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Ray Chen's bittersweet violin sweeps over Perth Concert Hall / The West Australian

A pin drop or a pen's scratch would have rent the air as Ray Chen's high harmonics held the Perth Concert Hall on a fingertip at the apogee of Matthew Hindson's Dark Matter. This new work for Musica Viva explores both the depth of human frailty - framed by the composer's father's death - and the hidden hand of cosmic fate: the dark matter that binds the universe. At the introduction, Julien Quentin leaned into the keyboard almost hesitantly, as if once launched there was no going back, intoning intense chords as Chen's bittersweet violin swept over the top, the piano muttering darkly of life's mystery lurking just out of sight, an underground stream undermining all endeavour; entropy in a harmonic sequence.

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