Phoenix Collective | East-West Fusion

Greenway Chapel,  24 April, 2022

I had been hoping to hear the Phoenix Collective perform and was lucky enough to catch them on my home patch, namely Greenway Chapel near Gosford and I was not disappointed. The venue is spacious with great acoustics.

Sunday’s concert was titled appropriately East-West Fusion and in the first half the compass definitely pointed East. First we heard Andrew Wilson’s arrangement for cello of Yellow River, a traditional Chinese tune which at times I found reminiscent of Danny Boy! Andrew studied at the Sydney Conservatorium, he has played in the Sydney Symphony and Opera Australia Orchestras as well as several orchestras in the UK and USA.

We were then treated to three beautiful arrangements of Chinese folksongs by Zhou Long, a Chinese composer now resident in the USA and recipient of many awards. It was noticeable how Eastern tones could be combined with Western on what, for us, are conventional instruments.

Dan Russell introduced us to the focal point of the afternoon, the arrangements for erhu and string quartet of four pieces including Peter Sculthorpe’s Left Bank Waltz and the film music from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Dan studied in Western Australia and has played in numerous Sydney orchestras including Coast Opera. The erhu is not an easy instrument to play and Ying Liu played superbly indicating how this typically Far Eastern sound could fit in with a conventional quartet.

Pip Thomson spoke about the Eastern influences in the next work, Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor and also its indifferent reception at its first performance. Pip plays chiefly with the Canberra symphony Orchestra and has also studied Klesmer music in Europe. Also making up the string quartet is Ella Brinch, who studied in Sydney but is best known as violist in the Barbirolli Quartet in the UK, where I heard her play at the Aldeburgh Festival.

Debussy was not the only European composer to study far Eastern music and use its tonality in his compositions. Certainly there is a pervasive chromatic tonality to be found which also appears in many of his piano works. He intended to write a second one – did the poor reviews of his first dissuade him? No-one is certain. Ravel thought highly enough of it to use it as a model for his string quartet and certainly it makes attractive listening today.