Patrick Savage Performs at Melbourne Recital Centre in May

Quartz Music will present Unveiled: Icons of Cinema with Patrick Savage, Australian-born virtuoso violinist and film composer and acclaimed pianist Konrad Olszewski. Touring Victoria and Tasmania the concert will feature music from his recently released CD The Golden Age of Hollywood: Concert Works for Violin and Piano. Patrick, a leading virtuoso in Britain along with acclaimed pianist Konrad will present obscure works from Hollywood’s golden age with film music by some of the most acclaimed film music composers at the Melbourne Recital Centre this coming May.

Researched and compiled through COVID lockdowns the album was recently named BBCs album of the week and has already received rave reviews from many including from The Strad. Composers featured in the concert include Saint-Saëns,Shostakovich, Schnittke and Copland as well as virtuoso works by John Williams.

Patrick brings to the stage a formidable career including (former) Principal First Violin for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and first violin in the Tippett Quartet. Now a freelance concertmaster, soloist, studio session player and West End musician, Patrick is also a film music composer with scores including the cult horror The Human Centipede and forthcoming puppet horror, Abruptio. Patrick has also composed for theatre and video games.

Each of the composers represented on the album were Academy Award-winners or nominees and made an extraordinary contribution to the art of film scoring during Hollywood’s Golden Age. The tour offers an opportunity to experience live performances of rarely heard music composed during the heady years of the frenetic film production period of the 1920s to the 1960s. During this time Los Angeles was a magnet for violin super-heroes,including the man who influenced the sound of cinematic violin playing more than any other, Jascha Heifetz.While the composers of old Hollywood were generally accomplished pianists, they called upon the magic of theviolin to make the tenderest, most direct appeal to the heart. 

The full program also includes music from Franz Waxman, Robert Russell Bennett, Bernard Herrmann, and Miklos Rozsa. Astonishingly Herrmann’s 1927 Opus 2, Pastoral (Twilight) was unrecorded yet, it had beencomposed at age 16. Pastoral gives a fascinating insight into the developing musical identity of this uniquely influential American composer, and it finds him in an uncharacteristically lyrical mode. 

The tour will kick off in Bendigo on the 19th of May and will travel through Victoria and Tasmania concluding on the 31st of May. Tickets are available from the participating venues. Patrick arrives in Australia on May 12.