If You Build it, They Will Come: Developing the Cultural Program

L–R: Lior (voice), Rebecca Lagos (percussion), Sophie Rowell (violin), Kirsty Hilton (violin), Christopher Moore (piano), Bernadette Harvey (piano), Catherine Hewgill (cello) and David Campbell (double bass) during UKARIA 24, September 2019. Photo: Dylan Henderson

perspective that allows us to think differently. She lives outside of Adelaide and that’s important as we never want to become parochial.’

Throughout the past five years, UKARIA’s approach to programming has been largely artist-led: an exceptional artist or ensemble is identified, and are then invited to put forward a program that fits within the parameters of the series. ‘At the centre of our approach is artistic freedom,’ Alison explains. ‘We don’t want to be prescriptive in terms of what repertoire an artist or ensemble should play. We are merely the catalyst – we inspire by giving freedom. This honours the importance of letting the artist create.’

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS

Our signature concert series, Sunday Afternoons, dates back to the Jurlique Herb Farm days. Showcasing outstanding national and international classical chamber ensembles and soloists, some of the highlights have included VOCES8, Trio Wanderer, Ksenija Sidorova (accordion), Paul Lewis (piano), Anthony Marwood (violin), Li-Wei Qin (cello), Amy Dickson (saxophone), Teddy Tahu Rhodes (baritone), Emma Kirkby (soprano) and Jakob Lindberg (lute), Nemanja Radulovic (violin), Piers Lane (piano) ´ and Steve Davislim (tenor).

The social aspect of conversing with fellow music lovers during the interval in a beautiful, rural environment is all part of the experience. ‘It’s the combination of intimacy, great acoustics, and the presence of nature that transports both artists and audiences,’ Alison says, reflecting on the success of the series. ‘The proximity between the artists and the audience creates a true exchange – there is a different energy that inspires the artists to engage and come alive in a different way, and express their humanity through music. It’s an energy that transcends genre.’

FOUR VOICES / JAZZ AT UKARIA

Following the success of the Sunday Afternoon series, it was logical to expand the program to include other genres. ‘A board member suggested we program some jazz, and through my connections I heard that Paul Grabowsky was playing with Kate Ceberano as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival,’ Alison recalls. ‘While he was in Adelaide, I offered to take him to UKARIA. I’ll never forget the moment he entered the hall – it was almost like he was in a trance. Our new Bösendorfer (then only a few months old) was sitting in the centre of the stage with the lid open, and it was calling to him. He sat down and began improvising. It had a profound effect on me – just the two of us in that space, with his response expressed through music. That experience marked the beginning of our friendship.’

‘I was lost in the moment, so rare is the discovery of a room that is itself such an expressive instrument,’ Paul later recalled. ‘What Ulrike has given us is a gift, a treasure, a cultural jewel, sure; any and every hyperbole stands up to examination. It is all of those things. But more importantly, it is an investment in our cultural present and future, an opportunity and a benchmark.’ ‘From that first meeting Paul had the idea of doing a series of concerts with four voices – just him and a great singer-songwriter,’ Alison recalls. ‘In 2017 he invited Lior, Vince Jones, Kate Ceberano and Megan Washington, and it was a triumph!’ A sequel series was added for the 2018 Season, which included collaborations with Deborah Conway, Lisa Gerrard, Paul Kelly and Archie Roach. The performance with Archie Roach was a particularly memorable one.

‘He [Archie] held the audience spellbound here; the spontaneously joyful and emotion-laden reaction that followed was electric, really as if a switch had been thrown, that his current had directly animated each person in the room,’ Paul recalls. ‘That night we had a long talk. We discussed the knowledge that he had picked up in his many travels around this nation, and around the world, especially from First Nations peoples: knowledge about country, ancestry, the interconnectedness of all things, and the importance of this knowledge at a time when we are increasingly concerned about the health of the planet.’ ‘Archie was looking at the splendid view from Twin Peaks, the stunning accommodation, indeed the icing on the UKARIA cake, that we musicians are fortunate to have at our disposal when performing here. He said he felt at peace here, that the country spoke to him, that here would be a good place, the right place, to write songs about that learning.’

In February 2019, Archie and Paul returned to UKARIA to spend a week in residence, distilling the wisdom of a lifetime into the simple immediacy of song. On Saturday 8 August 2020, their album Tell Me Why won ‘Album of the Year’ at the National Indigenous Music Awards. In the same week, Paul Kelly and Paul Grabowsky’s album Please Leave Your Light On – a direct continuation of their collaboration at UKARIA – reached number three on the ARIA charts.

