Welcome
to Wilma & Friends’ 2024 season,
finally!
Thanks for your patience while I was concentrating on recovery from shoulder and then knee replacement. With a lovely mix of new and old friends, we’ll be bringing you a delicious, predominantly French piano trio program to start and then two groups featuring wind instruments, including a W&F first, the bassoon!
I first heard the brilliant Todd Gibson-Cornish when he was just 15 and since then, his career has taken him all over the world. We’ll play a fascinating and even funky program for bassoon and strings, including two Australian premieres, which I’m sure will give a new appreciation for just what this instrument can do.
Lastly, a group of Melbourne’s musical leaders who need no introduction, including the inimitable David Griffiths, join forces to present two of the best clarinet showcases ever written – Weber and Brahms Quintets – along with Germaine Tailleferre’s only string quartet.
We look forward to seeing you at Scotch College, Camberwell Uniting Church, St Stephen’s Richmond and Tempo Rubato.
Photo credit: Agatha Yim, Polyphonic Pictures
2024 Season
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Ooh La La!
27 & 30 April 2024
Beethoven’s unique piano trio which can be played by piano and winds or piano and strings is the overture for two seldom-heard Romantic French gems.
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New World Cool
29 May & 1 June 2024
Featuring bassoon virtuoso Todd Gibson-Cornish with a stellar cast of strings in a fascinating program from Elgar to Gershwin and Marsalis. Included are two Australian premieres of works by Kiwis – a hauntingly beautiful string quartet by Victoria Kelly and a bassoon quintet written especially for Todd by Anthony Ritchie.
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Reed Rapture
17 & 20 September 2024
The charming and suave early 20th century string quartet by Germaine Tailleferre is the curtain-raiser for two monumental works showcasing the expressive and virtuosic range of the clarinet, especially in the hands of David Griffiths with some of Melbourne’s finest string players.