This was a very worthwhile night of poetry and music at the Sound Lounge at the Seymour Centre.
Koritini set favourite poems to music, either singing the poems backed by his piano accompaniment or by playing an instrumental piano piece inspired by a poem.
Koritini cleverly set up a video screen alongside his piano where he displayed the words and images inspired by the poems, as well as displaying his virtuoso piano playing.
His choice of poets was eclectic and interesting. There was Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was not famous during his lifetime, the wild and wondrous world of William Blake, brother and sister poets Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, precocious poet with, rock star fame in his time in the late 19th century, Arthur Rimbaud, the romantic poetry of John Keats who sadly died too young of TB ( Anton spoke of how he visited Keats’s grave during one trip overseas), not so well known poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes and the great twentieth century American poet, Robert Frost.
His playing was passionate and the arrangements were sometimes complex. A favourite piece was the fiery arrangement to the Robert Frost poem ‘Fire and Ice’ with the famous lines ‘Some people say the world end wth fire, some with ice, from what I’ve tasted of fire, I go with those who favour fire’.
Another favourite rendition of Shakespeare’s ‘Blow, blow thou winter wind’ with the easily relatable lines-‘most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly’.
A pattern that one could see in his choice of poems was that he was attracted to, and enjoyed, mythological figures. There was a lot of reference to them during the performance.
Kortini had a good repartee with the audience between poems. He spoke of how he grew up in a musical family and he knew he wanted to be a musician from early on. He could sing the tune to ‘Doctor Who’ when he was just two years old and composed his first very short piece before he reached double figures.
He had an interesting anecdote to tell about Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti was smitten with his wife and when she died he was heartbroken. He put a manuscript of his latest poems in the grave with her. Some years later his publisher asked him for some new poems to publish and he didn’t have any. He received permission from the cemetery to open up his late wife’s grave and ‘rescue’ the manuscript which he then gave to his publisher.
I spoke to Koritini briefly after the performance. He spoke of how he is from a Russian background and that his surname is much longer than the stage name he uses! More to the point he is planning a CD release around March next year featuring the poems he performed. He also is planning is to take part on some Arts Festival circuits in the new year.
Verdict. A good night out. An intoxicating mix of the finest poetry with some virtuoso piano playing. The performance played for one night only on the 27th September at the Sound Lounge as part of this year’s Sydney Fringe Festival.