On 26 November Alice Rossi and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Geoffrey Paterson, performed Lisa Illean’s Cantor at Wigmore Hall, repeating the work at Birmingham’s CBSO Centre the following day.
The 15-minute piece for soprano and ensemble is a setting of Willa Cather’s April Twilights and has a crepuscular mood. Two main songs – Stirring and Closing – follow in the traditions of the aubade and nocturne, set at dawn and evening respectively. The text for the latter is littered with ‘n’ and ‘m’ phonemes, and its mormorando character sculpts a soothing, comforting vocal line. The soprano is embedded in a string quartet made up from violin, viola, cello, bass, joined by piano – played with soft mallets and toothbrush – percussion, flute, and clarinet. Illean writes,
Breathing sounds and gestures permeate Cantor, and recurring flaring patterns evoke glowing shafts of light. Cantor superimposes cycles of lines, waves or impulses…musically, the texture is like a tableau upon which the voice carves its line...Bearing solitude gracefully is a recurring theme: in atmosphere, Cantor is by turns desolate and intimate.
Premiered in 2017 by Ensemble Offspring, Jessica Aszodi and Roland Peelman at Sydney’s Carriageworks, Cantor was named Instrumental Work of the Year at the 2018 Australian Art Music Awards. BCMG previously gave the German premiere of the work at the Elbphilharmonie in 2019, with Rossi and Paterson; it has also appeared with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble at Taiwan International Festival of the Arts in 2019 and with Stroma ensemble in New Zealand.
On 25 October Illean’s music featured at Wigmore Hall, with the premiere of Sonata in ten parts – another work with a nocturnal atmosphere – from Cédric Tiberghien. The 19-minute work, commissioned by Wigmore Hall, is Illean’s first for solo piano to date and created to sit alongside and speak to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Each of its ten parts began as an improvisation on a pattern derived from a moment – often little more than a bar – in Beethoven’s set of 33 variations. Tiberghien will give the Australian premiere of the piece on 2 February 2025 at UKARIA Cultural Centre, Adelaide.