Christina Boughen and the Brisbane City Council concerts, 1978-1997

Guest blogger: Juanita Simmonds, recipient of the Christina Boughen OAM Fellowship for 2022

At the centre of Brisbane’s CBD is City Hall. And on level 2 inside City Hall is Ithaca Auditorium, where hundreds of Brisbane City Council concerts have taken place.

Starting in 1941, the Brisbane City Council funded several series of concerts held in venues within City Hall.

But after the Ithaca Auditorium opened on 25 February 1982 there was a new home for up to ten Young Artists recitals, 11 Chamber Music recitals, and an average of 23 classical Music at Midday concerts each year at least until the mid-1990s.

Christina Boughen and the Council concerts

Christina Boughen (1920-2014) was a Queensland classical musician.

Beginning in 1942, Christina performed in the Brisbane City Council concerts for decades as a solo pianist, duo pianist, and accompanist. And, from 1962, she served for more than 30 years on the Brisbane Municipal Musical Advisory Council and its later iteration, the City of Brisbane Music Advisory Committee. This team programmed and promoted the council’s free classical, jazz, military, band and organ concerts in City Hall and other venues around Brisbane.

In the 1980s and 1990s, rather than bowing out, Christina stayed on stage. She also produced the council concerts in three classical music series: Chamber Music, Young Artists and Music at Midday. These series mirrored those of earlier decades in offering paid work for musicians and a variety of options for concertgoers.

Students and semi-professionals also had the chance to perform in these concerts. The Opportunity and Junior Civic concerts that had started in the 1940s were now called Young Artist recitals, and the variety of music and performers in the old Civic Concerts was now presented in Music at Midday. The council had always auditioned these artists and Christina continued this practice.

Brisbane City Council concert programs, 1978-1997

The Christina Boughen OAM and Robert Boughen OBE papers held by the State Library of Queensland contain more than 700 programs from 1978-1997 for council concerts Christina produced and accompanied.

As established in the mid-century, the concerts were free to attend and offered a printed program on a folded sheet of paper. The Young Artists and Music at Midday concerts also had a compere.

Professional Chamber music

The Chamber Music recitals were the highest artistic level, performed by professional musicians.

Artists included staff from the Queensland Conservatorium and University of Queensland, The Badinerie Players; and chamber groups formed from the Queensland Theatre, Queensland Philharmonic, and Queensland Symphony orchestras.

Audiences could mostly expect to hear classical pieces from the Baroque period through to the 20th Century; familiar European staples like Franz Schubert’s The Trout quintet and Czardas by Vittorio Monti; and on occasion, contemporary pieces by Australian composers such as Colin Brumby and Ann Carr-Boyd. In 1989 the vocal group Jones & Co performed Four Songs from Australian Women Poets, composed the previous year by Brisbane’s John Nickson.

Performance opportunities for students

The Young Artist recitals gave a platform to talented musicians still at school or in the early phase of their tertiary music study. They were held monthly on a Friday night and were compered by pianist-teacher Joyce Skelton.

Up to ten performers presented two or three items each, accompanied by Christina Boughen. Appealing pieces like “Meditation” from Jules Massenet’s opera, Thaïs, and works from the examination syllabus such as the song “The Ships of Arcady” by Michael Head, “Romanza Andaluza” by Pablo de Sarasate for violin, and Concertino Opus 107 by Cécile Chaminade for flute, were often heard.

Free lunchtime music in the city

City workers and visitors could see jazz and classical Music at Midday concerts on Thursdays. Christina’s classical stream of these concerts included piano solos, small chamber groups, and solo instrumental and vocal items accompanied by piano.

The hour-long recital would typically feature four musicians or ensembles, each performing a bracket of works. The concert was compered, usually by Christina’s husband Robert Boughen.

The concert programs in the Boughen papers show that classical pieces by composers from the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Europe, Russia and elsewhere were heard during these concerts. However, the mainstays were works such as Franz Schubert’s “An die Musik” and Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns, likely chosen to ensure broad audience enjoyment.

Christina accompanied the solo pieces in the first few years but as time went on, other professional pianists would accompany some of the concerts.

Supporting talent in the Brisbane City Council concerts

One of the scrapbooks in the Boughen papers contains newspaper clippings relating to the Young Artist, Music at Midday and Chamber Music concerts that Christina produced for the Brisbane City Council.

Christina took an interest in the ongoing achievements of artists who performed in the classical concerts she organised. In addition to newspaper advertisements and concert reviews, the scrapbook has feature articles about younger artists who had performed in the council concerts and were now gaining successes such as winning a major prize, or heading overseas for work or further study.

Oboist Diana Doherty, pianists Piers Lane and Shan Deng, and singers Lisa Gasteen, Clare Gormley and Miriam Gormley, are just some of the musicians who performed in the Brisbane City Council concerts between 1978-1997 and who have since built a career on Australian and international stages.

A lifetime of music

Christina was associated with the Brisbane City Council concerts for almost sixty years. In these concerts she performed, accompanied, encouraged young and emerging professional musicians, and ensured Brisbane audiences could hear pleasing repertoire performed to a high standard.

In the Boughen papers there are notes and letters to Christina from both musicians and concertgoers in appreciation of her performances and the council concerts she organised.

Admiration and gratitude for the concerts also came through an anonymous Brisbane City Council survey; a copy of the 1993 report Survey for Civic Concerts is in the Boughen papers and includes the feedback. One survey responder remarked, “I think the lady that organises the classical concerts should get some recognition. She does a first class job.”

As well as her work with the council concerts, Christina’s professional music career included other performance and accompaniment, teaching, and examining for the Australian Music Examinations Board. Official recognition did eventually come her way, as Christina received a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2002 for her important contribution to music.

Christina Boughen is indeed a noteworthy figure in Queensland’s classical music history.

Juanita Simmonds

Collection

• Christina Boughen OAM and Robert Boughen OBE papers, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. 
• Collection Guide
• Concertino Opus 107 by Cécile Chaminade
• “The ships of Arcady” by Michael Head
• “Meditation” by Jules Massenet 
• Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns​​​​​​
• “Romanza Andaluza” by Pablo de Sarasate
• “An die Musik” by Franz Schubert

Other blogs

• A curtain call for Christina Boughen

• Concerts aplenty: Christina Boughen and the mid-century City Hall performances