Alex Raineri, the artistic director of the Brisbane Music Festival, favours diverse programming. From bloodpaths, a collaboration between Raineri and dancer Katina Olsen which involved new contributions by 25 Australian composers, to an art song recital featuring soprano Sara Macliver, the bold mix appears to be much appreciated. There was something for all tastes in this year’s program with events pointedly celebrating a variety of Brisbane’s intimate performance spaces.

Alex Raineri

The Trout for instance was presented in the gracious setting of the Old Museum Building, and the performers and audience were gifted with a rewarding acoustic, an ideal soundstage for Jonathan Henderson’s fluid and assured performance of Bach’s Partita in A Minor for solo flute, BWV 1013. Bach’s moniker for this work in four movements was merely ‘Flute Solo’ but editors eventually defined the work as a ‘Partita’ presumably because of its four stylised movements that include an Allemande and Sarabande which are commonly associated with this form.

After greeting the audience, Henderson commanded silence as he retreated inside himself to prepare to play the challenging Allemande. His eloquence in exploring Bach’s syntax, swift fingering shifts, wide leaps with scarcely time...