WHO needs the Opera House or concert halls when you can get up close and personal with world class performers in the intimate setting of St Paul’s Parish hall in Cooma? At Snowy Monaro Arts Council’s concerts you can do just that; enjoy wonderful music and then mingle with the performers later over afternoon tea.

With a recent piano recital with operatic vocal pieces and another dance music concert on the horizon coming next week, the day after the busking festival, Monaro music lovers are well and truly entertained.

The arts council was especially delighted to welcome their honorary patron, David Miller AM, to Cooma to perform an ‘encore’ concert.

Acclaimed pianist and accompanist, Miller, supported operatic baritone Simon Lobelson in a recent recital of dramatic, passionate and sensuous vocal works from the 19th and 20th century repertoire.

The program titled ‘Songs on Death’ and ‘Songs on Animals’ was a seemingly unusual combination however the contrast of themes seemed to work as some familiar pieces of music were performed in a vocal setting with sensitivity and drama.

The recital opened with a dramatic rendition of the imaginative Danse macabre by Saint-Saens and continued the first theme with Mussorgsky’s ‘Songs and Dances of Death’ which includes a lullaby for a sick child, a serenade for an adolescent girl, a freezing trepak folk-dance, and a depiction of dying troops after a battle.

Perhaps a bit gruesome, these songs were from the ‘ Romantic’ era of music history in which fantasy and imagination are more important than classical restraint and good taste and musical pictures of paintings, stories and poems were composed.

The next section of the conert was titled ‘Songs on Animals’. French composer Saint-Saens is known for his Carnival of Animals suite, however during this concert we heard his piece La Coccinelle, the Ladybird, a whimsical setting of a poem by Victor Hugo.

Operatic arias were also presented on this wonderful program, works by Mozart, Donizetti, Puccini in which Simon Lobelson’s conveyed the moods and feelings of these arias with his strong baritone voice and by his dramatic facial expressions.

It was as if St Paul’s Hall was the Opera House stage minus the scenery and props. Musical theatre pieces then delighted the appreciative audience who although wanting to hum along to familiar tunes, Some Enchanted Evening, refrained as they were captivated by Simon’s melodious voice and David’s brilliant accompaniment.

Children were catered for too with the amusing renditions of Copeland’s Fiddle-dee-dee farmyard song and a song by Rossini that gives a baby’s viewpoint of sneezing with wailing and a-choo-ing throughout.

The concert was breath-taking and covered a full range of emotions, offering so much to chat about with the artists over a delicious afternoon tea.,

The next concert will be another brilliant occasion with pianist Katherine Day presenting ‘The Art of the Dance’ on the John Laught Memorial grand piano in St Paul’s hall on Sunday December 1.