Live Review: Dark Mofo: Sophie Hutchings

Trying to describe Sophie Hutchings' music is like trying to put a waterfall into words — it is beautiful, inspiring, soothing and meditative, but these are only adjectives that attempt to pin down a description. Words fall short of summing up the elegant complexity of the ripples of music that filled the Federation Concert Hall as part of Hobart's Dark Mofo festival.

Describing the work as neo-classical, new-age, ambient or instrumental really doesn't do it justice, and the pianist and composer — who took up the microphone at brief intervals throughout the concert, resplendent in a shimmering green-and-gold top — edged us closer towards the name of a suitable genre when she described her word as "hypnogogic", an attempt to capture the transitory state just before sleep. She felt nothing, she said, when she created it; this was deliberate, as she wanted to create from this nothing state, and it was only later that she attached feelings towards her pieces. Likewise, she encouraged her audience to just listen, to "not have any words, not thinking, just feeling," and surrender themselves to the music.

Having recently returned from a triumphant European tour, Hutchings played several pieces from her third album, 2016's Wide Asleep, plus two from her latest album, Yonder — Always and The Road. All were masterful and technically brilliant, as were the performances from the two strings players that accompanied her on the stage, acclaimed cellist Peter Hollo (FourPlay, Neil Gaiman) and violinist Jay Kong (The Vines, Youth Group), who earned their share of the applause. For a couple of the pieces, Hutchings added some dreamy electronic sounds to add an extra layer of ethereal beauty and sophistication to the music.

Hutchings' worldwide fan base continues to grow, as was testified by the queue of people who clustered around her after the gig, eager to chat and take home autographed recordings of her work. With international appeal and admirers on all continents of the globe, her addition to the Dark Mofo line-up ensures that supporters of her sublime work will blossom locally too — as well they should.