Matt McMahon on the piano, Jenny Eriksson on the electric viola da gamba, Susie Bishop on violin and voice, and Matt Keegan on saxophone at last weekend’s Canowindra Baroquefest.
Motel rooms and most other accommodation houses in Canowindra and surrounds were booked out over the weekend and the town saw many visitors as Baroquefest brought to town twenty-five accomplished musicians of national and international standing.
John Mitchell, a weekend visitor from Sydney wrote: “Where can one go to experience good food, good music and good company in the most intimate and beautiful settings outside of a concert hall? We had them in abundance at Baroquefest this weekend. From church to winery to drawing room, we experienced a wide variety of music from Bach to Offenbach. Compositions exemplified some traditional forms, some experimental and some clever fusion of everything from the sacred to jazz.”
The musicians too, love Baroquefest. Accustomed to performing in some of the best known concert halls of Europe, Britain and the USA, Jenny Eriksson, Rachael Scott, and David Pereira, to name just three, delight in coming to a small town in the central West of NSW called Canowindra. They bring their instruments, their beautiful voices, their warm and enthusiastic personalities and present concerts of a standard usually found only in the big cities at big prices.
Each concert brought something different. Yet members of the audience who like to follow jazz or classical, or baroque almost exclusively found every concert to be a delight and often an introduction to another genre.
As a drawcard to Canowindra, Baroquefest has so much to offer. Like most forms of the Arts it needs funding and the budget often threatens to blow out. The committee and indeed the audiences appreciate the wonderful venues that are made available for the concerts at little or no cost. All Saints is an impressive building with great acoustics. Noojee Lea with its gracious old homestead and its stunning garden offers the comfort of its drawing room, and Wallington’s and Rosnay offer the delights that go hand in hand with lunch or dinner at a winery.