Josh Hooke

Josh Hooke

A performance from one of Australia's most exciting and versatile young pianists

Each work in this program is concerned with the idea of evoking an image, scene or character in music. The process through which each composer does this is extremely individual, although the piano's unique power of illusion and potential for colour is very much a driving force through each work. The program opens with Anne Boyd’s Kabarli Mediation, inspired by Sydney Nolan’s painting 'Daisy Bates at Ooldea.’ This is followed by Schumann’s ecstatic shrovetide revelry in Carnival, a festive masked ball before Lent, full of heroes, villains, intrigue and secret messages.

The second half reflects the moods and themes of the first, opening with a work never before performed in Australia, by Portuguese composer Berta Alves de Souza. Like Schumann, in this cycle of 26 miniatures (some only lasting a few seconds) de Souza reveals her penchant for secret messages, each piece is given an expressive mark beginning with according to the letter and order of the alphabet, with frequent hidden quotations to composers of the past. This is followed by Catalan composer Federico Mompou’s mystical Paisajes (Landscapes), and concludes with Stravinsky’s own depiction of shrovetide in the ultra-virtuosic transcription of selected scenes from his own ballet score, Petrushka.