Canberra International Music Festival

The history of music is full of talented siblings.

We may never know what happened to Bach’s daughters, and we know little of what became of Mozart’s prodigiously talented sister Nannerl once she disappeared into married domesticity. But we do know that Fanny Mendelssohn was as gifted a musician as her brother Felix and that their personal bond remained equally strong until the end. It is Fanny’s untimely death in 1848 that prompted the dramatic outpouring of Felix’s string quartet op 80, his sixth and last.

The fate of the sisters Boulanger is well documented. The elder of the two, Nadia, living well into her nineties taught composers from Gershwin to Glass, whereas her younger sister Lili died at the age of 24, her creative potential largely unfulfilled.

Closer to home, the Wesley-Smith twins, Peter and Martin, with a genetically shared knack for words and wit, used Lewis Carroll’s double persona as a source of inspiration. They left us countless songs and music theatre works such as Boojum!, first performed at the 1984 Adelaide Festival in front of the Queen, or the searingly satiric  Doublethink.  Brother Jack is Martin’s four-hand piano take on the old French round ‘Frère Jacques’.

Flora and Theo Carbo, two young musicians out of the Melbourne jazz scene, surprised us all at the 2022 festival. They are jointly creating a new quartet for this sibling occasion.

PROGRAMME

Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn, Four Songs op 8

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, String Quartet op 80

-Interval-

Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Two Songs

Martin Wesley-Smith, Brother Jack

Martin Wesley-Smith, Three Songs from Boojum! 

Flora and Theo Carbo, new work (WP)

ARTISTS

Quatuor Van Kuijk

Edward and Stephanie Neeman, piano

Susannah Lawergren, soprano

Anna Fraser, soprano

Luminescence Chamber Singers

Roland Peelman, piano

Theo Carbo, electric guitar

Flora Carbo, saxophone

Katie Yap, viola