Melbourne’s winds are bitter. The sky looks like lead. If spring fever is all about headlong anticipation, winter fever is all about sabbatical. Our inner-goths might be down with that, but the parts of us that pine for the light of day (literally or however is fine) are better for any transcendental exit door we can clasp when the pangs stir us so.
Melbourne Recital Centre is your fire escape. In August, it continues to present its Season Three: Haven performances.
Haven is inspired by Guling (orchid) season, one of seven seasons on the Wurundjeri calendar. In Guling, winter winds apex, rivers swell, orchids bloom and, most remarkably, bulen-bulen (superb lyrebirds) perform their final courtship showcases.
With Haven, Melbourne Recital Centre endeavours to gift audiences a space for feeling better and reflecting, while the winter outside shocks and awes.
The series features performances from an eclectic ensemble of artists including classical guitarist Petra Polácková, jazz performer Mama Alto, soprano Cristina Russo, and singer/songwriters Eliza Hull and Liz Martin. It’s a winter offering to warm audiences’ hearts.
Here’s what you need to know about some of the many outstanding acts on the lineup.
Mama Alto — Round Midnight
Mama Alto, a jazz singer, cabaret performer, and gender-transcendent diva, crushes hard on iconic torch singers such as Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday, and channels it charmingly in her own performances.
With a singing voice that ranges from contralto to mezzo-soprano, Alto has rightly been described as everything from “hypnotically beautiful” to “elegant and mysterious” to “bewitching”.
A highly decorated solo artist, Alto has won renown for performances including “Lady Sings The Blues: A Centenary of Billie Holiday”(to mark 100 years since the birth of Billie Holiday), the “Salon Series” tea parlour shows, and regular jazz and cabaret lounge shows at venues such as cabaret and comedy-leaning venue The Butterfly Club.
Alto also serially partners with artists in variety lineups and artists’ collectives, regularly joining forces within scenes that amplify the voices of queer and trans people of colour (such as Colour Tongues and the Cocoa Butter Club).
Alto, who is CEO of Transgender Victoria among many notables, sparks awe in audiences with her sublime vocal delivery, but matches it with outstanding stage banter too.
When she performs Around Midnight at Melbourne Recital Centre’s Primrose Potter Salon this August, she’ll be slaying jazz standards, but expect nothing standard about it, as Alto is a master of transforming something familiar into something you’ve never quite heard before.
When: Friday 4 August 2023 7pm (60 mins)
Where: Primrose Potter Salon
Tickets here.
Cristina Russo & Adam Cook – I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Cristina Russo’s voice makes many things sound better – chief amongst them opera, concert, and film. In each realm, Russo is active.
Although she is a trained opera singer, she’s also a popular jazz performer, fronting Italian ensemble Dai Ciccio.
Given her versatility as a vocal performer, it’s unsurprising her influences are diverse. Amongst them, Russo counts luminaries including Henry Purcell, Nina Simone, and Nick Cave as some north stars.
I Will Follow You Into the Dark’s program is eclectic. Exploring the nature of love – first flutters to the inevitable depths of loss and heartache – Russo performs the theme through interpretations of many acts and artists, including Stefano Landi (Augellin), James Shelton (Lilac Wine), Claudio Monteverdi (Oblivion Soave), and Radiohead (Pyramid Song).
On the night, Russo is joined by jazz-trained pianist Adam Cook.
When: Saturday 5 August 2023, 7pm (60 mins)
Where: Primrose Potter Salon
Tickets here.
Petra Polácková
Prodigious Czech classical guitarist Petra Polácková began formally training at the age of six in the bucolic town of Roznov pod Radhostem and quickly rose to prominence after graduation, playing widely across Eastern Europe, Germany and the United States.
In addition to being in high-demand to host masterclasses across the globe, she now holds her own guitar festival in Czechia. She variously performs with a Concert Master Double Top guitar, an eight-string romantic guitar and a nine-string romantic guitar, along with a historical hand-made guitar dating back to the early 1920s.
Her repertoire includes classics from the likes of Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Friedrich Händel and Johann Sebastian Bach (plus Nikolaj Rimsky-Korsakov’s extraordinary Flight of the Bumblebee), in addition to a wide variety of compositions.
When: Tuesday 7 August, 6pm (60 mins)
Where: Primrose Potter Salon
Tickets here.
Eliza Hull & Liz Martin – Into the Space Between the Notes
Alternative pop singer Eliza Hull counts artists including Kate Bush and Florence Welch as influences, and it shows.
On recently-released single, the piano-driven Running Underwater, Hull’s lyrics are honest and relatable. Her layered vocal tracks soar to moments of triumph, and sample tracks peppered throughout add a dimension of ethereal.
Hull, whose records and EPs have been her ticket to international touring, has also found a home for her music in TV shows such as The Heights, Awkward, Teen Wolf, and Saving Hope.
The much-loved singer is a disability advocate too, living with neurological disorder Charcot Marie Tooth (it causes nerve damage, weakness, and difficulty walking). Running Underwater challenges society’s views of disability, and Hull represents disability through her experiences communicating about life experienced with a disability in the music industry.
Hull will be performing Running Underwater, alongside her new EP Here They Come and other favourites, as part of Into the Space Between the Notes.
Joining her on the night is acoustic-folk artist Liz Martin.
Martin, who performs as singer/songwriter in Liz Martin Band, counts artists such as Paul Mac amongst her previous collaborators, and has a back catalogue of records that hit on everything from folk to rock to ambient electronic pop.
Into the Space Between the Notes is an opportunity for visitors to the Primrose Potter Salon to tune into an evening where musicians with disabilities enthral audiences with new stories about their experiences.
When: Saturday 26 August 2023, 730pm (120 mins)
Where: Primrose Potter Salon
Tickets here.
Melbourne Recital Centre’s Season Three: Haven program runs from July to September. View the stunning full program here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre.
