This is a recording of a live Zoom broadcast held on 14 January 2021 and was the first live performance back in our theatre space after being closed for most of 2020. This recital was the first in a series of five recitals curated by Coady Green at fortyfivedownstairs, which featured some of Melbourne’s brightest stars of classical and contemporary performance including Collide, Solstice Trio, Christopher Smith and the Rathdowne Quartet.

Solicitude
2020 saw the 97^th birthday of Pulitzer Prize winning American composer and diarist Ned Rorem and, in October, the 90^th birthday of Australian London-based composer John Carmichael. This program features Australian premieres of works by both composers, including a new conclusion to Carmichael’s Latin American Dances, written for Duo Eclettico for this recital and sent to them fresh off the press.

In 2020, Duo Eclettico received a grant from City of Melbourne to establish an award for young composers. The recipient of this prize, Gulliver Poole, has his new work Solicitude premiered in this concert. The concert will also include a sneak preview of one movement from Linda Kouvaras’s new work for Duo Eclettico Night Pieces. The world premiere of this major new cycle will be held in November 2021 at Melbourne Recital Centre. The concert opens with Kenealy’s own arrangement of Bach’s scintillating A Minor Violin Concerto, which reinvents the virtuosity of the original by transferring to the saxophone, requiring complex dexterity and circular breathing techniques.