30 May 2019
The Marais Project's 20th birthday "Garden Party"
The Marais Project release, The Garden Party, celebrates 20 years for the early music ensemble. It has a festive anniversary flavour and includes several world premieres, not the least of which is the Eriksson-penned title track. “Perhaps their best recording yet. Ravishing!” says one reviewer.
Early music ensemble, The Marais Project, has never followed a predictable path. Their recorded output over the past 20 years has been impressive and varied: six CDs covering a gamut of repertoire from the French and Swedish baroque to folk song and jazz. In addition, Director Jenny Eriksson has commissioned and premiered some 25 new Australian compositions creating a whole new repertoire for her instrument, the viola da gamba.
Eriksson's opening track, The Garden Party, is a cheeky take on Marin Marais' Feste Champêtre, one of his most celebrated works. There is a superb Australian-first arrangement of a Marais suite for viola da gamba and piano accordion by Emily-Rose Šárkova. As well as playing the piano accordion Šárkova arranged the two spirited South American songs which close the recording.
Woven between the new repertoire, which makes up more than 50% of the track list, Eriksson and highly-regarded producer Llew Kiek have included selected music from several previous CDs, each of which was released on the Move label. The earlier material spans from the French baroque to Swedish folk song and serves to illustrate the broad range of musical styles and cultures the group embraces . Brilliantly mixed by long-term sound engineer, Chris Doherty, the CD's mastering is by Michael Lynch.
Further reading
The Garden Party
The Marais Project’s latest offering, The Garden Party, has a festive anniversary flavour and includes several world premieres, not the least of which is the Eriksson-penned title track.
The Marais Project
The Marais Project is a celebration of music for the viola da gamba inspired by Marin Marais, the great French virtuoso viola da gamba performer and composer. Formed by Jennifer Eriksson in 2000, the ensemble’s original aim was to perform the complete viola da gamba works of Marais – a monumental task which is more than 85% complete.
Jennifer Eriksson
Jennifer Eriksson completed her initial musical studies at the Sydney Conservatorium then moved to The Netherlands for three years to undertake viola da gamba tuition with Jaap ter Linden at Rotterdam Conservatorium.