The Southern Cross Soloists 2025 Pearl Launch! 

Judith Wright Centre

29th November, 2024

 

Dr Gemma Regan

 

A delightful close to the 2024 Sunset Soirée Series with the dawn of a pearlescent 2025 to come!

 

 

The sun vividly set on a tumultuous 2024 for the Southern Cross Soloists in their final Sunset Soirée of the year and the launch of their 2025 Pearl Anniversary Season celebrating 30 years! The Pearl Season will be celebrated with four world premieres under the guidance of the two new Artistic Directors and a newly appointed Program Director. 

 

It was a jubilant afternoon of new beginnings with Marg O’Donnell, SXS Chair of the Board, announcing SXS clarinettist Ashley Smith and SXS violinist Margaret Blades as next year's SXS Co-Artistic Directors. They have been diligent acting co-directors since oboist Tania Frazer resigned from the post mid-year. 

 

Triple Grammy winner, flautist Tim Munro is the new SXS Program Director managing the flourishing 21^st SXS Chamber Music Festival now at the picturesque Tambourine Mountain Shambala Estate. He gave a heartfelt speech about how proud he was to join the team, feeling like he was coming home after SXS had given him his first professional musical role at only 20 years old. 

 

SXS Patron, the Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce, reflected on the trials of 2024, iterating how important the connection with the audience was and how grateful she is for the SXS musicians and patrons. 

 

The exciting QPAC concerts are Celebrate!, Pearls and Wonder, opening with a Viennese gala and another World Premiere as part of the SXS Didgeridoo Commissioning Project with didgeridoo player Chris Williams and Australian Composer Leah Curtis. The Sunset Soirée Recital Series promises to be fun with Stayin’ Alive as the second concert focussing on the Redcliffe Bee Gees in a disco-inspired revival.

 

The afternoon program was a gentle and refined example of Chamber music at its best, featuring, the 2024 Margaret Schindler Vocal Scholarship recipient, bass vocalist Jack Bolton. His velvet and mahogany tones filled the Judith Wright Centre atrium with Britten’s Somerset song, O Waly Waly. Bach’s Am Abend from St Matthew’s Passion was robust, with his voice resonating deeply within, as if singing into an old oak barrel, whilst the accompanying string quartet was delicate and deliberate.

 

The highlight of the show was Bolton singing O’Boyle’s Shapes and Signs, based on a tragic phone call. The song embodied chaos with screeching strings and an almost demonic voice as the music went through the stages of grief.

 

Clarinettist Ashley Smith shone in Finzi’s Bagatelles, which were light and frothy. The quartet seemed to journey between English country village fairs, boating on the Thames, and finish with a high tea of scones with jam and cream. Each was bright and polite, ending with a cheeky clarinet.

 

Despite the momentous year of change for the SXS, 2025 promises to be an exceptional year for the shining stars of Australian chamber music with the dawn of their Pearl celebration of 30 years of delivering outstanding music with an eclectic twist.