Port Fairy Spring Music Festival to feature 101 performing artists

This year’s Port Fairy Spring Music Festival will feature 101 artists over three days with the theme 'Regeneration'  – to reconnect, recharge and regenerate. The event returns following a two year hiatus due to COVID.

From celebrated works of the past to inspirational classics of the future, the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival returns to the must-do calendar of music lovers and arts adventurists with eight world premieres, and 36 world class events performed by local, visiting, emerging and established musicians, set in one of the most magical places on earth.

Of the 101 artists in this year’s Festival, 38 are returning, and 63 are making their debut at the festival, including the internationally acclaimed Goldner String Quartet.

Under the baton of Artistic Directors Monica Curro and Stefan Cassomenos, the PFSMF begins with the Kawai Opening Gala featuring Yuin composer Brenda Gifford’s Miriwa which paints a joyous picture of the sky and its relationship to Country, together with the intimate chamber orchestra version of Gustav Mahler’s lustrous Fourth Symphony.

Titled REGATHERING, the concert will be conducted by the esteemed Fabian Russell, and features rising superstar soprano Rebecca Rashleigh, and an ensemble of impeccable instrumentalists.

Co-Artistic Director Monica Curro advises “after opening with Miriwa, Brenda Gifford’s offering of renewed voice to the Dhurga language, alongside Mahler’s magnificent Symphony No 4, the PFSMF celebrates eight world premieres. Anne Norman reimagines sounds of Port Fairy wetlands, Brenda Gifford invokes Barra Barra, the timeless sea, James Ledger showcases James Crabb’s dazzling virtuosity, Bryony Marks rescores footage from our uncomfortable past, Thomas Green’s multi-faceted prism shines across three new works, and Dermot Tutty nurtures voices of the future with his oratorio, co-written with Port Fairy children,” said co-Artistic Director Monica Curro.

“We are thrilled to welcome the Goldner String Quartet for their first time to Port Fairy, and the return of adored festival favourites – Songmakers pay tribute to our Festival Patron, Lauris Elms, and also to tango maestro Piazzolla. Anna Goldsworthy makes a triumphant return with Brahms, Pejačević and Haydn, Adelaide-based ensemble Various People in Invocations will reconjure their intimate world, and festival icon Stephen McIntyre hosts a feast of Schumann and Schubert.

“We reveal a treasure trove of youthful brilliance – the wunderkind Wattleseed Ensemble, the prodigious Partridge String Quartet, the bodacious Black Square String Quartet, rising superstar vocalists Louis Hurley and Rebecca Rashleigh, and our very own local ‘Regenerators’. The Stiletto Sisters and Cairo Club Orchestra will raise the roof off the Drill Hall, and Port Fairy legends Anna-Lee Robertson and Leah Oswin will share their gift of song.

“Our sweetest joy in returning in 2022 is to reunite with friends from the Southwest and beyond, in two special events – a new collaboration with the Find Your Voice Collective affirming humanity through creativity; and our epic Closing Gala, again assembling a splendour of talent and expertise from local instrumentalists and choristers alongside esteemed soloists and maestro Michael Dahlenburg, in an ode to our ceaseless human capacity for regeneration.”

This year will also see The Sensorium, an innovative multimedia installation unveiled and, with the ringing of the Federation Handbells a new Festival venue will be welcomed in St Brigid’s Crossley.

The Port Fairy Spring Music Festival was created in 1990 by the late British/Australian composer Michael Easton ARAM and the pianist Len Vorster and has been staged as an annual regional music festival since.

Over 32 music-filled years, the Artistic Directors have included Marco van Pagee, Len Vorster, Erich Fackert, Stephen McIntyre, Anna Goldsworthy and Iain Grandage. Continuing their legacy are current Artistic Directors, Monica Curro and Stefan Cassomenos with 2022’s offering a feast of classical and contemporary ensemble music in fresh and collaborative programming, combining and celebrating the talents of highly regarded established artists with the very best of Australia’s new and emerging young performers and composers.

In addition to an incredible chamber music program, there’s also cabaret, jazz, orchestral and choral music, opera, film, interdisciplinary artistic collaboration, accessible performances, and free events in a program of 31 presentations over three days. Schools concerts, masterclasses, pre-concert talks, artist ‘talks and conversations’, and art exhibitions all enhance the appreciation and involvement of Festival patrons and the community.

Port Fairy Spring Music Festival is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

Concert tickets, Festival passes and all information on performances at portfairyspringfest.com.au/