierce, traditional Spanish piece Riú Riú Chiú featuring Satan as a wolf and the Virgin Mary as the lamb. This felt a little odd for a celebration of Christmas. The Devil appeared again in Ciaccona di Paradiso e d’Inferno (Chaconne of Heaven and Hell).
Wrapped in a shawl she crooned de Falla’s lullaby “Nana”. The Brandenburg choir joined Neiva for the hauntingly beautiful “El Noi de la Mare”, a traditional song made popular in more recent times by Arianna Savall on her album with Petter Upland Johansen. (Arianna is Jordi Savall’s daughter.) The audience were delighted with both guest artists. We would enjoy seeing their return to join this pared down version of the orchestra in the future.
Artistic Director, Paul Dyer, was his consistently sparkly self dressed in a green velvet jacket. He entertained the audience with on-the-road stories at the beginning of the concert which raised some chuckles. Why don’t we hear more of these stories? We usually get to enjoy the end result without truly appreciating the big picture of all that is involved in production and travel required to get there. Perhaps that’s an idea they can work on for their 40th?
Dyer drew attention to two of his longest standing musicians of 36 years: viola player Monique O’Dea plus Principal Theorbo/guitarist Tommie Andersson who had chosen this tour to complete his time with the orchestra. The audience offered him much appreciation at the close of the concert. What a tremendous effort and great loyalty which is, nowadays, so very rare. Thank you, Tommie, for your many thousands of hours of commitment to the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
The Brandenburg Choir did very well considering the wide range of genres in the program. This included syncopated clapping, performing a cappella and often working without a leader out front. “Ding Dong! Merrily on High” in the vocal version (the original instrumental version was included later on) was directed to be performed at break neck speed which resulted in a slightly untidy audio. The musicians also suffered in a few places with the same issue. However, the Christmas Carols closing the concert were a lovely tempi.
All around the writer, audience members were quietly singing to themselves during the carols. They were really begging to join in. Perhaps permission to join a song or two in the future would satisfy the craving.
Lighting design by Peter Rubie offered a superb array of subtle and cosy colour combinations based around vertical fairy lights and a collection of downward pointing 7 pointed stars. Smoke was used to enhance the lighting. Unfortunately, the chemical smell made some nauseous as it was constantly pumped through the auditorium, leaking out into the foyer areas of the ground floor. Ideally it would be used without the chemical smell. If a smell must be there, then what about a pine needle essential oil to add to the Christmas spirit? Might as well have the audience leave healthy as well as happy.
Over all, the full house was pleased with the concert. The Spanish component lead by Neiva and Blanch made for an interesting variation on a regular Christmas theme.
Inclusion of the Christmas Carols gave much needed, deep satisfaction. In the commercial world outside the Recital Hall, Christmas now seems to deliberately steer clear of it’s original story for fear of offending someone. It was lovely to get back to our roots and to remember that the vast majority of us strongly desire “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all Mankind”.
Thank you to the artists, production crew and management of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Your contribution to the Arts in Australia is so very much appreciated. We look forward to seeing you again in the new year.
Related links
What’s on next year with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra? https://www.brandenburg.com.au/
Guitarist Andrew Blanch: https://www.andrewblanch.com/#homepage-andrew-blanch-about
Mezzo Soprano María Eugenia Neiva: https://mariaeugenianieva.com/
