Dear friends,
Jenny Eriksson and Tommie Andersson
I hope that you had a wonderful break of some time over Christmas and New Year. I spent quite a bit of time on the beach and with family and am now back practicing and organising for the year to come.
20 Year Anniversary Year
As you may be aware, in 2019 The Marais Project celebrates 20 years. Our first concert was held on July 30, 2000, at St Scholastica’s, Glebe. We held another concert at the same venue in October of that year. At that point in time I had no idea what I was doing, or what would come next, except that I wanted to try to play the complete works of Marin Marais! Over the past 20 years we have expanded our repertoire considerably but Marais is still on our musical radar. Our 20th Anniversary Celebration concert, “Times and Seasons”, takes place on May 26 at The Independent. The performance will feature Swedish viola da gambist, Leif Henrikson, who is an old friend of lutenist Tommie Andersson. Tickets are available now here
20th Anniversary CD
Last week we edited our 20th Anniversary CD which will be titled “The Garden Party”, a name we chose to give a sense of the celebratory mood of the music. A number of guest artists appear on this recording including soprano, Susie Bishop, double bassist Elsen Price and Emily-Rose Šárkova on piano accordion. Emily and I have recorded her wonderful arrangement of a suite by Marin Marais for viola da gamba and piano accordion. Tommie Andersson, who has played on all our CDs, also makes a major contribution. The CD will be released in May at the “Times and Seasons” concert.
“What should I say” CD launch by Elysian Fields
We will officially launch Australia’s first electric viola da gamba CD on March 14 at Foundry616 in Sydney. If you have not heard the electric gamba, here it is in a You Tube video of my arrangement of a Marais tune, Le Badinage. You can order the CD here or stream or from iTunes. Alternatively, check us out on Spotify.
Swedish tour?
There are lots of “perhaps” and “maybes” involved before this dream becomes a reality but Tommie, Leif and I are working on a Swedish tour for 2020. In preparation, we will undertake a mini-tour of New South Wales in June 2019 along with soprano, Susie Bishop, who speaks Swedish and also plays a mean Swedish fiddle. The tour dates will be published soon.
Along with all the above we are doing several private concerts over the coming weeks and I am also visiting Darwin once more as guest Music Director for the Arafura Ensemble.
Many thanks for your interest and support.
See you in 2019!
Jenny Eriksson
Director, The Marais Project, Elysian Fields and Da Vinci’s Apprentice
29 January 2019
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