Musical Adventures

 Qualia Ensemble

This is a husband (Lucas Levin, viola) and wife (Yi-Shing Cheng, piano) duo who have recently emigrated to Melbourne, with a background at the Royal Academy of Music, London.  They performed in Scots Church Russell St in a lunch time concert organised by Music Matinee.

The music played was very wide ranging from Bach and Hummel to Arvo Pärt.  At Frances suggestion we sat very close to the front so that it was possible to see Yi-shing's hands on the keyboard (when they weren't moving too fast for my eyes to track).  I especially like the minimalist Pärt work: as usual with this genre trying to work out the pattern and pick changes was very amusing.

Of course this also got us into the church which is very well presented.



After the performance we headed towards Big W for some retail therapy.  We walked down Little Bourke St (very heavily marketedas Chinatown.  We went into an Asian supermarket which was very reminiscent of similar places in SE Asia.  Coming up a side alley towards Lonsdale St this street portrait was very impressive.

Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (VCASS)

This was the Christmas special session for Music Matinee at the Scots Church.  The performers were students in years 6-9 of VCASS and performed in a variety of groups.  Mainly they were a choir, with some solo work, but for a few items subsets of the choir played instruments.  As might be expected they were very talented.  I wasn't too rapt in a couple of string pieces - but that is my view of those tunes not the performers.  Highlights were:
  • You'll never walk alone - thoughts of the Kop Choir in full voice were kindled (although the kids were better than the videos I found).  How would Barnesy go leading Bay 13 as someone flogged Collingwood at the G?
  • Cakewalk Smasher - An amazing piano piece by Percy Grainger played by Leonardo Hawco.  
  • Bohemian Rhapsody - the Queen song played by a piano trio .  A very clever arrangement with the instruments playing the different voices of the group.
  • One of the presenters commented about a version of Jessye's Carol - of Ms Norman singing in Ely Cathedral - available on line.  I really like her singing, but again I thought the kids did it better.
  • The version of Silent Night began with the choir singing in German and then a tiny boy soprano took over and did an excellent job.
Here are a few more snaps of parts of the church.


We headed back via the Chinese supermarket on Russell Street.  Then into Little Bourke St.   here we found attractive brickwork on a Chines (Christian) Church  ..
.. and an interesting building of unknown use next door.
After a foray into K-Mart where, despite the efforts of the store, we not only found the goods we sought but a functional checkout, we went for a look inside the Manchester Unity Building.


We then wandered towards the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) where the trees have been wrapped to promote an exhibition by Yayoi Kusama.

There were a couple of teasers available for free just inside the entrance.




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