‘Paul has had a profound impact on our program. He truly understands what UKARIA offers to the artist, and what we stand for,’ Alison explains. ‘That deep understanding inspired him to invite high-profile artists who usually play at much larger venues. He thought they would be enriched by the experience and convinced them to perform for us.’

UKARIA 24

In 1980, virtuoso violinist Gidon Kremer envisioned an annual chamber music festival where young musicians would have the opportunity to work with some of the world’s leading artists each summer in an intimate musical exchange. Artists would perform free of charge, and programs would only be announced forty-eight hours before the given concert, written out by hand on butcher’s paper. The result was the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival – what Kremer described as ‘the realisation of my dreams’, ‘a gathering of friends who want to make music with friends for friends’.

In 2016 Alison and Ulrike travelled to Austria to experience the magic that is Lockenhaus. ‘The format at Lockenhaus really inspired us, but we wanted a weekend – not a festival – where an exceptional artist was given the freedom to create,’ Alison explains. Each year, the canvas is wiped clean as a new artist is invited to curate. They’re given the freedom to invite an eclectic array of friends into a dialogue across four or five concerts that offers an intrinsic distillation of their artistic vision.

‘The criteria in selecting the curator is that it must be a musician of the highest calibre,’ Alison says. ‘Finding an artist who challenges, pushes the boundaries, takes risks, inspires, and continually strives for artistic enlightenment, is a balance between creativity and trust. Audiences have come to trust our choices and we

must feel confident about the artist in which we place that trust.’

Genevieve Lacey curated the first UKARIA 24 weekend on 23–24 April 2016. The inaugural two-day event saw Genevieve team up with the Young Adelaide Voices, harpist Marshall McGuire, guitarist Karin Schaupp, cellist Umberto Clerici, jazz trumpeter Phil Slater, and writer Chloe Hooper to perform five concerts over two days that chronicled light’s metamorphosis through sound.

L–R: Young Adelaide Voices, Phil Slater (trumpet), Umberto Clerici (cello), Genevieve Lacey (recorder), Christie Anderson (conductor), Karin Schaupp (guitar), Marshall McGuire (harp) and Chloe Hooper during Ngeringa 24, April 2016. Photo: Christopher Morrison

‘Her themes were around time and light and she planned a cycle of one-hour concerts within a period of twenty-four hours,’ Alison explains. ‘While we were thinking of a name, our graphic designer put Ngeringa 24 (our then name) down as placeholder text. When we thought about it, we decided it was the perfect description: it’s timeless and even though subsequent events have been over a longer period, the name is now synonymous with what has become our flagship event.’ In 2017, Scottish classical accordion virtuoso James Crabb curated the second UKARIA 24. The music of Ástor Piazzolla and Osvaldo Golijov framed a disparate journey from the Baroque sonatas of Scarlatti to a contemporary tour de force by Sofia Gubaidulina in a weekend celebrating the Argentinean Tango Nuevo. The following year, the stakes were raised even higher.

‘After attending our first Lockenhaus in 2016, we dreamed of having its Artistic Director, Nicolas Altstaedt, curate,’ Alison recalls. ‘We knew that would never happen by simply approaching his agent. We had to find a way to meet him in person. After a great deal of persistence, he agreed to have lunch with us in Berlin. We knew he loved Australia, so maybe that’s why he agreed to meet. But it was only through this exchange of ideas where we could talk about our aspirations for UKARIA and he could tell us about his dreams that we established a rapport. By the end of that lunch he wanted to curate for us and although it was very challenging to find time in his schedule, he made it a priority to come for one week in June 2018. He would have never agreed to do it if he was motivated by money or prestige.’

Nicolas brought with him Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, British violist Lawrence Power, and Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin – artists who live and breathe chamber music in its purest form. Writing in The Australian, Graham Strahle described the weekend as ‘breathtaking in its originality and unabating sense of discovery.’ Nicolas’s performances of the first and fifth Cello Suites of Johann Sebastian Bach with solo dancers from Australian Dance Theatre were described as ‘the summit of artistry’.

‘Working alongside the curator is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job: some of them have programming experience, while others have never curated a weekend before,’ Alison says. ‘I’m there to encourage, nurture, guide and facilitate as needed.’

When it was time to choose the next curator, oboist Diana Doherty was at the top of Alison’s list. Some months before, Diana had given a spectacular performance of the chamber version of Spirit of the Wild by Nigel Westlake at UKARIA. ‘At first, Diana was slightly reticent to accept the invitation as she’d never done anything like it before,’ Alison recalls. ‘But she had the courage to take it on and she rose magnificently to the challenge.’

