Lagavulin

Lagavulin is a small building focussed on intimate performance of music created as “chamber music”. In keeping with the intimacy of chamber music, the space accommodates a small audience, about 40 inside, opening up for an additional 40 outside. The stage sets the performers with a backdrop of the mountains in the distance but the special arrangement of the glass ensures the acoustic performance remains the priority. To launch Lagavulin over Easter, 2018, Erik Griswold composed Hollows out of time for Prepared Piano and String Quartet, premièred by the composer and Camerata String Quartet (from Camerata, Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra). It was nominated for Work of the Year and Performance of the Year in the 2019 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards.

This is a place designed for the appreciation and promotion of small ensemble music, to create the ideal environment for listening and to bring those outcomes to a broader audience - a simple yet rich built environment welding together the natural and manufactured.

Needing to belong to its place, much of the stone was sourced from the property and adjoins another granite outcrop to become an extension of a treasured outlook. Lagavulin is anchored to the ground by a natural stone wall with its stage providing a backdrop of the distant valley. The entry wall opens completely giving on to a miniature amphitheatre, extending audience capacity and providing gathering space for the audience between performances. Acoustic interventions at the stage and embedments in the off-form concrete wall augment the simple ply and concrete interior finishes.

The building will extend the musical offering, particularly in the area of new and experimental music within the local regions of Tenterfield in NSW and Stanthorpe in Queensland.

Lagavulin received a Commendation for Small Project Architecture, in the 2018 Queensland Architecture Awards.