Sitsky venue opens for the sound of music

Thursday July 4, 2002

By W.L. HOFFMANN

A new music-performance venue was opened in Canberra yesterday when the ACT Minister for the Arts, Bill Wood, officially launched the Sitsky Performance Studio in Altree Court, Phillip.

Professor Larry Sitsky at the Phillip music studio named in his honour, which was opened yesterday. Picture: RICHARD BRIGGS

This intimate music venue, which has been created for the Canberra community by Chris Davis and Paul Wheeler of the My Music store in Altree Court, is intended for concerts and recitals, particularly those presented by the smaller community music organisations.

It features a semi-circular stage, concert grand piano, recording facilities and seating and amenities for up to 80 people.

It has been named the Sitsky Performance Studio to honour Canberra composer, pianist, author of a number of books and distinguished music educator Professor Larry Sitsky, who has been associated with the Canberra School of Music for the past 36 years.

In opening the studio, Mr Wood said that it was a worthy acknowledgement of Sitsky’s distinguished career and in particular his notable role in the development of music in Canberra.

He welcomed it as a significant edition to the limited number of venues in Canberra suitable for and available to small musical bodies and expressed the community’s thanks to those who had provided it.

After responding, it was appropriate that Sitsky gave the first performance in the studio by playing his piano piece E, the first movement of his Fantasia No. 11.

Then two of his more recent students, singer and composer Judy Crispin and pianist Kate Bowen, provided an accomplished performance of his song-cycle Bone of my Bones, a setting of love poems by a number of poets from Liu Ch’e, Spenser, Yeats and Browning, to the Russian Blok.

In size, facilities and acoustics, as far as could be judged from yesterday’s performances, this studio should prove a boon to those community music groups looking for a suitable performance venue.

First published in The Canberra Times, July 4, 2002