Highlights of her weekend included special tributes to author Tim Winton and composer Nigel Westlake – creative minds who have both made immeasurable contributions toward our sense of national identity. For the very first time, UKARIA’s concert hall was transformed into a cabaret club, with guests enjoying a three-course meal while Lior, Julie Oguey and Paul Hankinson performed French chanson, cabaret classics, and selections from their own songbooks with string accompaniment in an unforgettably intimate exchange between artists and audience.

In 2021, celebrated British violist Lawrence Power will curate UKARIA 24, with international guests including Simon Crawford-Phillips (piano) and Torleif Thedéen (cello).

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL

Each March, a leading Australian artist is invited by the Adelaide Festival to curate Chamber Landscapes – a four-day long weekend of concerts featuring a variety of national and international artists. Past curators have included Anna Goldsworthy (2017), Iain Grandage (2018), Genevieve Lacey (2019), and Marshall McGuire (2020). Some of the highlights have included a performance of Schubert’s Winterreise by Steve Davislim and Anthony Romaniuk, and a twilight recital from the great Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.

Since 2018, Chamber Landscapes has offered a guided sunset experience at Twin Peaks. Musicians are stationed at various points along a walking trail, and the experience culminates with a performance atop the smaller summit as the sun melts into the horizon and the sky turns to flame.

WOMEN OF SONG

‘UKARIA was the first place I played off the back of an exhausting few weeks in Tel Aviv as a finalist in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. There was something so refreshing about this gorgeous little theatre, its state-of-the-art acoustics and luxury accommodation. Rejuvenated by the company of my closest musical friends, I could be myself here in a way I couldn’t with millions of people watching.’

– Kate Miller-Heidke In 2019 beloved Australian composer Iain Grandage curated Women of Song, a unique series of collaborations with some of Australia’s finest female singersongwriters. Iain accompanied each artist on cello and piano, and made new arrangements of many of their most popular songs, allowing their art to speak with unprecedented intimacy.

‘These are creative artists at the peak of their powers, able to compose songs that distil complex ideas into radiant truths, and able to deliver them with immense heart and effortless brilliance,’ Iain wrote in the 2019 brochure. Missy Higgins opened the series, followed by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall, Emma Donovan, and Meow Meow. In 2020 Kate Miller-Heidke was invited to curate the next iteration of the series.

MORNINGS WITH THE AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET

In 2010 UKARIA embarked on one of the most significant philanthropic projects in Australia’s musical history – the acquisition of a unique quartet of stringed instruments crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1711–1786). Often referred to as the last of the great master luthiers, Guadagnini’s instruments are among the most prized in the world, in company with those of Stradivarius and Guarneri del Gesù. Currently on loan to the Australian String Quartet, this matched set of instruments is held in trust by UKARIA and made available to Australian musicians in perpetuity.

The instruments included in the collection are:

1784 Guadagnini Violin (Turin)

1748–9 Guadagnini Violin (Piacenza)

1783 Guadagnini Viola (Turin)

c. 1743 Guadagnini Cello ‘Ngeringa’ (Piacenza) The exquisite sound of these instruments can be heard four times a year on Friday mornings in the popular series Mornings with the Australian String Quartet. Some of the greatest works in the chamber music repertoire are often paired with premieres of new works by Australian composers.

SPECIAL EVENTS

UKARIA has been privileged to host the Australian debuts of some of the leading international artists and ensembles of our time. On Saturday 1 December 2018 five-time Grammy Award winner Dawn Upshaw (soprano) was joined by Tamara-Anna Cislowska (piano) and Nicole Divall (viola). Presented in partnership with ABC Classic, the concert was a unique milestone in our history.

In 2014 New York’s Carnegie Hall secured the internationally celebrated Quatuor Ébène six years in advance to perform the complete Beethoven String Quartet cycle in 2020, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This invitation engendered the idea of playing Beethoven around the world across five continents and eighteen countries, at venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and London’s Wigmore Hall. Miraculously, the tour also brought them to Australia for the very first time, where they performed at just two venues: the Melbourne Recital Centre, and the UKARIA Cultural Centre. ‘String quartets have always been a great passion of mine,’ Ulrike says. ‘To have Quatuor Ébène at UKARIA has been a dream since I first heard them live at Verbier Festival in 2016. When I started the Jurlique Herb Farm Concert Series in the mid-1990s, I could never have imagined that artists of this calibre would someday be passing through our doors. As each year goes by, it becomes more and more apparent that this is a magical place.’