Jane Gower - Bassoonist

"I hope to spend much more time in Australia during the coming years," Gower explains, "because I just think it's a more fertile musical environment. Here it's all still new; in Europe there's this feeling that everything has already been done, there's a tiredness. I've always been impressed by the actual quality and the quantity of music in Australia: there has always been a vibrancy to it, which seems to me only to be increasing."

Gower is currently back in Australia for a series of concerts with The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, a group she shares a long history with. "I played with them for the first time just before I left Australia to study in The Netherlands. It was both a hello and a goodbye all at once; I literally got straight on the plane and left."

After playing with groups such as the Orchestra Of The Age of Enlightenment and Les Arts Florissants, how do our own Brandenburgs compare? "The Brandenburg sound is really full of vivacity and energy," Gower explains, "with lots of colour and nuances. There's a certain joy to the playing, an infectious enthusiasm and a lack of fear."

It was actually in Australia that Gower first encountered the ideas of period performance, a tradition more usually associated with Europe. "I was studying at the School of Music in Canberra in the 90s where music was about faster, louder, more vibrato -  definitely nothing to do with being retrospective. But while I was still studying I played with the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti, performing Handel and Haydn. He wanted this very particular style for them - no vibrato, shorter articulation - it was like he was speaking another language."

Gower's fascination with baroque performance styles extends to the repertoire. While with the Brandenburg Orchestra she will be the soloist in bassoon concertos by Fasch and Vivaldi. The latter work holds particular interest for Gower, who defends the composer against his many critics. "People often say of Vivaldi that he just composes the same piece over and over again, but you really can't say that about the bassoon concertos. Every one of them is completely different and individual, and they all have these incredible technical and structural effects. He really goes to town on that with all the different things that the bassoon can do."

Hear Jane Gower and The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra at The City Recital Hall between Wed 30 and Sat 2 July.

Subscribe to our Spotify playlists