Hackett Hall at the WA Museum Boola Bardip might just be my new favourite concert venue.  With a 24-metre blue whale skeleton suspended overhead (Otto the Blue Whale), taxidermied animals at eye level (‘Big Bill’ the American buffalo), and rows of empty bookcases (these don’t have names), it’s part museum, part haunted library, and an entire delight. Sonically, the acoustics are subtle yet effervescent, and it’s amongst these visual and aural triumphs that the Perth Festival has decided to hold its chamber series concert, One & Many (presented in association with Tura New Music). Concertmaster of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Shaun Lee-Chen (the One) and the St George’s Cathedral Consort (the Many) were a brilliant programming match, each bringing their own forms of control and restraint to repertoire with little, if any, places to hide.

One & Many, Perth Festival, 2021. Photograph © Cam Campbell

Lee-Chen is a Perth treasure, and his interpretation of Bach’s Violin Partita No 2 in D minor was a resounding reminder of this. Throughout the (dauntingly well-known) work, he projected poise and clarity with ease and a pure sound without force, making the piece sound...