Concert 4
Sunday 22 October, 5:00 pm

<p>Kensington Town Hall<br>30 Bellair Street<br>Kensington</p>

Tickets

For tickets call Astra on (03) 9326 5424, or

October Revolution 1917

Marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution

Music and texts for solo voices, choir, pianos and percussion  by Hanns Eisler/ Bertolt Brecht / Maxim Gorky / Martin Friedel / Wolfgang Hufschmidt / Paul Dessau / Alexander Mosolov / Arthur Lourié

Concert Head: 

Hanns EislerBallads from The Mother (1931) - after Maxim Gorky’s novel of the 1905 Revolution in Russia
     Four Pieces Op.13 (1927) choir a cappella

Stefan WolpeChinese Epitaph 2 (1937)

Martin FriedelSongs for ‘The Measures Taken’ (1982/2017) - songs and choruses from Brecht's The Measures Taken

Wolfgang Hufschmidt, The Day Will Come (1986)

Alexander Mosolov, Arthur Lourié, solo piano works (1912 / 1915/ 1925)

The Astra Choir with soloists
Kim Bastin, Peter Dumsday and Joy Lee (pianos)
conducted by John McCaughey

After many commemorations for the centenary of World War I, this program focusses on the parallel seismic event of the Russian Revolution, with music from Germany, Russia and Australia. Themes reach back to the Paris Commune of the 19th century, the Russian Revolution 1905 and the aftermath in 1930s Germany. The  politically-engaged theatre of Bertolt Brecht finds  musical voices in works of his contemporary Hanns Eisler and the present-day Australian Martin Friedel. Also heard is some  remarkable music of Russian Futurist composers of the revolutionary era.