03/06/2024
5 questions with this wondrous NCO Music Director (who is also our Chorus Master - but we assure you, it's a fair statement. He IS truly wondrous!)
National Capital Orchestra concert is on 6 July, the weekend after ours on 30 June. A feast of music is coming up! 🥳
SHOWCASING NCO MUSIC DIRECTOR — LOUIS SHARPE
1. What excites you about the upcoming Missa Solemnis performance, Saturday, 6 July at 3 pm?
The atmosphere when CCS and NCO come together is euphoric and to add the Llewellyn Choir in too, we will raise the roof off Llewellyn Hall. We have four incredible soloists, over 70 choristers, and 50 plus orchestra members who all live in Canberra. This shows how great our arts community is, how strong we are together, and when we all work together with a single goal, how brilliant we can all be.
2. How would you summarise the Missa Solemnis?
This mammoth work, to me, is one of Beethoven’s greatest creations. The Missa Solemnis is not performed nearly as often as his 9th Symphony or his Emperor Concerto, but it is Beethoven’s most personal dedication to his God. The work has everything, the most intimate moments to the loudest triumphant blasts of sound. Everyone who experiences it on stage and in the audience will be touched by this work.
3. What questions would you ask in an interview with Beethoven?
I wouldn’t know where to start! What his favourite composition of his own is? What would he think of people playing his music hundreds of years in the future? Could he write a timpani concerto? Plus things like, what are his favourite dish, favourite walk, favourite composer? Oh, and last one, why did his first symphony start with a V7-I cadence? (this was ground breakingly fresh!)
4. How do you prioritise rehearsal time with the orchestra, soloists, and choir?
Having a clear goal at the start of each rehearsal is the best place to start. Knowing how many rehearsals you have with the orchestra alone and then with the choir and soloists helps with the plan. The Missa Solemnis has some remarkably difficult fugues which are rather long, and these will always take more rehearsal time.
5. What is your opinion about the most creative aspects of the Missa Solemnis?
The fugues in the Mass I find stunning — difficult but very powerful. Fugues were not new when Beethoven wrote this work, but the way he brings back the opening theme with different instrumental colours is something I really enjoy. Something that I find interesting is that Beethoven did not write metronomic indications, but rather tempo markings that give freedom to the performers that had not been seen in Beethoven's previous works. This is him setting the music free.
***Mark your calendar for this significant Canberra event: Saturday 6 July at 3pm Llewellyn Hall ANU.* BOOK NOW: https://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=MISSASOL24 ***
Photo of Louis Sharpe taken by Peter Hislop, Canberra
