Frances Gall – Castlemaine Chamber Players

Concerts 2023

Bringing Female Composers to the Fore

Saturday 29th April, 7.30pm
Northern Arts Hotel
359 Barker St, Castlemaine
Tickets $25 full, $20 concession
Bookings https://differentsounds.eventbrite.com.au/

This concert features composers Rebecca Clarke, Andrea Keeble, Elena Kats-Chernin and arrangers Sasha Bronshtein and Wendy Rowlands.

Find out why Rebecca Clarke from the early 20th century should have had more recognition in her lifetime. Her music is romantic and melodious with harmonies and textures with modern harmonies and textures.

Be delighted by Andrea Keeble‘s quirky sound portraits of her family. Andrea Keeble is a Melbourne violinist and composer who creates a unique sound world, lilting and heartfelt. She plays in Cosmo Cosmolino (gypsy-inspired music), Collider (jazz sextet) and Ad Hoc Collective (improvisation concert group). She has released two CDs of her compositions, ‘Congratulations’ and ‘Teeter’.

Swoon to Sasha Bronshtein and Wendy Rowland‘s arrangements of Latin music and screen soundtracks. Sasha is familiar to Castlemaine audiences as the first violinist in the Chamber Players. She’s also a wonderful singer currently exploring Brazilian music. Wendy Rowlands from Castlemaine is the artistic director of Corker Orchestra, Mainesong Choir and Brazazul.

Elena Kats-Chernin is a prolific Australian composer, famous for her ballet music for Wild Swans. She has written film scores, ballet and theatre music and won several music composition prizes.

Emma Wade is co-director of Resonance String Orchestra and composes and arranges music for Resonance.

Chamber Music in Creswick

Beethoven and Shostakovich for string quartet

Saturday 26th August, 2.30pm
Creswick Woolen Mills, Railway Pde, Creswick

Shostakovich, String Quartet No.8, 1960
Beethoven, String Quartet Opus 59, No.2 in E minor, 1805-6

Castlemaine Chamber Players takes you on an emotional journey with their passionate performance of these masterworks.

Beethoven and Shostakovich each wrote 15 or more quartets, and these are from the middle period of both composers’ careers.

Beethoven’s Opus 59 Rasumovsky quartets were written in 1805, around the time of his third symphony, the Eroica. You’ll hear the symphonic influence in this quartet.

Shostakovich’s Opus 8 quartet, with poignant personal slow movements and a furious driving fast Allegro, was written in only three days. Dedicated to the victims of Fascism and war, it’s autobiographical, with quotes from earlier works, and his musical signature as the theme, D-Eb-C-B.

2020 News

Opening for Flinders Quartet’s
Collins St series

On Tuesday 3 March 2020 CCP was honoured to feature in the pre concert, playing a movement of Brahms String Quartet No.3 in Bb. The Collins St Baptist Church with its wonderful acoustics was a joy to play in, and hearing the performance by the Flinders Quartet of Derek Brookes music inspired by Haiku poetry expanded our horizons.

Mt Buller summer school

Castlemaine Chamber Players performing at a cocktail concert

In 2020 the famous Mt Buller Chamber Music Summer School was held at Candlebark Farm, Healesville, due to the bushfire risk at Mt Buller. It was simultaneously hard work and loads of fun. We played chamber music for hours every day, taking masterclasses with outstanding Australian and New Zealand string players, playing in concerts for our peers and receiving feedback.

We had masterclasses with outstanding musicians and then rehearsed intensively, finding ever-increasing intimacy and warmth in our sound. This year’s six tutors were unfailingly helpful.

Wilma Smith, violin, co-artistic director – Wilma and Friends; Flinders Quartet
Elinor Lea, violin, co-artistic director – Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
Gillian Ansell, viola – New Zealand String Quartet
Michael Dahlenberg, cello – Melbourne Chamber Orchestra
Tobias Lea, viola – Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Anna Pokorny, cello – Freelance player with Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony

Concerts 2022

Heaven & Earth

Beethoven and Shostakovich for string quartet

Beethoven, String Quartet Opus 59, No.1 in F major, 1805-6
Shostakovich, String Quartet No.8, 1960

Concert #1

Saturday
3rd September, 2.30pm
Mulberry Manse
8 Roses Lane, Clunes
www.trybooking.com/CBMSD

Concert #2

Friday
23rd September, 7.30pm
Northern Arts Hotel
359 Barker St, Castlemaine
heaven-earth.eventbrite.com.au

Castlemaine Chamber Players takes you on an emotional journey with their passionate performance of these masterworks.

