73. Main Evening Concert

This intriguing recital created by mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean and composer and violist Brett Dean has many parts beginning with Caroline Shaw’s setting of the anonymous 12th Century troubadour text that she wrote for Ann Sofie von Otter and Brooklyn Rider. Katie Noonan’s Song of Hope with a text by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Queenslander and First Nation icon is joined by Kate Bush’s The Man with the Child in his Eyes. The second set is a group of early 20th Century songs for voice, viola and piano. Deirdre Gribbin’s lockdown work for solo double bass provides an interlude before Ivor Gurney’s recently discovered setting of Thomas Hardy’s In the Black Winter Morning. Before the famous Brahms two songs with viola, Lotte will sing her father’s cycle of five poems and prayers by the Australian poet Michael Leunig. A fascinating and moving recital.