Scenes from Childhood

Linda Barcan and Coady Green perform Scenes from Childhood at the Harold Lobb Concert Hall on Friday 14 August, a programme of voice and piano that looks at childhood from its innocence to its loss. Barcan is a lyric mezzo-soprano; Green is the pianist. Together they've put together a set of works that circle back to the same theme from a few different angles.

Schumann's Kinderszenen sits alongside Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, a song cycle built on themes of mortality and the persistence of nature. There's also Rosenthal's Chanson de Monsieur Bleu, and a handful of other beautiful and seldom heard works to fill out the evening. It's a mix of the well-known and the rare, and the whole thing stays focused on that one idea.

Barcan brings a fair bit of ground to the stage. She trained in theatre and singing voice at the University of Newcastle, NIDA, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, and has performed opera, oratorio, chamber music and art song across Australia, Europe and the USA with companies like Opéra de Lyon, Sydney Chamber Opera, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia. This is a voice and piano night, though, so it's just her and Green.

It runs from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Harold Lobb Concert Hall, Newcastle Conservatorium of Music, on the corner of Laman and Auckland Streets in Newcastle. Tickets are A$24 to A$49, and seating is open.