Performers of Leaf and Shadow (photograph by Damian Vincenzi)

Since assuming leadership of the AAO in 2013, Peter Knight has shepherded the music into more experimental terrain, emphasising electro-acoustic sounds, a minimalist aesthetic, and a preference for chamber-like intimacy over large-scale composition. The pay-off of this approach was amply evident in Leaf and Shadow.

The concert began with a solo performance by Korean musician Hyelim Kim, a proponent of the taegŭm, a large bamboo flute. Her delicate sound danced and fluttered in mesmerising fashion, making the most of the instrument’s broad palette, which ranges from gentle birdsong to harsh buzzing in the upper register. She was then joined by her compatriot Bae Il Dong, a powerful vocalist and master of the P’ansori, or musical storytelling, tradition. Their duo was full of theatrical effect, with Il Dong gesturing and declaiming in long drawn-out guttural phrasing steeped in feeling.

Whereas these initial pieces drew upon traditional folk music, the following piece, featuring Kim alongside trumpeter Peter Knight and Malaysian violinist Pei Ann Yeoh, was intentionally experimental. Knight’s use of electronics was put to striking effect, as he laid down a steady rhythmic pulse over which Yeoh’s violin buzzed and sawed. Kim’s flute wove beautiful patterns through this music, softening the harsh and furious outbursts of Knight’s trumpet.

Daniel Wilfred and David Wilfred (photograph by Damian Vincenzi)

Shifting gears, Daniel Wilfred and David Wilfred, song men from Ngukurr in Arnhem Land, then performed a series of brief traditional songs. Both musicians previously worked with the AAO on the Crossing Roper Bar project, and their performance – fashioned from voice, bimla (clapsticks), and yidaki (didjeridu) – was stark and intense in contrast to what had gone before.

The penultimate piece, a towering duo performance by Sydney drummer Simon Barker and Bae Il Dong, proved to be the highlight of the concert. Barker, long versed in traditions of Korean music and percussion, began with an extended drum solo, setting up intricate circular patterns that emphasised extremes of noise and silence, before being joined by Il Dong. Their long-standing musical relationship, first developing during Barker’s 2005 journey to Korea in search of master musician Kim Seok-Chul, and beautifully captured in Emma Franz’s film Intangible Asset No. 82 (2008), leant the performance a near telepathic quality. Il Dong howled and screamed, his drawn-out syllables awash with emotion, almost otherworldly, while Barker thundered behind him. This was primal and visceral music, gut-wrenching, like a blow to the solar plexus. When Barker’s final drumbeat hammered down, there was stunned silence in the auditorium as the audience endeavoured to make sense of what they’d just heard.

The finale of Leaf and Shadow – the meeting point – brought all seven musicians together to perform an extended improvisation. This component of the project was conceived during the recent ten-day Creative Music Intensive the AAO undertook in Tasmania, aimed at intermingling diverse cultural traditions, including Arnhem Land manikay (song) and Korean melody and rhythm, with contemporary improvisation. Such a hodgepodge might have spelt disaster, and it is a testament to these musicians, and to the AAO’s musical vision, that this melding of taegŭm and didjeridu, Arnhem Land and Seoul, electronics and jazz, was anything but. Certainly, it was a high-wire act, demanding that the musicians open themselves to new rhythmic possibilities, giving generously of their own traditions, and selflessly incorporating others. The resulting music – which overlaid contemporary dissonance onto age-old song – reflected a singular intensity born out of musical friendship and respect.

Jazz, with its focus upon improvisation, conversational give and take, and close listening, finds itself well placed in the twenty-first century to celebrate our cultural diversity. Put simply, it is a language that brings us together, rather than one that divides us. This aspect was at the forefront of this opening concert of the Meeting Points Series 2019–20. Future performances will see the AAO collaborating with Sri Lankan musicians; Korean vocalist Sunny Kim; and American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, an exponent of the centuries-old Iraqi Maqam tradition.

Leaf and Shadow was performed by the Australian Art Orchestra as part of the Meeting Point Series at The Pavilion, Arts Centre Melbourne, 22 September 2019.