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HIP Company Meeting Place at Naval Store, for Fremantle Biennale

Headshot of David Cusworth
David CusworthThe West Australian
HIP Company’s Bonnie de la Hunty, Sarah Papadopoulos, Krista Low, Lilly Gogos and James Huntingford at The Naval Store, Fremantle, for Meeting Place, part of the Fremantle Biennale festival.
Camera IconHIP Company’s Bonnie de la Hunty, Sarah Papadopoulos, Krista Low, Lilly Gogos and James Huntingford at The Naval Store, Fremantle, for Meeting Place, part of the Fremantle Biennale festival. Credit: Andre Avila

HIP Company’s Baroque repertoire broached a distinctly modern ambience at Fremantle’s Naval Store on Friday night.

The brutalism of steel columns and beams was a stark contrast to the intricacies of pre-industrial music; and the bucolic tune-up of gut strings drew on a palette far removed from the rumble and pop of motorbikes at the traffic lights outside.

Meeting Place, a program within the Fremantle Biennale festival, also channeled Noongar tradition in the Songs of James Miago voiced by Lilly Gogos and interspersed with the ensemble works, combining Gogos’ balladic tones with Bonnie de la Hunty’s classical soprano.

Even the location, an intersection on the banks of the Swan River, spoke of encounters just as Miago’s words, collected in the 1830s and set to music by Clint Bracknell, echo early contact between Indigenous and European culture.

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De la Hunty launched the Baroque repertoire with Allez Orphee by Clerambault; strikingly framed by dazzling white stagelights as the trio of James Huntingford (harpsichord), Krista Low (cello) and Sarah Papadopoulos (violin) gently stalked her precise lead.

A trilogy of Handel followed with Sarabande from Water Music – violin sweetly resonant over barely there cello and harpsichord; Süße Stille, sanfte Quelle, from Nine German Arias – De la Hunty looping silvery swift over the ensemble; and Allegro from Sonata in F major – a delicate style that belied the surroundings.

Bloodwood Chant, a traditional number from Gogos with accompanying clapsticks, changed up the mood before De la Hunty’s return a cappella in Siuil a Run, a Celtic song of love and longing, calming and karmic.

Gogos reprised the chant then joined De la Hunty in song to telling effect before the river sprites wove their spell on the harpsichord strings and a lengthy tune up followed; a projected backdrop of industrial and coastal scenes, steel and smog against ocean and sky, playing with the ambience.

HIP Company’s Bonnie de la Hunty, Sarah Papadopoulos, Krista Low, Lilly Gogos and James Huntingford at The Naval Store, Fremantle, for Meeting Place, part of the Fremantle Biennale festival.
Camera IconHIP Company’s Bonnie de la Hunty, Sarah Papadopoulos, Krista Low, Lilly Gogos and James Huntingford at The Naval Store, Fremantle, for Meeting Place, part of the Fremantle Biennale festival. Credit: Andre Avila

Purcell set a more robust tempo for the restart, Dance of the Winds from The Tempest calling for vigorous cello and violin over gentle harpsi-chords (see what I did there).

De la Hunty cooled the mood with Espoir des Malheureux, from Campra’s Idomenee; an almost bel canto style with delicate voice echoed in strings, flipping to more energetic delivery over tutti motorbike, trilling amid traffic to dramatic effect.

Gogos returned on guitar with Million Dollar Walls, a contemporary lament for the old ways with dark moods complemented in mellow cello; traditional meetings now long gone.

A Miago song duet to follow began in discord before resolving to melody and harmony, as if in reconciliation, leading to a Mascitti sonata, Les Vents from Psyche; majestically languid in measure with hints of fire in strong major chords.

Back to Handel, De la Hunty gave a surprisingly upbeat account of misfortune on the high seas in Da Tempeste, from Giulio Cesare in Egitto, clearly enjoying her duet with violin.

Gogos recast the mood with the Warumpi Band favourite My Island Home, her unadorned vocal quality well suited to the soft-spoken yearning in the lyric.

Another duet of the Miago songs extended the longing in a mash-up of traditions before two De la Hunty arrangements rocked out the night: The Water is Wide, a Scottish folksong returning to crystalline Celtic timbre, with ensemble chords softly droning as both singers keened out a love-lorn dream; and Hollywood classic Over the Rainbow, with Noongar interpretation by Bracknell — a meeting of minds, blissing out in the cadence.

HIP Company launch their debut album, Pastorales, at Christ Church, Claremont, on December 4.

Lilly Gogos’ first album is due for release next year.

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