Profile | Sirius Chamber Ensemble

Formed in 2011, Sirius Chamber Ensemble is a mixed ensemble of winds, strings and piano. The ensemble performs music from the classical to contemporary periods in a friendly and accessible atmosphere, and is committed to collaborating regularly with local and international composers. The diverse instrumental line-up provides the ensemble with the opportunity to perform chamber works with unusual instrumentation and to present works for large chamber ensemble in addition to those composed for smaller groups. The ensemble’s name resonates with the history of Sydney as it refers to the name of the flagship of the First Fleet, the H.M.S Sirius.

This year Sirius Chamber Ensemble presents their concert program at Christ Church Lavender Bay. The first concert will explore the connections between music and the spoken voice (Musical Tales – 22 April), and the program presented later in the year will feature music that transcends the state of homelessness (Where the Heart Is – 21 October).

In Musical Tales Sirius Chamber Ensemble will present an eclectic program intertwining music and spoken narrative which will feature several Australian composers and a range of guest artists. The stories to be told will deal with life, death and musical transcendence. Australian works include Matilda for narrator and wind quartet by Melbourne-based composer Joseph Giovinazzo, Eden for narrator and flute by Andrew Batterham, and The Death of Baldr by Paul Smith with music and selected recitations from Nordic poetry and sagas. The program will also include David Lang’s exuberant work Music for Gracious Living for actor and string quartet and the farewell ode Abscheid von der Erde by Franz Schubert.

Where The Heart Is is a collaborative fundraiser for the not-for-profit organisation Habitat for Humanity Australia. The concert program will focus on the plight of the homeless in our society, featuring works by composers who were known to have been homeless or displaced during their lifetime. Joseph Haydn became homeless as a young man, dismissed from St Stephen’s Cathedral choir in Vienna after his voice broke. Gustav Mahler was famously quoted as saying, “I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.” After being blacklisted by the Nazis in 1940, Bohuslav Martinu and his wife fled Paris and slept on railway platforms for several months before securing passage to America. And the African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin became bankrupt and homeless after his opera Treemonisha failed to find any success. Selected works from these four composers will be presented to raise awareness of the many reasons people can become forced into homelessness, the many guises this can take, and to raise funds for a cause close to our hearts. Funds raised through ticket sales and collection on the night will empower families to build safer homes and stronger communities throughout the Asia Pacific region.