The Opening of a Cultural Icon

‘Astonishing both visually and acoustically … one of Australia’s finest chamber music venues.’

– The Australian

On Saturday 29 August 2015, the UKARIA Cultural Centre officially opened to the public. An inaugural concert featuring performances by the Australian String Quartet and other nationally revered artists was prefaced by a welcome from Ulrike Klein AO and the then South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill. UKARIA (then Ngeringa Arts) also commissioned Australian composer Matthew Hindson to compose a new work to celebrate the occasion.

Hindson’s String Quartet No. 3 Ngeringa was completed in early 2015, and is comprised of four sections. ‘The first depicts the landscape seen from Mount Barker, which overlooks the current site of the Centre,’ Hindson writes. ‘A place of significance to its traditional custodians since long before European settlement, from its summit one sees an ancient landscape stretching back towards the Adelaide Hills, or in the opposite direction across very flat and dry terrain.’

‘The second section is built around the idea of the new housing developments continually moving out from town centres. This has both positive and negative implications: people need to live somewhere and many choose to live in new suburbs that are developed in landscapes that have stood essentially unchanged for eons. But this development also means that new facilities, such as the UKARIA Cultural Centre, are needed: sites of beauty in amongst the urban sprawl.’

‘The third section is based upon “The Idea”, the burgeoning of creative thoughts in making new art. It also celebrates the need for a symbol of creative achievement and the vision of a space for its realisation, such as a new concert hall.’ ‘The final section is inspired by notions of construction and realisation – the process of putting a creative idea into practice, and making it a reality. It expresses the idealistic hope that such an achievement will make a positive difference to people’s lives.’

The concert began with the world premiere of Hindson’s work, after which harpist Marshall McGuire joined the Australian String Quartet in the Arafura Dances of Ross Edwards. Marshall then performed the beloved Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, followed by Paul Dean’s As Long As You Learn Something New Every Day. Violinist Harry Bennetts gave a stunningly beautiful performance of Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, before Lawrence Lee (violin) played the Fantaisie for Harp and Violin by Saint-Saëns. The concert concluded with Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, with Geoffrey Collins (flute) and Paul Dean (clarinet) joining Marshall and the Australian String Quartet.

In a review for The Australian, music critic Graham Strahle praised the detail and care taken with the design and acoustics, describing UKARIA as the best venue he had yet encountered for small chamber ensembles.

‘The 200-seat auditorium is designed to a level of sophistication that one normally finds only in leading European centres’, he wrote. ‘Helped by rammed earth and timber interior surfaces and a tall domed timber ceiling, the air felt alive with sound, and the timbres of instruments came across with extraordinary clarity. The effect was to put a lens up close to each performance, which in turn seemed to inspire the players to give their best.’ ‘When I stepped inside the concert hall for the first time, I just felt overwhelmed,’ Ulrike says. ‘There was an absolute sense of awe. There was just so much beauty there, and I realised that concert hall was an instrument in itself. Of course there was a lot of pride and fulfilment, but it’s very hard to put the journey of that becoming a reality into words. So many aspects came together, and so many people were part of it. It’s something that almost happened beyond me – something that created itself. Dreams do come true sometimes, but often in unimaginable ways.’