2023-24 VIDEOS:

2023-24 IMAGE GALLERY:

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

“This was my favourite concert of this year! I believe it was a real culmination of creative collaboration and thoughtful programming. The repertoire was not only stunning to listen to, but was thoughtful, relevant and contemporary. I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity of projecting images on screen- I thought it added layers of meaning to what was played. The inclusion of notation in the program notes was also a very nice touch! I look forward to the trailblazing and artistic creativity of Flinders Quartet’s performances in the future.” Peer reviewer, Grenfell concert program

“One of the best Flinders concerts ever for both programming and performance. Really enjoyed the Grenfell ( inc. some very nifty passages for all players ! ) and the Smetana and Shostakovich both showed great command and sensitivity from all players….all up, a very successful and memorable concert.” Peer reviewer, Grenfell concert program

“It was an awesome concert, loved all of it. We are very lucky to hear you in such a lovely local place… as chamber music is meant to be.” Regional audience member, Gifford/Yu concert program

“This past Saturday, 11th November we were fortunate to have Flinders Quartet, one of Australia's most loved chamber music ensembles, back in the region for the first time in 2 years after last year’s performance was cancelled due to extreme weather. 

This year the quartet brought with them a very special guest musician, Dong Ma, playing erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument.

Before Dong Ma joined them, the quartet performed Dissipate, a work newly commissioned by Flinders Quartet from Yuin composer, Brenda Gifford. The work explored the strength and importance of First Nations languages and their preservation. Brenda is an innovative music composer inspired by culture to meld First Nations and Western music practices together into new and exciting works.

The second epic (45 minutes) suite of music was composed by Julian Yu, J.S.Bach Goldberg Variations arranged for erhu and string quartet AKA From Bach to Beijing. We were lucky enough to have Julian and his wife in the audience. They travelled from the inner city not long after Julian was released from hospital after a fall resulted in a few broken ribs!

It was both a thought provoking and meditative performance, enjoyed by all.” Regional presenter, Gifford/Yu concert program

“I feel lucky to have gained such insights into what players in a high calibre chamber ensemble look for in the works they play - both in terms of practicalities (eg. notation preferences) and also the kinds of passages, voicings, pairings, forms etc that work best (and that they enjoy playing) for a quartet of this standard. The generous amount of workshop time and the 3-4 week gaps between each workshop allowed us to take risks with our compositions and gave us the freedom to write hard music (if we wanted to), as we weren't constrained by rehearsal time. I definitely felt that I 'reached' for some sounds that I wasn't fully in control of in the initial drafts of my piece, but after the workshop phase was complete, I felt much much more confident in drawing on string playing extended techniques and had achieved a much more balanced form, two things I'll continue to use in my future works. The score study sessions gave me a wonderful appreciation for the quartet tradition and how elements from the earlier quartet repertoir can be applied to contemporary writing. I'm proud that my piece for FQ feels quite rooted in the canon, in a way that I've always wanted me work to feel. I've also gained a lovely network of friends amongst the composer community and feel particularly satisfied that the piece that I wrote for FQ was a true collaboration between myself, the quartet members and the other Emerge composers.” Emerge composer program participant