Tankstream Quartet

The Tankstream Quartet comprising four of Australia’s most brilliant and versatile young musicians – Sophie Rowell and Anne Horton (violinists), Sally Boud (violist), and Rachel Johnston (cellist) – holds the distinction of having won more international chamber music competitions than any other ensemble in Australian history. They won First Prize at the 2005 Cremona International String Quartet Competition. They also won the 2001 Australian Chamber Music Competition, and then went on to win the Gold Medal in the 2002 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition (Japan). In 2004 they were the 2nd Prize Winner in the Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Italy and in 2003 the Quartet won the 3rd Prize and the Audience and Listeners’ Choice Awards at the 4th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.Based in Germany, where they are mentored by the Alban Berg String Quartet at the Cologne Hochschule for Music, the Tankstream Quartet regularly performs throughout Europe. They were also selected by the Australian Government to perform the official music at the Danish Royal Wedding in May 2004. Future engagements include performances in Milan, Torino, Rome, Cremona, London, Frankfurt, and a tour of Japan. Next year they will tour Australia with the Jerusalem Quartet.The Tankstream Quartet have appeared in every capital city in Australia and at many of Australia’s major music festivals, and perform regularly for Musica Viva. They are also the patrons of the Murrumbidgee String Orchestra. The Tankstream Quartet has been broadcast extensively in Australia on ABC Classic FM and the MBS Network. Internationally, they have been featured on NDR (North German Radio), the BBC and Radio France and televised in Denmark, Austria and Japan. Formed in 2000 and originally mentored by Alice Waten (now Head of Strings at the Australian National Academy of Music) at the Australian Institute of Music where they hold fellowships, they have also received guidance from members of the Amadeus, Hagen and Smetana Quartets.The Tankstream Quartet has recorded two discs for ABC Classics, scheduled for forth-coming release. Later this year they will become the new Australian String Quartet.

Southern Cross Soloists

Established in 1995 the Southern Cross Soloists quickly became one of Australia’s most respected and successful chamber ensembles, establishing an international reputation for ground-breaking performance. The group’s unique combination of oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano and soprano allows a variety of music in many genres to be performed. Repertoire ranges from Baroque cantatas through the standard (and not so standard) classical and romantic compositions for winds and piano, to works combining voice and instruments.The Soloists maintain a busy schedule performing, teaching, conducting masterclasses and recording. In 2006 they toured nationally with Yossi Arnheim, Principal Flute of the Israel Philharmonic, and critically acclaimed classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan, performing world premieres of three new commissioned works by Australian composers. They have also completed highly successful international tours in the United States, New Zealand, Canada and Korea.The Soloists dedication to music education in Regional Queensland was highlighted in their new 2006 venture, the SunWater and Stanwell Winter Music School. Held in Rockhampton, this residential music camp for high school students provides students with the opportunity to learn and perform with leading tutors from around the country on all woodwind, brass, percussion and string instruments, as well as keyboard and voice. Since 2002 the ensemble has inspired up to 1700 children annually in regional areas through their music outreach programs and educational activities.The Southern Cross Soloists have a strong commitment to commissioning and performing Australian music. They are currently Ensemble in Residence at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.The group features six of Australia’s leading musicians. Director and clarinettist Paul Dean and bassoonist Leesa Dean are former Principal players with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and now freelance throughout Australia. Tania Frazer was formerly the Principal Oboist of the Israel Symphony Orchestra and moved to Australia to play with the Soloists. Lyric soprano Margaret Schindler and horn player Peter Luff are lecturers at Griffith University’s Queensland Conservatorium whilst pianist Kevin Power pursues a freelance career and is Chorus Master of the Queensland Choir.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis

With renewed interest in English folk music, Vaughan Williams wrote the Tallis Fantasia in 1910 to fulfill a commission for the Three Choirs Festival. Having edited The English Hymnal, he had been immersed in some of the greatest tunes in the world, including the ‘Third Psalter Tune’, associated with Addison’s hymn “When, rising from the bed of death” (No. 92 in the English Hymnal). This became the basis of the Fantasia. In fact, many of his well known works stemmed from other tunes (for example the English Folk-Song Suite and Fantasia on Greensleeves), a colleague jokingly remarking “You know, VW, all your best-sellers are not your own.”The use of strings alone here recalls the period when viols were in their golden age. The composer has scored the piece for two string ensembles of differing sizes and a solo string quartet with instruction that the groups should be placed apart to provide a stereophonic effect. Based on church modes and in the form of an Elizabethan fantasy, this work uses the flashier string effects of col legno, glissando, martellato, and so on, showing his fascination with colour after studying with Ravel. It is a work of marked contrasts; declamatory yet intimate, passionate yet austere, and a work in which, despite it’s radiance, shadows still lurk in the corners. A mysterious chordal introduction sets the scene for the entry of Tallis’ tune on pizzicato cellos and basses; thereafter an A-B-A structure takes shape, the start of the B section being marked by the solo viola with a new segment of the Tallis theme.Notes by Morwenna Collett

BENJAMIN FRANKEL Clarinet Quintet

In the history of 20th century music, the life and career of Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973) most certainly ranks amongst the most remarkably productive and diverse. During the last fifteen years of his life, Frankel emerged as a leading symphonic composer, writing a cycle of eight symphonies which attracted wide acclaim and for which he is probably best remembered. The symphonies represented the culmination of a career already distinguished by a significant and idiomatic body of chamber works and a major violin concerto.The Quintet was written in 1956 for Thea King, to the memory of her late husband Frederick ‘Jack’ Thurston and commissioned by the BBC for the 1956 Cheltenham Festival. The opening arpeggio’s harmony is held by the strings, supporting the melodic shape that is to permeate the movement. It is not a serial work, but uses an important principle of Schönberg where the unity of vertical harmony and horizontal melody is invoked. Here Frankel sustains, rather than contradicts, the tonal implications. An answering broad melody on strings alone and a perky figuration on the clarinet add to the material discussed in this substantial movement.The second movement is filled with shrill and twittering clarinet lines answered by the triple-timed pizzicato on the cello. The contrasting duple rhythm of the trio is typically Frankel, fragmented before resuming triple time and a return to the scherzo. Wide expressive melodies on the cello create emotional tension in the final movement. As this emotion calms down, a tender melody emerges, followed by the clarinet adding its comments and bringing the section to a brief climax. A final, tranquil meditation brings the work to its close.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis

BENJAMIN FRANKEL Clarinet Quintet

Op. 28

I Moderato

II Alla Burla

III Lento di Molto

Bangalow Festival Chamber Orchestra, Tankstream Quartet , Paul Dean clarinet

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