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WA’s Wind Quintet Plus steps in for Musica Viva at Perth Concert Hall as tours falter amid Delta lockdowns

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David CusworthThe West Australian
Wind Quintet Plus are Joanne Littlely (bassoon), Paul Tanner (percussion), Wendy Tait (horn), Stephanie Nicholls (oboe), Catherine Cahill (clarinet), and Diane Riddell (flute).
Camera IconWind Quintet Plus are Joanne Littlely (bassoon), Paul Tanner (percussion), Wendy Tait (horn), Stephanie Nicholls (oboe), Catherine Cahill (clarinet), and Diane Riddell (flute). Credit: Nik Babic

With national tours disrupted again, WA’s Wind Quintet Plus steps in for Musica Viva at Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday with a global tour of musical styles.

The six-piece group replaces Queensland-based Ensemble Q, whose itinerary ran into the latest COVID lockdowns.

“We take the audience on a bit of a travelogue, from America to Swahili, Australia, France and South America,” oboist and producer Stephanie Nicholls says. “If people can’t travel, we can bring travel to them in the comfort of their own chairs.”

It’s the first concert Music Viva has been able to stage since March after COVID cancellations, and a chance to showcase the WA talents of Joanne Littlely (bassoon), Wendy Tait (horn), Stephanie Nicholls (oboe), Catherine Cahill (clarinet), and Diane Riddell (flute).

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The “Plus” is percussionist Paul Tanner.

“With percussion being a feature we’re playing a lot of French music, with Paul Tanner’s combination of marimba and vibraphone,” Nicholls says. “We’re also doing some Latin American music where he’ll be using congas and guiro and that kind of sound.

“We’re opening with something that’s a bit of a specialty for us, it’s a work by Valerie Coleman called Umoja, which means ‘Unity’, that uses congas and we like to play that at the beginning of performances.

“It brings us and the audience together because we’re all about connecting with our audiences.”

Ross Edwards’ work Laughing Moon follows.

“It’s got a really earthy feel to it a lot of really energetic rhythms. and also some beautiful lyrical writing,” Nicholls says. “The fourth movement’s called Moonsong and that features everyone in a soloistic capacity.

“The last movement Ross Edwards wrote for claves with quintet so it suits us really well because it combines what we do, woodwind and percussion.”

The program then moves to France, with Tanner playing a solo by Emmanuel Sejourne, Attraction.

“It highlights his speciality of vibraphone and marimba, but it’s also got a recorded audio that he plays with,” Nicholls says.

“That will feature Paul and his wizardry on both of those instruments. We’ll follow that with another solo, Debussy’s beautiful Syrinx on solo flute played by Diane Riddell. It’s a gorgeous work that will really suit that wonderful acoustic at the Concert Hall.”

A world premiere is next, with Tanner again on vibraphone and marimba.

“We really feel French repertoire suits the tonal colours of wind quintet with virbaphone-marimba so we’re doing our own transcription of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite,” Nicholls says.

The last section is Latin American dance music.

“We’ve discovered the Cuban composer Paquito d’Rivera,” Nicholls says. “He’s written some really great wind quintets that use really great Latin American dances.

“We’re doing first of all his Wapango, then we’re following that with Milonga sin Palabras by Piazzolla, that’s a really slow Argentinian song without words.

An energetic finale includes a Venezuelan waltz by d’Rivera from his work Aires tropicales.

“Then we finish the concert with a really cool Cuban contradanza, which alludes to the famous Tico Tico, that kind of buoyance and effervescence, with lots of fun, so we’re really excited to play that,” Nichols says.

“We’re all aware that with the blink of an eye we might not be able to present performances so we’re so grateful, it’s just such a privilege to perform at the moment, that’s really important to us.”

Wind Quintet Plus is at Perth Concert Hall at 7.30pm on Tuesday, August 10.

Student tickets are $15 and there’s a chance to win a double pass at https://musicaviva.com.au/win/wind-quintet-plus/

www.perthconcerthall.com.au.

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