CONCERT: Encounters - The Meeting of Europe and Asia

This concert explores Europe’s first contact with Japan and China from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. These encounters are re-imagined through the sights and sounds of music performed and composed in these lands to the Far East. Tracing Gregorian chant through to chamber music, this unique soundscape of cultural exchange is brought to life by a vibrant group of young early music specialists. This concert features a number of Australian premieres, including the musical drama, Mulier Fortis (Strong Woman), composed in Austria in 1698 about the trials and tribulations of a Japanese Christian convert. These rare pieces tell us a tale about music as a way of communicating across cultures, and how both European merchants and missionaries alike were confronted with a new world continually unfolding before them.