Katie Noonan and the Brodsky Quartet - With Love and Fury

Katie Noonan and the Brodsky Quartet collaborated for the first time ever in With Love and Fury.

This unstoppable collision of colossal talent provided audiences with a spine-tingling experience as they re-imagine the words of Australian poet Judith Wright.

The seven-city tour commenced in Brisbane at QPAC with the World Premiere on Thursday April 28, 2016.

With Love and Fury is a truly unique and remarkable Australian program with Katie picking some of her favourite contemporary Australian composers including Carl Vine, Elena Kats-Chernin, Richard Tognetti, Iain Grandage, Andrew Ford, David Hirschfelder, Paul Grabowsky, Paul Dean and John Rodgers in 9 especially commissioned pieces and one of Noonan’s own.

The title ‘With Love and Fury’ reflects the typically poetic phrase that Wright used to sign off her correspondence. These new works will be performed for the first time and, in addition, Brodsky Quartet will also perform some of their own repertoire both alone and accompanied by Noonan, including songs by Elvis Costello, Björk and Katie herself.

“I am so thrilled with the outcome of this project and believe we have created a truly beautiful and significant body of uniquely Australian work and I can’t wait to share this new music with you on our World Premiere Australia tour in April/May,” she said.

“Ever since I first heard the Brodsky Quartet with Elvis Costello on the seminal album ‘The Juliet Letters’ and then not too soon after with one of my musical idols Bjork, it has been a dream of mine to sing with this incredible string ensemble,” said Katie.

‘I am still pinching myself that I find myself here in London on Australia Day 2016, rehearsing a song cycle of my favourite contemporary Australian composers and their settings of the text of the iconic Australian poet Judith Wright. For me, it is particularly poignant as Judith was such an advocate of the Indigenous story and also such a fierce fighter for the conservation of our precious Australian environment  – and her words are perhaps more pertinent now than ever.‘

‘Not long before her death at age 85 in the year 2000, Judith marched in Canberra for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. After our rehearsals on January 26, social media was very busy with important conversations regarding this exact matter and I can’t help but feel Judith was somehow with us that day as we savoured her words through music.’ 

Since its formation in 1972 the Brodsky Quartet has performed over 2000 concerts on the major stages of the world and released more than 50 recordings. Jacqueline Thomas and Ian Belton are the two original Brodsky members and violist Paul Cassidy joined in 1982. Having had some of the finest violinists in the World in the 1st chair (including current SSO Concertmaster Andrew Haveron), they are now joined by the wonderful Dutch violinist Daniel Rowland. The Brodsky Quartet choose to perform with only an elite few vocalists, having previously collaborated with Björk, Sting, Anne Sofie von Otter, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney.

“We are so happy to be working with Katie Noonan, and are proud to be involved in this wonderful new Australian song cycle in memory of the inspirational Judith Wright,” says Paul Cassidy of the Quartet. 

This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.