The picturesque Victorian town of Port Fairy will once again ring out with the sounds of fine music this October when the annual Port Fairy Spring Music Festival returns boasting a 30-event strong line-up featuring more than 50 performers to please event-goers over three days.
The Spring Music Festival offers a truly broad scope of things to see and hear, too, with Artistic Director and musician Anna Goldsworthy describing the work of bringing together the program as "a great joy". Featured this year are works that encompass the musical canon — Beethoven, Bach, Mahler, Messiaen, Vivaldi, Janacek, Schubert and others — as well as tribute show Remembering Sculthorpe, in honour of Australian composer and festival patron Peter Sculthorpe.
"It was a great joy to draw together a program celebrating visionary music throughout the ages: the forward-looking, the innovative, and the revolutionary," Goldsworthy said in a statement.
"The festival's program encapsulates my artistic view, of the critical nexus between tradition and renewal that lies at the heart of our practice."
Goldsworthy herself lends her talents to the program, having written a show for Michael Griffiths in which he explores the songs of Cole Porter. Also ready to be experienced are Robyn Archer and band, who take on the Great American Songbook; Smoke-Encrypted Whispers, a musical response to the poems of Samuel Wagan Watson; an improvised soundtrack for a silent film; "the mystical and vividly coloured sonatas" of Alexander Scriabin, as brought to life by eight festival pianists; the winners of the Mietta Song Competition performing Mahler and Messiaen; Press Play's collaboration with artist Angela Cavalieri; and the spontaneous grooves of multi-instrumentalist Adam Page Late Night.
This year's Port Fairy Spring Music Festival will run from Friday 9 October through Sunday 11 October at various venues throughout Port Fairy. For booking information, see the event website.
