Tall Poppies Ensemble
An occasional studio ensemble of Australian chamber musicians, the Tall Poppies Ensemble records Australian chamber music with crisp brilliance and outstanding precision: outback pulse, contemplative stillness, Asian-inflected lyricism and political colour.
Assembled from players with deep ties to the label, the group exists for the microphone rather than the concert platform. On Red Earth they cut a path through Bright's arid ostinatos and clapping-stick ceremony, Edwards's insect-still Shadow D Zone, Lumsdaine's sinewy Bagatelles that dream of Bach and Debussy, and Plush's fierce homage to Victor Jara. Elsewhere they answer Anne Boyd's modal, Asian-turned chamber cycles with transparent colour, and bring Kats-Chernin's Velvet Revolution horn trio its jump and anarchy. The sound is clean, warm and internally clear: music that invites listening rather than endurance.
Tall Poppies Ensemble is featured on the following titles
Red Earth
A world-premiere recording of important Australian works for instrumental ensemble. Performers and repertoire were hand-selected for the project, which was funded by the Australia Council.
Tall Poppies Ensemble also appears on
Chamber of Horrors
Tall Poppies presents chamber music by Elena Kats-Chernin, one of Australia’s most loved composers, in works written for the musicians who play them here.
Jamaican Rumba, Vol. 2
Pianist Ian Munro's devotion to Arthur Benjamin drives this second volume of chamber music, recorded with colleagues from the Tall Poppies Ensemble. Major and long-neglected works for violin, viola, cello and clarinet finally receive their due.
Harbour
This CD features the remarkable voice of the septuagenarian tenor Gerald English in works written especially for him by Andrew Ford. A star-studded gathering of musicians accompanies him and also plays three solo works.
Crossing a Bridge of Dreams
This CD gathers some of Anne Boyd's most enduring works, mostly from the 1980s. Many pieces reflect her passion for Asian music, heard especially in the flute writing. Premiere performers return for the recording, among them John Harding on viola in My Name Is Tian.
Onomatopoeia
Long-awaited performances of Nigel Westlake’s most acclaimed chamber works, with outstanding Australian players. One of Tall Poppies’ most successful releases.
Members of Tall Poppies Ensemble
Geoffrey Collins
Geoffrey Collins’s flute has been the voice of much new Australian chamber music. His playing moves from buoyant Mozart quartets to driving Vine sonatas, dreamy Boyd and Westlake colours, and solo works written for him that treat the instrument without cliché.
Catherine McCorkill
Catherine McCorkill's clarinet playing is delectable and flexible: basset clarinet for Mozart's Quintet, warm A clarinet for Brahms, and a clean, precise voice inside Australian chamber scores of outback pulse, stillness and political colour.
John Harding
John Harding's violin brings lyric fire and chamber poise to horn trios by Brahms, Banks and Berkeley, to Carl Vine's Third Quartet, and to Arthur Benjamin's neglected sonatinas and miniatures, played with characteristic élan.
Esther van Stralen
Esther van Stralen brings a nutty, assertive viola tone to solo fantasies spanning Telemann, Cage, Penderecki and Piazzolla, and darkens Australian chamber lines with grit, warmth and precision.
David Pereira
David Pereira is an Australian classical cellist, teacher and composer, born in Macksville, New South Wales, in 1953. He has premiered many concertos and solo works written for him by Australian composers, and served as principal cellist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Daryl Pratt
Daryl Pratt's vibraphone and percussion cut through jazz fusion and contemporary chamber music with equal bite: MIDI-rich grooves, intricate mallet writing, and compositions that move from meditative shimmer to high-velocity interplay.
Ian Munro
Ian Munro has emerged as one of Australia’s most distinguished and awarded musicians, a pianist and composer whose career has taken him to thirty countries across Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.
David Stanhope
David Stanhope is an Australian conductor, composer and pianist whose career also takes in horn and bass trombone. He has led opera, ballet, film scores and orchestras across Australia, and is widely known for his wind-band and brass writing.
Hector McDonald
Hector McDonald's horn has a golden, unforced bloom, whether threading Classical concertos or locking into chamber dialogue. From Haydn and Telemann to Brahms, Banks and Berkeley, the line stays poised, radiant and soloistic.