Broadford concerts show ‘how powerful music can be’

“The piano teacher was very encouraging and said I was really good,” he said.

“I think I finished my first book by the second lesson.

“I teach a lot of kids, and I have not had any kid that has finished that first book by the second lesson.”

Once he discovered he had a natural ability, Mr Hagen kept at it.

Later in life, he found himself studying in the Netherlands, not long after finishing his degree at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music.

“That was really good, my four years in the Netherlands, working with some really professional people,” Mr Hagen said.

“I was also a concert organiser there; the people playing in the concerts were fantastically good. You see and you learn from what you see, and you think, ‘that’s inspirational’.

“Then I came back here and I sort of wondered what I was doing, having experienced all that.”

Mr Hagen returned to Australia with a broadened awareness of classical music and a deep education of the harpsichord, a keyboard instrument that “plucks the strings instead of hitting them”.

It wasn’t long after settling back into his life in Melbourne, where he grew up, that Mr Hagen discovered he yearned for something more simple.

“I was living in the inner-city and I thought I wanted to go elsewhere,” he said.

“I would drive around the country and thought of a rural property. And, eventually, I found my way into Broadford.”

This is where Mr Hagen found his, now famous, concert hall.

“This place I’ve got now came up really curiously. I told the real estate agent that it had my name written all over it,” he said.

With the building’s cathedral ceilings, almost 7m high, Mr Hagen knew his picturesque new home would soon become something much more.

“So, here we have the concert hall,” Mr Hagen said.

“It just has this real feeling of space, of light.

“I just had this feeling that this is so nice, this place, I need to share it with people. So, I’ll have concerts here.”

Mr Hagen’s first concert was held in 2011, aided by the support of Mitchell Shire Council.

The musician has since run four or five concerts each year, some solo, some with other performers, including vocalists, harpists and clarinet players.

While the genre of 18th-century song that fills the concert hall is far from mainstream, the concerts have attracted a devoted fan-base, familiar faces filling the room each time Mr Hagen plays his grand piano, which he sold an investment property to buy, or his custom copy of the Ruckers harpsichord once owned by Marie Antoinette.

“I’ve got a loyal audience who usually come back again and again,” Mr Hagen said.

“I’d say 90 per cent of the people coming to my concerts are the faithful. They’ve come before, and they’ll come again.”

It’s not just the free car-parking and complimentary wine, provided by a winemaker from Nagambie Terrace, that keeps bringing people back.

Rather, Mr Hagen believes, it’s the music itself.

“At the end of my last concert, I had a singer, and we played this wonderful, almost like a lullaby, item, and people were in tears,” he said.

“I walked out, and I was in tears because I was so moved by the music.

“When people are moved by the music, it’s something that’s really grounding for people, and it just shows how powerful music can be.

“I think there are so many terrible things that happen in our lives, they just get to have that moment of calm and beauty, and that’s the thing I’m providing for people.”

The salon-style concert, performed in an intimate space, fosters a sense of connection, Mr Hagen said, between the audience and the music, imitating the same style of performance popular in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Mr Hagen’s next concert, where he will perform solo on his harpsichord, will take place on Sunday, August 24 at 4pm.

For more information, visit tinyurl.com/yk68xm8u or contact Mr Hagen at peterr@peterhagen.com.au or WhatsApp message 0448 578 488.