Past programmes

Queen of Heaven - Marian motets

8pm, 17 January 2023, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat, as guests of the Organs of the Goldfields Festival, Ballarat.

With Donald Nicolson, organist.

A programme of Marian devotion, featuring works from 12th to 21st centuries.

Hildegard von Bingen: O frondens Virgo
Palestrina: Assumpta est Maria.

Jean Baptiste Lully: Salve Regina
Franz Biebl Ave Maria
Brooke Shelley: Ave Maris Stella

Vaughan McAlley Magpie Morning
Michael Leighton Jones: Marian Sequence
Calvin Bowman: Ave Maria and Regina Caeli Laetare

James MacMillan: Ave maris Stella

Calvin Bowman: May Magnificat

Devotion to the Blessed Virgin has been expressed with tenderness and hope in music since the early Church. A mother figure to be cried to, with simple trust that she will treat us as her children and give succour, Mary is also our Queen, to be celebrated with joy: a human both ordinary and extraordinary. Marian musical settings reflect these facets of Our Lady, contrasting the sweet piety of Salve Regina with the jubilation of Regina Caeli, while Palestrina’s Assumpta est Maria takes the rising opening motif of the plainchant and develops it into a soundscape depicting the Virgin’s assumption, and the busy celebration of Angels in Heaven, and those of righteous heart on Earth.

Every piece on this program has references to Marian antiphons in plainchant form, though this is easier to identify in some. The extraordinary proliferation of Marian musical devotions throughout the Church’s history demonstrates both the human need for maternal love, even on a supernatural level, and also the endless variety of possibility for expanding on the plainchant themes associated with Mary - easily recognisable to Church musicians throughout the ages.

Programming: Helena Ekins

Queen of Heaven - Marian motets

2.30pm, Sunday 28 August, St Andrew’s Church, Brighton

A programme of Marian devotion, featuring works from 12th to 21st centuries.

Hildegard von Bingen: O frondens Virgo Plainchant: Salve Regina
Josquin: Salve Regina à 5
Plainchant: Assumpta est Maria. Palestrina: Assumpta est Maria.
Plainchant: Ave Maris Stella
Grieg: Ave Maris Stella
Brooke Shelley: Ave Maris Stella
Plainchant: Regina Caeli
Michael Leighton Jones: Regina Caeli
Calvin Bowman: Ave Maria and Regina Caeli Laetare James MacMillan: Ave maris Stella Calvin Bowman: May Magnificat (première)

Love. Art. Death.

An afternoon of Purcell arias and motets, accompanied by John O’Donnell on harpsichord, Rosemary Hodgson on theorbo and baroque guitar, Reidun Turner on Viola da Gamba - with strings and winds. Featuring Michelle Clark, soprano.

24 July 2022 @3pm

All Saints’ Church, 2 Chapel Street, East St Kilda (short walk from Windsor Station or Trams 5, 64/onsite parking).

Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei

An Evening Hymn

Beati omnes qui timent dominus

Music for a While

Strike the Viol

Hear my prayer. O Lord

When I am laid in earth

Remember not, lord, our offences

Hush, no more

My beloved spake

Programming: Helena Ekins

Bach and his contemporaries

7 July 2022, Trinity College Chapel, Royal Parade, Parkville. Postponed due to Covid-19.

Accompanied by strings and continuo, the Octet will explore the vocal and instrumental music of J S Bach and one of his major influences, Dietrich Buxtehude. The programme includes a rarely-heard gem by Bach’s predecessor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Johann Kuhnau, and Bach’s exquisite arrangement of it. Sung one-to-a-part, the text and drama of Bach’s virtuosic motets are freshly revealed.

