Geelong’s annual Windfire Festival returns this October, featuring performances of sacred and other works at a range of diverse venues including the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels.
Like many events centred around the arts, the Windfire Festival has been on hiatus since 2019 due to the pandemic, and the festival’s artistic director Frank De Rosso said the the festival’s return was exciting for the entire Windfire team.
“I’m personally excited because, post-COVID, to get back to a live audience and have us performers playing to a live audience again is fantastic in itself,” Mr De Rosso said.
“It hasn’t happened for the past two years, and it beats playing recorded music or listening to the radio. There’s nothing like live performance and interacting with the people, it’s the essence of music.”
The thirteenth edition of the Windfire Festival, which runs over two weekends in Geelong, kicks off with a performance of Bach’s iconic St John Passion at the Basilica conducted by Joseph Hie.
“Opening night features a choir, a combination of the Windfire choir and the Geelong Chorale, with an orchestra of 18 musicians and six soloists,” Mr De Rosso said.
“The Basilica is beautiful in terms of its ambience and reverberation, it really lends itself to choral music, so it’s going to be quite a fantastic sound.”
While being primarily focused on sacred classical music, Mr De Rosso said the program also showcased a wide range of other genres including electronic music and jazz.
“While as artistic director I’m looking for music which is definitely classical, I want to give people a whole range of genres to pick and choose from,” he said.
“We have the Bach, a massive work and one of the mainstays of classical music, but we also have two experimental concerts, we have jazz as well.
“Dr Andrew Blackburn is one of the gurus of the experimental use of computerised sounds with natural sounds, so the ‘New Sounds – Ancient Resonances’ is going to be a first for Geelong if not for the country.
“We also have Max Rudd, a guitarist and composer originally from Geelong, with Doug de Vries, the very well-known Australian jazz guitarist. They’re going to present some Brazilian music at the Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre.”
The Windfire Festival runs from October 7-16. For more information visit www.musicatthebasilica.org.au.
