The London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane AO returns to UKARIA in collaboration with the distinguished Australia Ensemble UNSW. Their program crafts a Franco-Australian exchange that luxuriates in delicately drawn character and colour, opening on a Parisian wonderland. Francis Poulenc’s incidental music for violin, clarinet and piano – written to accompany the playwright Jean Anouilh’s satirical comedy of errors L’Invitation au Château – dances a whimsical twostep with the music of his predecessor Claude Debussy. Here, Piers Lane’s talent for ‘poetry and drama’ (The Age) takes centre stage in Debussy’s glimmering Suite Bergamasque.

Australian composer Martin Wesley-Smith was a political activist as well as a devotee of Lewis Carroll. His Merry-go-round (2002) for clarinet, cello and electronics approaches sombre subject matter – the fate of children in war-torn Afghanistan – with a deceptive lightness of touch that can descend into a raw power, reminiscent of Through the Looking Glass. The program concludes  with Maurice Ravel’s piano trio masterpiece, written on the cusp of the First World War. His Piano Trio in A minor propelled the genre into a new era, demanding both virtuosity and chamber music subtlety from its players to combine the sounds of 1914 Paris with those of a wider, more diverse world.

Australia Ensemble UNSW
David Griffiths | Clarinet
Dimity Hall | Violin
Julian Smiles | Cello

Piers Lane | Piano