Melba Hall, University of Melbourne
August 31, 2018

Mimir is the Norse god of wisdom and there is indeed a great deal of wisdom in having music students interact with seasoned professionals both through participating in masterclasses and observing performances. The Mimir Festival is the brainchild of Curt Thompson, head of strings at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. He founded the festival some 21 years ago in Texas and its Melbourne manifestation is now celebrating its sixth season, affording a welcome cultural exchange between Australian and North American artists.

The second evening concert in this year’s festival comprised some rather disparate repertoire. Sibelius’s early Trio in G minor is a strange musical torso – the first and only completed movement of a projected longer work. Despite an atmospheric opening with resonant cello pizzicato from the Chicago Symphony’s Brant Taylor, the work tries to deliver a romantic fullness which is difficult to achieve with only three instruments. There were some meaningful exchanges between Thompson’s violin and Brant’s cello, but much of the harmonic infill was left to Joan DerHovsepian on viola, who, along with her colleagues did her best to project cohesion in Melba Hall’s dry and unforgiving acoustic.

Rachmaninov’s attractive Suite No...