Jasper Ly and Peter Dumsday | TENERA
9 August, 2025, Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC
Refreshing is the sound of an all-female programme of classical music being described as ‘an ease’ to curate. Oboe and piano duo Jasper Ly and Peter Dumsday did just that in the surrounds of Melbourne Recital Centre’s Primrose Potter Salon on Saturday night. There was a casualness and comfortability to the way the pair navigated this space, notorious for a lively yet intimate acoustic that leaves no place for sound to hide. Matched with lighting design by Henry Paulet, Ly and Dumsday delivered an incredibly sleek and blemish-free performance that was packed tight with love and respect for the many talented women who have shared their music with the world.
Beginning with the first of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances (Op. 22: I. Andante molto), Ly and Dumsday quickly established a rich and balanced combined sound. This was followed by Jessica Wells’ Sati, a work named after the Sanskrit word for mindfulness. Dumsday captured a haunting quality in the opening, soon joined by Ly who expertly emphasised the interesting shifts in tonality that snaked through the two parts. Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne was next, with Dumsday emulating a pendulum effect in the piano part, laying the foundations for Ly’s seemingly effortless playing to soar over the top.
Laura Abraham’s A Hazy Memory marked the first piece with both cor anglais and the presence of a composer in the audience. Ly showed extreme control over this instrument, being able to extract a raw, almost crying quality in the tone of the cor anglais. Dumsday amplified this by playing each repeated piano motive with a subtle uniqueness, a perfect match for this highly emotive work.
The concert reached the halfway point with a truly stunning performance of Helen Gifford’s Shiva, the auspicious one for solo piano. Dumsday created a thick and dramatic texture with moments of intensity that really hit you in the chest. This was well-balanced with meandering, yet precise, moments that allowed the climaxes to be suitably explosive.
Intriguingly, Poem by Marina Dranishnikova was the first work on the program to be played on its intended instrumentation (oboe and piano). Ly & Dumsday’s interpretation was overflowing with love, with full rich melodies that contrasted angular, almost playful, moments. A gorgeous arrangement by the composer herself (who was also in the audience), Nat Bartsch’s Forever, and No Time at All was a heart-warming addition. The duo captured the natural eb and flow of the piece with elegant and elongated phrasing.
(21/30) a fragment by Julia Potter was commissioned especially for this evening, echoing a lovely sentiment “to explore and approach seemingly small ideas with curiosity.” Potter took advantage of the pianos registral possibilities, placing remnants of the original motif across octaves and instruments, while effectively finding moments for unity, before throwing the final sound powerfully into the audience. The concert closed with another Romance, this time by Amy Beach (Op.23), with Ly and Dumsday capturing a celebratory kind of love before coming to a seamless finish.
