Forest Collective on getting tangled up with new immersive opera Labyrinth (Midsumma Festival)

It's impressive how Forest Collective constantly deliver chamber music performances that are so vastly different from each other. This trend continues with their upcoming immersive production Labyrinth. This opera will fittingly take place in the corridors beneath Abbotsford Convent as we follow the story of Theseus, Ariadne and her half-brother, the Minotaur. Opera singer Daniel Szesiong Todd will not only be taking on the role of Theseus he is also Labyrinth's librettist, with the tenor's interest in this mythological story stemming from the contemporary issues that can still be applied to it.

"The popular myth of the bloodthirsty half-bull, half-man called the Minotaur comes from ancient Greece, where the hero, Theseus, kills the beast with the help of a plucky young princess, Ariadne, who guides him through the labyrinth with her thread. But should we ever take a monster at face value?" Todd asks. "The myth’s strange backstory reveals that the Minotaur is actually Ariadne’s half-brother. Ariadne’s father, King Minos, had refused to sacrifice a bull to the god Poseidon, who became angry and cursed his wife, Queen Pasiphaë, to fall in love with the bull. The Queen then commissioned Daedalus to build a hollow cow puppet that she could crawl inside, so she could have sex with the animal. Eventually, she gave birth to a bull-human-hybrid child, who she named Asterion. Filled with shame and humiliation, King Minos shunned Asterion, hiding him away in the labyrinth and feeding him only human sacrifices from conquered Athens. In this way, innocent Asterion was made into a monster – the Minotaur – literally the bull of Minos."

The Sea review

The Sea is an opera in five parts in an exciting new collaboration between Forest Collective and BK Opera. The two arts companies have put together a riveting production that looks at love and the abuse of love through patriarchy, trauma and the imbalance of power.

Using a poem by Nicole Butcher, The Sea Libretto, we are told the story of an unnamed woman living in an abusive relationship. With music by Evan J. Lawson (Forest Collective's artistic director) and direction by Kate Millett (BK Opera's artistic director), this woman’s plight is linked to the sea, where its negative and positive associations are brought to the surface.

Fountain review | Midsumma Festival | Abbotsford Convent

Returning for its first show in 2023, Forest Collective present Fountain, an orchestral arrangement of pop singer-songwriter Max Lawrence’s music, exploring the fluidity and transient nature in our interactions with our environment and ourselves. Known for bringing together classical chamber music into contemporary settings, Fountain takes us on a strikingly stirring journey on the many forms of love and the emotions that it can elicit.

Lawrence enters the stage wearing a ruched gown-like art piece that as gorgeous as it is to see, feels like a protective barrier for releasing / realising their true self and opening themselves up. This idea is reinforced in the second half, where they wear a two-piece outfit that is more revealing and hugs their body as the music becomes more uplifting and hopeful.

Diapsalmata: P o r t r a i t o f a s e l f review | Forest Collective | St Stephen's Anglican Church

Founded in 2009, Forest Collective prides itself in presenting contemporary classical music to new audiences through innovative and distinctive performances. I am constantly amazed at how uniquely its productions are conceived and delivered. Its recent concert, Diapsalmata: P o r t r a i t o f a s e l f, is another flawless example of this, with two works highlighting mental health, identity, discovery and growth through the experience of a transgender person.

Kym Dillon has composed the music for both pieces, Sonata for Flute and Piano and Diapsalmata. In the former, Dillon accompanies flutist Brighid Mantelli in a composition of three movements. Linking emotions with nature and the environment, Dillon draws inspiration from three flowers found in the Surfcoast region of Victoria, to not only name the movements - (carpobrotus rossii ("Australian pig face"), eucopogon parviflorus ("coastal beard-heath") and leptospermum laevigatum ("coastal tea-tree") - but using the characteristics of the flowers to guide the music.

Forest Collective Gala Performance review | Australian Institute of Music

With a number of performances under its belt this year, including fluttering hearts // thinking machines and Nico: Songs They Never Played on the Radio, Forest Collective have continued with their reinterpretation and reimagining of chamber music and adapting it to suit the various themes and styles of their concerts. For their final show for 2018, Forest Collective's Gala performance consisted of nine pieces with a number of Australian and world premieres. 

Caroline Louise Miller's Reductionism Is A Dirty Word (2016) opens the night with Kim Tan (bass flute), Bec Scully (double bass) and Danae Killian (piano) taking the unique elements of their instrument and seeing how altering the way they play it changes the dynamics between musician and instrument and as a group.