A shower of stars fell to the land below. A project led and imagined for a long time by soprano Katie Noonan, the Australian Vocal Ensemble (AVÉ) presents four of Australia’s finest soloists with, in addition to Noonan, mezzo-soprano Fiona Campbell, tenor Andrew Goodwin and bass-baritone Andrew O’Connor. For its first album, the ensemble highlights composers and composers native to the state of Queensland in an assembly of original commissioned pieces highlighting the texts of Australian national poet David Malouf. Each of the pieces opens a window towards different musical universes, ostensibly tonal, but full of contrasts with varied stylistic treatments where the text and the melody each have their importance without supplanting or erasing the other. The only stylistic exception to the content of the album, the Bach chorale Drum so lasst uns immerda (Cantata BWV 115) is nevertheless imbued with the unique mark of AVÉ by being presented both in the original German language, but also in a translation into three Aboriginal languages (Gubbi Gubbi, Gadigal and Noongar): a gesture which is not insignificant and which fits with the desire to highlight the presence and importance of first peoples in the music of Australia.
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