QPAC

The musicians of the Signum Saxophone Quartet, who won hearts all over Australia on their debut tour, return with a brilliant new collaborator, Ali McGregor, the opera star turned cabaret queen. Together, they trip the light fantastic on a journey from Berlin to Hollywood, taking detours through a shadowy nightclub, a Shakespearean tragedy, a Broadway musical, and even a Wild West rodeo, before finally arriving somewhere over the rainbow.

The first half of the 20th century was a time of radical change across many dimensions: socially, politically, and artistically. While history books tell one version of the story, the voices of artists, composers, writers, and performers tell another. Musica Viva Australia celebrates 80 years of bringing these voices to life, embarking on a musical journey from moody monochrome to vibrant technicolour, and from introspective darkness to blazing hope.

As Paul Kildea notes, “Hanns Eisler wrote his Hollywood Songbook in the early 1940s, holed up in Los Angeles, a lucky émigré escaping the dark clouds over Europe. Eisler’s title is a peg for a celebration of Musica Viva Australia’s founders, and the transformational impact they have had on Australian culture. Here, the nervous brilliance of Europe in the 1930s gives way to the brash and optimistic music of Broadway and Hollywood in the 1940s.”

With thanks to Ian Dickson AM and Reg Holloway for supporting Izidor Leitinger’s musical arrangements.