Kowmung 2005

The 9 th Kowmung Festival was held, as usual, during the last two weekends in March. The first weekend saw a successful transition from the flagship venue of many years, the Middle Creek Cattle Shed near Oberon, to the nearby Shearing Shed, which remains the property of Peter and Alison Dickson, our hosts over many years. The Festival Opening Night on Saturday 19 March featured J S Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 5 with violinist Eva Gruesser, flautist Elizabeth Pring and pianist Susanne Powell as soloists and Rohan Smith (violin), Philippa Paige (violin), Anne-Louise Comerford (viola) and Isabelle Chouinard (cello) as Tutti. Music by young Australian composers Georges Lentz and Paul Stanhope followed, before the night concluded with Ernö Dohnányi's impressive Quintet for Piano and Strings No 1, composed when Dohnányi was only eighteen.

The centrepiece of An Afternoon of Music & Theatre on Sunday 20 March was William Walton's Façade , setting Edith Sitwell's whimsical poems to music. It featured narrators Ken Healey (a frequent performer at Kowmung during the past few years) and Karen Vickery (shown performing on the second photo). Ken's interval talk on the piece was a successful innovation, attended by the vast majority of the audience.

Ken and Karen were accompanied by a group of distinguished musicians under Rohan Smith's baton (Tim Nankervis cello, Libby Pring flute, Peter Jenkin clarinet, Andrew Evans trumpet, Margery Smith alto sax, and Daryl Pratt percussion). Daryl himself performed his brand-new composition Water Settings with fellow percussionist Alison Eddington. Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Martinu's Kitchen Revue rounded off the afternoon.

The new venue provided even better possibilities for a wonderful picnic meal in the best Kowmung tradition, while listening to Ken Healey's very entertaining description of Façade .

The venue for the second Kowmung weekend was also new: no less than a large festival tent at the Headwaters of the Kowmung River , which gave the festival its name! Little more than half an hour's drive from Oberon, it provided a wonderful setting for the Twilight Concert on Saturday 26 March, featuring Mozart's Serenade No 11 for eight wind instruments (Diana Doherty and Alexandre Oguey oboes, Peter Jenkin and Christopher Tingay clarinets, Doug Eyre and Andrew Barnes bassoons, and Anton Schroeder and Saul Lewis horns). The oboes and the horns in rehearsal are from left: Saul, Anton, Alexandre and Diana.

The other compositions, Benjamin Britten's Sinfonietta (Opus 1, 1932), Schoenberg's Transfigured Night and Dvorak's Serenade for Ten Wind Instruments, Cello and Bass were all chosen to provide the greatest impact in the magic twilight setting of the concert.

The Easter Sunday Jazz Picnic on 27 March concluded the 9 th Kowmung Music Festival. It featured Sweet Freedom with famous saxophonist Sandy Evans and her instrumental ensemble (Jonathan Pease vocals and guitar, Chris Abrahams piano and organ, Hamish Stuart drums and Jonathan Zwartz bass). Last but not least ‘our very own Aretha Franklin', Tina Harrod, is a member of Sweet Freedom providing an added dimension with her fine singing spanning across soul, blues, gospel and jazz.

It was a delight to be present at the second Kowmung concert featuring Sandy Evans, who first delighted the audience with another group of well-known jazz musicians at the 2003 festival.