Beethoven and Shostakovich each wrote 15 or more quartets, and these are from the middle period of both composers’ careers.

Beethoven’s Opus 59 Rasumovsky quartets were written in 1805, around the time of his third symphony, the Eroica. You’ll hear the symphonic influence in this quartet.

The Castlemaine Chamber Players are Sasha Bronstein and Heather Cummins, violin, Frances Gall, viola and Elisabeth Anderson, cello. The majority live in Castlemaine, where they have given several concerts, and now look forward to playing in Clunes as well as Castlemaine this year.

The group was formed in 2014 and performs a wide range of music for string quartet and other string ensembles. Previous concerts with guest performers featured Mozart’s quintets and the two string sextets by Brahms. They also like performing contemporary Australian compositions, and have commissioned music by Castlemaine composer Wendy Rowlands.

Review

“It was a joy and a privilege to hear Castlemaine Chamber Players perform Brahms’ Sextets 1 and 2, both in just over a month. Yesterday I found myself immersed often in that lush, complex, entwined, melodious and moving ‘Brahms sound’, with you all barely a few metres away!
I’d blink and find myself in Romsey. Rather stunning actually.”

– Ruth Williams, Cope-Williams Concert, Romsey

Contact details

frances@twofold.com.au

Send an email to Frances to be added to the email list and be informed when concert tickets go on sale.

phone: 0414 878 071

snail mail: PO Box 415
Castlemaine Victoria 3450

Concert in 2019

On Saturday 25th May at Buda the Chamber Players performed one of Brahms’ string quartets and several contemporary Australian works.

We continued our obsession with Brahms’ chamber music, this time playing his String Quartet in B flat, Opus 67. This is a mature work in four movements overflowing with melodies, rich harmonies and rhythmic invention.

This contrasted with contemporary compositions by Australian composers. We played Eliza’s Aria and Blue Rose by Elena Kats-Chernin, Reggie’s Quartet by Andrea Keeble, and a new arrangement of Besame Mucho, composed especially for us by Wendy Rowlands.

Castlemaine Concert

Saturday 19th May, 2018 – 7.30pm

The Garden Room of Buda Historic House, 42 Hunter St, Castlemaine.

Castlemaine Chamber Players performed Mozart’s String Quintet in C.
This is one of Mozart’s two-viola quintets, and joining the Chamber Players was violist Olivia Forsberg from Melbourne. The program also included ‘Un poco allegretto’ by Brahms from his second string quintet, a romantic piece in both senses of the word, based on the Viennese waltz. The concert took place in Buda’s Garden Room and was well-attended despite clashing with the Royal wedding!

The Chamber Players enjoyed demonstrating the results of their January attendance at the Mt Buller Chamber Music Summer School, where they worked intensively with players from the Merlin Ensemble of Brisbane as well as Caroline Henbest, viola, and Patrick Murphy, cello.

This concert followed the Chamber Players’ previous performance of Mozart’s Quintet in G minor. Both quintets were composed in Mozart’s late period, within a few months of each other in 1787. They are major works by Mozart, each with four exquisite contrasting movements that demonstrate Mozart’s mastery of the chamber music form.

Autumn House Concert

Sunday 21st May, 2017
Two performances – 3pm & 7pm
2 Edward St. Castlemaine

Chamber music in the drawing room of one of Castlemaine’s historic homes. The Players warm strings and versatility in performance of the amazing Mozart string quintet in G minor, a Tango or Two, and songs of Gershwin and Berlin, sung by Sasha Bronshtein with quartet accompaniment.

These concerts supported the Players attendance at the Mt Buller Chamber Music Summer School.