EACH year some of Australia’s most outstanding classical musicians make the journey up The Bucketts Way to Gloucester and beyond to Rookhurst, then down a dirt road to perform in a near-century-old tin farm shed.
It’s been happening since the Craven Creek Music Festival first kicked off in 2013, each year playing to a packed house.
This year the festival will be held on the weekend of 13 and 14 September.
A piano was recently transported to the shed, meaning piano music will be in the mix for the first time.
Celebrated virtuoso pianist Konstantin Shamray will perform Beethoven’s Archduke Trio, accompanied by violinist Dimity Hall and cellist Julian Smiles, both foundation members of the famous Goldner String Quartet, which recently dissolved after 30 years.
In 2008 Shamray won both the judges and people’s choice award prizes at the Sydney International Piano competition – a feat not achieved before or since.
This year’s festival has two programmes, repeated on both the Saturday and the Sunday.
The morning programme features a collection of Australia’s best wind players, showcasing Andrew Barnes on bassoon, Lily Bryant on flute, Oliver Schermacher on clarinet and Ian Wildsmith on French horn, playing the music of Ravel, Poulenc, Ibert, Wyttenbach and more.
The afternoon programme will feature music by Rachmaninov, Bach, Brahms, Ravel and Clara Schumann, as well as Beethoven.
“The trip down to the old shed along Craven Creek Road, is something that all music lovers, including musicians, should do at least once,” said festival organiser Greg Lindsay.
“The musicians at this year’s festival are drawn from such esteemed ensembles as the Sydney, Tasmanian and New Zealand Symphony orchestras, and the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra from Germany.”
Conductor and broadcaster Guy Noble said the acoustics of the shed are something to experience.
“Who would have thought that a barn in Craven Creek could give London’s Wigmore Hall a run for its money in terms of ‘hear the drop of a pin’ acoustics,” said conductor and broadcaster Guy Noble.
By John WATTS
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