Concert Report by Mandy McDonald 

Upper Lachlan Gazette  5 June 2024

For lovers of Baroque music, the only place to be on Sunday, 2nd June was the Gunning Courtroom.  Gunning Focus Group presented “Apeiron Baroque”; John Ma played an assortment of violins and viola d’amore and Marie Searled played the harpsichord.

This was a concert not to be missed and the audience was delighted.  The music was wonderful and John interspersed each piece with information, facts and figures about the composers.   The program was both extensive and varied, including favourites such as  Purcell, Bach (CPE), Telemann, Roman, Poglietti, Eccles and more.

A musical fact supplied by John was regarding Nicola Mattheis (1650-1713), an Italian who moved to London and was considered by his contemporaries to be “second only to Corelli”.  He was credited with changing the preferred playing style from the French method to the modern Italian.  “He achieved the lifelong goal of a musician, to marry a rich widow and retire and in true musician style, he died in ill health and utter poverty”.

GFG’s Post-Concert Facebook Post

Above:  GFG’s Rosemary Spiller thanked John and Marie at the end of their very well-received performance.

Our Facebook post reported:

“The Apeiron Baroque concert on in the Gunning Courtroom on Sunday afternoon was a corker.  It featured Marie Searles (harpsichord) and John Ma (viola, violin and viola d’amore) playing a marvellous miscellany including lots of rock and roll music from the 1600’s and 1700’s.

Their performance drew unsolicited praise from audience members who told us it was “brilliant”, “so different”, “wonderful”, “amazing” and “just when you think it can’t get any better, it does”.

In a post-concert email, John said “Marie and I really enjoyed playing in the Courtroom, a nice acoustic with an intimate connection with the audience. Exactly what we have been looking for in venues!”   While John and Marie are the core of the ensemble, Apeiron Baroque has many different configurations so lots of different repertoire.  I am sure we will be seeing and hearing them again.”