Butterfly Ing - Riverside Theatres Parramatta

RIVERSIDE THEATRES PRESENTSElena Kats-Chernin& Tamara-Anna CislowskaImage by Steven GodbeeSUNDAY 10 APRIL AT 3PMMUSICButterf lying

MUSICIANSELENA KATS-CHERNINCOMPOSER AND PIANISTTAMARA-ANNA r and Pianist“Tamara and I like to play with material. We liketo experiment. Perhaps there lies the essenceof what we do together in our group and whythis form of music comes so naturally to us.Being a composer since I was a very little girl,I have always improvised at the piano. I playedthe piano. I played WITH the piano. Every singleday of my life. It is simply what I do. When I amnot doing it, I think about when I will do it next.It is my best friend and my great love.Tamara loves to play as well and so, since wemet in 1995, we have often played together.It is only in the last few years that we havedecided to perform in public (or rather, Tamaraconvinced me that we should!). We think alikeand that makes it easy for us to fit together.Tamara has always had a great understandingof my music and so what could be verycomplicated becomes very easy. I don't haveto say in words how the music should be, andthat is a great relief because notes are reallymy language, not words! What is so simplyplayed or written in music is incredibly difficultto express in words.In the works that we present, Tamara oftenplays what I would call the outline of mywritten score or sketches whilst leaving meplenty of room to elaborate or create further.The piece can take an entirely differentturn by the end of the performance! It isthis freshness and licence of creativity thatexcites me about these concerts, and manytimes a new piece has been born out of whathappens on the stage.”– Elena Kats-CherninBorn in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Elena KatsChernin studied music in Moscow, Sydneyand Hanover.She has created works across nearly everygenre, from rags to ballet and operas,and from intimate compositions for piano,string trio and chamber ensembles torobotic instruments, and full-scale choirand symphony orchestra, from the world’sleading orchestras, opera, ballet andtheatre companies and festivals. Her musicfeatured at the opening ceremonies of the2000 Sydney Olympic Games and the 2003Rugby World Cup. She has received manyprestigious prizes for her music (such as‘Best Original Score’ and ‘Best Composition’)from the Helpmann Awards, Limelight,Sounds Australia, Sydney Theatre Awardsand a Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award(2013).Companies setting ballets to her scoresinclude Nederlands Dans Theater, MunichBallet Theater, San Francisco Ballet and theStuttgart Ballet. The extraordinary reach ofKats-Chernin’s music spans the worlds offilm and television also: Eliza’s Aria - fromher score for Meryl Tankard's ballet WildSwans, commissioned by the AustralianBallet - was used in British Bank, LloydsTSB’s celebrated ad campaign ‘For TheJourney’. Her Russian Rag was used in theclaymation feature film, Mary and Max byOscar-winning director Adam Elliot, and wasalso the theme for Late Night Live on ABCRadio National for many years(now, Eliza’s Aria).Elena Kats-Chernin was featured in CreativeMinds, a 6-part TV portrait documentaryseries by Robin Hughes. Her 10-houradaptation of Monteverdi's opera trilogy atthe Komische Oper Berlin, directed by BarrieKosky, was broadcast live on the 3SAT TVchannel across Europe in 2012.In 2015 Elena collaborated with theShobana Jeyasingh Dance Company andthe Smith Quartet on Material Men, whichpremiered at the Southbank Centre inLondon. A second collaboration, The ThreeDancers, based on Picasso's eponymouspainting and choreographed by DidyVeldman for Rambert Dance Company,premiered at Sadler's Wells.The same year, Elena's children's operaSchneewittchen und die 77 Zwege (SnowWhite and the 77 Dwarves) was premieredto wide acclaim at the renowned KomischeOper Berlin, along with the broadcast of herwidely-praised episodic opera, The Divorce,on-screen and online by ABC. With libretto byJoanna Murray-Smith, this pioneering workwas commissioned by Opera Australia andproduced by ABC TV and Princess Pictures,featuring artists including Kate Miller-Heidke,Lisa McCune, Marina Prior and Meow Meow.For the centenary of Gallipoli, KatsChernin’s five movement work Meetingthe Sun was commissioned by the KokodaMemorial Track Walkway and performedby the Royal Australian Navy Band and theSydney Childrens' Choir. Her movementLanding was featured in the GallipolliSymphony project, which premiered inIstanbul, Turkey and Brisbane, Australia.Elena is currently writing for AustralianWorld Orchestra, The Flinders Quartet andthe Australian Chamber Orchestra, and hermusic is published exclusively by Boosey &Hawkes / Bote und Bock.In addition to her work as a composer,Kats-Chernin is an accomplished pianistwith recent live performance engagementsincluding for Sydney Opera House’s All AboutWomen Festival in 2015 (broadcast by ABCClassic FM for International Women’s Day),Australian Festival of Chamber Music inTownsville (QLD), Canberra InternationalMusic Festival and Recitals Australia(Adelaide). In 2016, concerts includeMelbourne Recital Centre, The Concourseand Riverside Theatres Parramatta (Sydney),Music by the Sea (Brisbane), and regionalcentres such as Geelong and KangarooValley’s Arts in the Valley Festival with herlong-time collaborator, ARIA award-winningAustralian pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska.This year heralds ABC Classics’ highlyanticipated release of Butterflying, a doubledisc recording of Elena Kats-Chernin’smusic for piano with solo performances byCislowska and unique ‘four hands’ renditionsof the spectrum of Kats-Chernin’s work, byboth pianist and composer.Find out more about Elena atboosey.com/katschernin

