Judith Hamann & James Rushford | Midmeste
Concert, Valère Basilica, Friday, October 27, 7pm
Judith Hamann (cello) and James Rushford (keyboards) have a long history together: in 2008, while still students in Melbourne, they formed the Golden Fur trio with Sam Dunscombe, an ensemble keen to distance itself from the canonical power centers of contemporary music. Judith Hamann and James Rushford also regularly perform as a duo, as is the case for the Biennale Son, for which they will be playing in an exceptional venue, the Valère Basilica in Sion.
Midmeste is a new collaborative project by the two Australian composer-performers. Meaning "the most central point" (from Old English), Midmeste weaves unique and complex links between cello, organ and acoustic space. The project integrates musical texts from the late Middle Ages into an expanded microtonal framework, and elaborates a path of multiple threads, contours and connections in which both original and appropriated musical materials, notions of performative embodiment and psychoacoustic vestiges emerge recurrently. Here, the project can be embodied in a unique and particularly important historical context, since it will make use of the organ of the Valère Basilica in Sion - the oldest playable organ in the world.
