Matthew Hindson’s elegiac string quartet work Nothing is Forever (2018) made its US debut at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, La Jolla, on 24 April. It appeared as part of an education programme for children bringing together music, movement, and visual art, created with the La Jolla Music Society as part of their ConRAD Kids series, with live, improvised dance and student-created artwork and poetry adding a multi-sensory element to the performance – an apt reminder of Hindson’s significance as a composer for dance.
The 6-minute work, originally written for the Australian Chamber Orchestra in a version for string orchestra, is a tender, soothing work, built around an melancholy, sighing melodic figure in A minor. It featured as part of the Goldner String Quartet’s valedictory 2024 tour, including in their final concert at the Sydney Conservatorium. Their violist Irena Morozova described the significance of the piece to her in Limelight:
The title says it all, really…It’s an important one for me because it was written for the Hush Music Foundation, which has made lots of recordings specifically for people in hospital and healthcare environments, and we were directly involved with two of their projects. From my own experience as a parent, I know how much music helps in pain and stress management.
The work, in its string orchestra guise, will also appear with the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Madeleine Easton in Wollongong on 20 September. The free community concert sees it appear alongside music by Honegger, Corelli and Peter Warlock.