J.S. Bach  Komm, Jesu, Komm

D. Buxtehude Der Herr ist mit mir

J. Kuhnau  Tristis est anima mea

J.S. Bach/J. Kuhnau Der gerechte kömmt um

D. Buxtehude Sonata in C  (BuxWV 266)

D. Buxtehude Befiehl dem Engel, daß er komm 

J.S. Bach Singet den Herrn

Programming: C Watson, T Reynolds, J Kozlowski, H Ekins

Afternoon Jazz

Woodend Winter Arts Festival and Moonee Valley Winter Arts Festival

3 April 2022, 10 June 2022, Woodend. 19 June, Essendon.

Let's Misbehave 

Dayton, Ohio

It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t got that Swing

Blue Moon 

Dream a little Dream of Me 

Night and Day

The Girl from Ipanema

The Teddy Bears’ Picnic 

Tea for two 

Begin the Beguine 

The Way You Look Tonight 

Beyond the Sea

Soul Bossa Nova

Programming: Helena Ekins

The Octave of Christmas

Australian Digital Concert Hall - Live streamed from the Athenaeum Theatre

9 December 2021 @ 8.30pm

Perotin Viderunt Omnes

Anon (Medieval English) Sing we to this merry company

Hieronymus Praetorius. In dulci jubilo

Hieronymus Praetorius Joseph lieber

Richard Dering Quem vidistis pastores

arr John O'Donnell Noel nouvelet

arr John O’Donnell Il est né, le divin enfant

arr L. McDonald Gabriel’s message

arr Michael Leighton Jones Away in a manger

arr Daniel Brinsmead Silent night

Calvin Bowman Christmas

Benjamin Britten Hymn to the Virgin

Peter Warlock Benedicamus Domino

arr Alex L’Estrange Still, still, still

arr Alex L’Estrange In the bleak midwinter

arr Ben Parry Jingle bells

arr Alexander L’Estrange I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Exploring Christmas repertoire from the 13th to 21st Century, Melbourne Octet presented some of the most fabulous gems of Christmas music; each piece a showstopper in the context of its time. The programme included works by several Australian composers, and some classics in close harmony arrangement.  

Programming: C Watson (guest director for this concert). (French carols programmed by H Ekins)

Distant Close Harmony: Athenaeum Theatre, 12 May 2021, with Melbourne Digital Concert Hall:

Let's Misbehave 

Over the Rainbow 

Dayton, Ohio

It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t got that Swing

Blue Moon 

Dream a little Dream of Me 

Night and Day

Loch Lomond 

The Teddy Bears’ Picnic 

Tea for two 

O My Love is like a Red, Red Rose 

Begin the Beguine 

The Way You Look Tonight 

Beyond the Sea

Goodnight Sweetheart   

Le Baylère 

Programming: Helena Ekins

Soprano  - Elspeth Bawden, Kristy Biber

Alto  - Helena Ekins, Christopher Roache 

Tenor   - Christopher Watson, Timothy Reynolds

Bass  - Oliver Mann, Jerzy Kozlowski

Much of the repertoire in this programme was written in a period of history that saw recovery from a war and a devastating pandemic followed by the rule of several dictators across the world, mass unemployment, discrimination against and persecution of various groups, and unrest in international relations. Nearly a century later, the world has a disturbingly similar set of circumstances. 

The lighthearted, slightly naughty, uplifting songs of this period were an escapist remedy for the times. Sumptuous harmonies, witty lyrics and cheerful melodies are an excellent distraction when ‘all the world is a hopeless jumble’. Somewhere - perhaps in an alternative reality preferable to the one we are all living through - things are just fine. 

The programme was devised during the prolonged lockdown last year, when a desire to escape, a nostalgia for a mythical land of the past (which wasn’t ever perfect, but seemed to shine in comparison to the present), and a craving to let loose and run wild were recurring themes. 

Separation and resignation to loss are parallel themes in this programme; Loch Lomond’s lament to the impossibility of returning safely home in this lifetime is the perfect expression of longing and sorrow, while O My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose evokes the burning need to be near the distant beloved, no matter what it takes to reach their side. 

Since that time of lockdowns and concert postponements, just when things seemed to be getting better, we lost a core member of our group, Belinda Wong, whose sudden passing has changed the group forever. Belinda was an exceptional musician with a warm, rounded, beautiful voice. She was also an exceptional human being, friend and mother, as we appreciated on our tour to Sweden in 2019, where her family came along. We rehearsed this repertoire together, and had so much fun with the cheeky arrangements - her absence is deeply felt. 

This concert was dedicated to the late Belinda Wong, dear friend and colleague.

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The Call of the Wild

The Melbourne Octet visited Sweden in July 2019, in collaboration with Swedish Mezzo-soprano, Maria Forsström, performing in several of Sweden’s finest churches. We were joined on the tour by organist, Calvin Bowman and soprano Elizabeth Dobbin.

Programme:

Ross Edwards: Dawn Chorus (organ)

Charles Wood: Hail, Gladdening Light

Roxanna Panufnik: Child of Heaven and Celestial Bird

Frank Bridge: Autumn

Veljo Tormis: Virmalised

David Wikander: Förvårskväll 

Jehan Alain: Aria (organ)

Eric Whitacre: With a Lily in your Hand

Calvin Bowman: Fair Daffadills 

Frank Bridge: The Bee

Judith Bingham: The Drowned Lovers

CV Stanford: The Bluebird 

Programming: H Ekins.

Soloist: Maria Forsström

Organist: Dr Calvin Bowman

Soprano - Elizabeth Dobbin, Kristy Biber

Alto - Belinda Wong, Helena Ekins

Tenor - Christopher Roache, Timothy Reynolds

Bass - Oliver Mann, Jerzy Kozlowski.