The international dimension of the Victoria International Arts Festival is becoming wider and reaching to the far corners of the planet. This year we have had performers coming from South Korea, Delaware in the U.S.A., and China. In this edition, VIAF is hosting for the first time a Trio from Australia to perform for us a concert of works by Pignolet-Monteclair, van Eyck, Bodin-Boismortier, Couperin, von Biber, Hotteterre, and Orme. Two works by Ros Bandt, who will be performing on the recorder, will see the bridging of the contemporary idiom with that of the Baroque.

Performing on period instruments, to include recorders, Baroque violin and viola da gamba, Trio Avium‘s concert’s theme is BIRDSONG and the pieces chosen all highlight in one way or another the use of bird-song by composers. The concert will be performed at St Francis Square, Victoria. Concert starts at 8pm.

Trio Avium is a new international Trio of three musicians who specialize in Baroque interpretation, and who love to play music inspired by birdsong, both European and Australian. As pairs in other groups, Capella Corelli, (Ruth Wilkinson and Cynthia O’Brien) and La Romanesca, (Ruth Wilkinson and Ros Bandt)  the three have been touring early music internationally for many years in many places, most notably in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, America and most recently in Australia, where their new CD, Birdsong, was recently recorded. Cynthia O’Brien, acclaimed baroque violinist, is based in Vienna and Tuscany and visits Australia frequently giving concerts and workshops. Ruth Wilkinson, recorders and viola da gamba, is a much sought after musician who teaches Early Music Performance at the University of Melbourne. She studied the recorder in Basel, Switzerland, with Hans Martin Linde, and viola da gamba with Jordi Savall. Ros Bandt studied the recorder in Switzerland and is an internationally-renowned composer and sound artist. With her two compositions this evening, she is interpreting birdlife, its presence and absence in her Australian acoustic sanctuary (Magpie) and in Europe, (Fratta).