Ears Wide Open: Clara Schumann

PROGRAM

C. SCHUMANN Piano Concerto (excerpts)

Duration: 75 minutes with no interval

JEN WINLEY CONDUCTOR

Jen Winley is the Associate Conductor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Jen began her career in percussion and timpani working principally with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and regularly with Orchestra Victoria and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO). She then spent several years as a classroom music educator and loves being able to combine her passions for music and education when working with young people.

Jen made her professional conducting debut in 2020 with several orchestras in Perth including WASO and Perth Symphony Orchestra. Jen is a highly versatile conductor and enjoys working on a wide variety of projects. She has conducted WASO in mainstage concerts, Family, Education and Outreach projects, regional tours, Films in concert, and contemporary and recording projects. Jen is also proud to have conducted the WA Youth Orchestra since 2019. In 2023, Jen made her debut as conductor with West Australian Opera and Queensland Symphony Orchestra, in addition to continued conducting engagements with WASO. 2024 sees Jen make her debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and her subscription concert debut with WASO.

Outside of music, Jen loves learning French and planning her next trip to Paris, and is obsessed with her little schnoodle Luna that she shares with her partner, WASO cellist, Nick Metcalfe.

INGRID MARTIN PRESENTER

Ingrid Martin uses music to deepen compassion and human connection. As a conductor, curator, presenter and educator she dissolves barriers between musicians and audiences, and creates spaces for transformation and deep listening. In 2024 Ingrid leads performances with the Queensland, Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras in addition to her role as New Zealand Conductor in Residence working with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and Dunedin Symphony Orchestra. She is one of five participants in the 2023-2024 Australian Conducting Academy (ACA) Fellowship, conducting the eight professional orchestras in Australia.

Before her current success on the podium, Ingrid spent a decade training and working in emergency medicine while pursuing music on the side. As a doctor, Ingrid honed her ability to listen empathetically and decode complex concepts with her patients. Then she swapped her scrubs for a tuxedo. Now she uses her skills in communication and connection to demystify the world of classical music: from creating a sold-out orchestra show about the science behind the instruments for National Science Week to speaking from the podium about how and why classical music moves us.

AURA GO PIANO

Aura Go is an Australian pianist whose practice encompasses performance, collaboration, curation, education and artistic research. She performs across the globe, as soloist in concertos from J.S. Bach to Sofia Gubaidulina, as recitalist and chamber musician in programs that interweave old and new music, and as creative collaborator in the development of new music and multi-artform projects. With pianist Tomoe Kawabata, Aura is a member of the KIAZMA Piano Duo. Their CD Five Rocks in a Japanese Garden presents first recordings of duo work by significant Japanese composers. Aura also enjoys a collaboration with cellist Timo-Veikko Valve with whom she recorded the complete Beethoven cello sonatas, recently released on ABC Classics. In 2023 Aura toured nationally for Musica Viva as pianist-actor in Chopin’s Piano, a new stage adaptation of Paul Kildea’s book of the same name.

Aura is Head of Piano at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance, Monash University. She received her doctorate from the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, where her artistic research drew on the acting methodology of Michael Chekhov to explore embodied imaginative approaches to music performance.

QUICK FACTS

• Clara Schumann (née Wieck) began composing the Piano Concerto in 1834 and completed it in 1835, twelve days before her sixteenth birthday.

• It began as a single-movement Konzertsatz, which she orchestrated before being revised by Robert Schumann, her future husband.

• Clara then added two other movements and undid Robert’s revisions to produce the full Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.7

• Clara, a prodigious pianist, premiered the Concerto at a high-profile concert with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Felix Mendelssohn.

• The Concerto has been compared to Chopin’s piano concertos due to its virtuosity and lyricism.

GLOSSARY

Konzertsatz

German for ‘concert piece’

Display Episode

A section of music designed to show off a soloist’s skills

Polonaise

A Polish dance with three beats in the bar, popularised by pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin, a contemporary of Clara

Significant figures in Clara’s story

Clara Wieck, Friedrich Wieck, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms

Clara Wieck

Clara’s maiden name

Friedrich Wieck

Clara’s father and piano teacher

Robert Schumann

Clara’s husband, also a composer

Johannes Brahms

A close friend of both Clara and Robert

FORBIDDEN LOVE

See the MSO perform Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in full.

10–12 OCTOBER

Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall