U-topia or eu-topia: a ‘good’ place or a place of ‘nothingness’. Utopia is The Song Company’s
special take on perfection and its impossibility!
The program for Utopia ranges from Hildegarde of Bingen’s visions of paradise through the musical
egalitarianism of Bach’s ‘Ricercare’ from the Musical Offering to contemporary views on paradise.
Nigel Butterley’s Paradise Unseen is inspired by Kathleen Rain’s visionary poetry. Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ is a classic minimalist journey into Nirvana and is followed by John Lennon’s hymn to pacifism ‘Imagine’.
Works by Hildegarde, Alfonso X el Sabio, Josquin Desprez, JS Bach, Butterley, Riley and Lennon.
Performance Dates
- Bathurst
All Saints' Cathedral
26 April, 6:30pm - Blue Mountains
Blackheath Uniting Church
4 May, 2:30pm - Campbelltown
Campbelltown Arts Centre
19 April, 7:30pm - Canberra
National Gallery of Australia
9 May, 7:30pm - Newcastle
Newcastle Conservatorium
1 May, 7:30pm - Orange
Kinross School Chapel
6 May, 7:30pm - Southern Highlands
Frensham School - School Hall
Mittagong
3 May, 7:30pm - Sydney
Verbruggen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
20 April, 3:00pm
23 April, 7:30pm - Wollongong
Wollongong City Gallery
16 April, 7:30pm
Utopia
Paradise seen and unseen
"Becoming immersed in the harmonic ecstasy of Butterley and the trance-inducing 'In C' by Riley will shake us away from our earthly coil into the heady fantasies of idealism. Old music and new music are twin sisters in this sound-world!"
Ruth Kilpatrick