TAMARAANNACISLOWSKAPianist“Riding shotgun with one of our greatest evercomposers is a powerful experience! To sit nextto Elena is to enter a force-field of the highestcreativity and musicianship. Being alongsidethis draws from me inspiration I often didn'tknow was there and I seem to enter into herworld and music as if I had always been apart of it. When we use the piano it is as oneartist and so the parts naturally extend fromthe core of the music itself rather than being intwo set parts or divided into four hands. Whenwe perform, I see a stream of music that runsthrough the instrument itself as well as us.Such is the magic of her thought.Elena's works have never been geared to anyinstrument in particular, that is why her 'pure'music is so successful across all types of soloand ensemble combinations. It is this core ofartistry and material that we work with in ourconcerts. Often we perform a piece written fororchestra which may have a full score of over 80pages. In front of us, performing the same piece,are a few A4 bits of paper containing sketches.From this we will reconstruct the work, Elenaleading the way with me running along behind,or sometimes trying to anticipate where sheis heading. Each performance will be differentand many pieces have been 're-transformed' inthe course of our concerts. I think it is a thrillingexperience for an audience or any onlooker toactually see, hear and feel what compositionand creation actually is. Much musicology andresearch goes into trying to recreate the exactenvironment, conditions and sound-world of ourlegendary composers such as Bach, Mozart andBeethoven to gain any kind of insight into theirgenius - and here we have it before our veryeyes when we see Elena!In all my years of collaboration with greatartists, ensembles and performers, none hasbrought me more joy and excitement thanthis partnership. Ensemble work is aboutsynchronising a goal and working as one entity,and in this duo we have a group that is bothuplifting and challenging at the same time, fullof fun and meaning, virtuosity, intelligence andreal music-making.”– Tamara-Anna CislowskaTamara-Anna Cislowska is one of Australia’smost acclaimed and recognised pianists forboth her solo and chamber performances,and winner of the 2015 ARIA award for ‘BestClassical Album’ for her recording PeterSculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano(ABC Classics). She has performed worldwidewith repertoire spanning five centuries, andwon international prizes in London, Italy andGreece, including the Rovere d’Oro.The youngest pianist to win ABC YoungPerformer of the Year at age 14, other awardsinclude the David Paul Landa MemorialScholarship for pianists, the FreedmanFellowship, and in 2012, the APRA-AMCOS ArtMusic Award for Performance of the Year (ACT).Tamara is a regular guest of orchestras andfestivals in Europe, America and Australasia,including as soloist with the LondonPhilharmonic, the New Zealand Symphony,and all the Australian symphony orchestraswith conductors such as Matthias Bamert,Edo de Waart, Asher Fisch, Johannes Fritzsch,Christopher Hogwood, James Judd, MarkusStenz and Yaron Traub. She has toured withthe Australian Chamber Orchestra and asrecitalist has performed at the Purcell Roomin London, Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouwin Amsterdam, Frick Collection in New Yorkand Sydney Opera House. She was a foundingmember of the acclaimed Mozart Piano Quartetin Berlin, and Australia Quartet in Sydney.As a recording artist, Tamara has recorded forChandos, Naxos, ABC Classics, Tall Poppies,Artworks and MDG (Dabringhaus und Grimm)received three ARIA nominations and criticalacclaim, with 7 solo albums featuring in theclassical charts, including her 2014 release,Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for SoloPiano (ABC Classics) reaching No.1 in the ARIAClassical and Limelight charts and ‘Editor’sChoice – Instrumental’ in BBC Music Magazine,January 2015. Earning 5 star reviews, thelandmark recording has been described as“Australian piano gold” (BBC Music Magazine),“a profoundly affecting release” (Gramophone),and “an Australian treasure” (news.com.au).Most recent and upcoming engagementsinclude as soloist with the ChristchurchSymphony Orchestra, Auckland PhilharmoniaOrchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra,Queensland Symphony Orchestra, andSydney Youth Orchestras, along with solo andchamber recitals around Australia includingfor the renowned Musica Viva and CanberraInternational Music Festivals, Australian Festivalof Chamber Music, Australian World Orchestra,Museum of Old and New Art’s Festival of Musicand Art, ABC Sunday Live and for Sydney OperaHouse, Melbourne Recital Centre, and ElderHall (Adelaide).In addition to this Butterflying tour, 2016engagements include as Artist-in-Residenceat Darwin Festival, Australian World Orchestrain Sydney and Singapore, Musica Viva’sHuntington Festival, Bowral Autumn MusicFestival, and two tours to Canberra, Sydneyand Melbourne and France for the centenaryof Australian composer, Frederick SeptimusKelly. Tamara also records on the new albumby Gurrumul, along with many solo recitalsAustralia-wide.Find out more about Tamara-Anna attamara-annacislowska.com.auPROGRAMSLICKED BACK TANGOBUTTERFLYINGLULLABY FOR NICKFIRST DANCERUSSIAN RAGRUSSIAN TOCCATABLUE SILENCEDANCE OF THE PAPER UMBRELLASCONVERSATIONELIZA’S ARIACINEMARAIN PUZZLEREMEMBERING BIALYSTOKHOMECOMING