Music as Social Commentary: After Julia review

The vicious gender attacks surrounding Julia Gillard’s prime ministership were well documented in the media. Composer Cat Hope commissioned eight women composers to ‘sound out’ a response to Gillard’s tenure as prime minister. The result, performed by Decibel ensemble in Sydney last year and now co-presented in Perth by Tura and PICA, is an incisive example of music as social commentary.

The theme of noise and interference was explored in several works, most overtly in Andree Greenwell’s Arrows I, II where the pure harmonies of four female singers became increasingly obscured by venomous voices yelling “ditch the witch”, “Bob Brown’s bitch” and other now-famous insults. In Cathy Milliken’s Shifrorl a dialogue between members of Decibel’s six-piece ensemble became increasingly confrontational before an elegiac conclusion played on wheezing harmonicas. Cat Hope’s comic Tough it Out used a set of instructions sent to the performers over headphones to disrupt their performance. In Laura Jane Lowther’s Loaded performers responded to media headlines with musical ideas that were then played back with distortion.

Michaela Davies’ Goldfish Variations made a quirky but pointed comment as the actions of two goldfish in a bowl were observed and interpreted by two performers. Thembi Soddell’s electro-acoustic Your Sickness is Found in My Body built into a frantic cacophony before an abrupt halt and in the stillness the lone sound of a fading flute note. Gail Priest used a quote from Gillard to determine the melodic material in Everything and Nothing.

Kate Moore’s enthralling Oil Drums was a bold work of orchestral density created by layering piano chords, syncopated instrumental rhythms, electronic thrumming and drones over the throbbing sound of 44-gallon drums. 

The diversity and uniqueness of these pieces is something I’ve come to expect from Australian women composers and the near-capacity crowd responded with great enthusiasm. Two things struck me: we need more concerts like this especially given that 25 percent of our composers are women (more than almost any other nation in the world); secondly this is a far more interesting and useful cultural exercise than commissioning music about Australian war history.

Perth Jazz Festval 2015

The Perth Jazz Festival has released the 2015 festival.
This year the festival will be held 29th-31st May.

Established in 2012, the Festival is the brain-child of Associate Professor Graham Wood (aka owner Ellington jazz club, pianist, cancer-survivor, WAAPA music director). The purpose of PIJF is to promote jazz music to the wider community, including the international community. The Festival’s aim is to bring inspiring music from around the world and Australia to Perth in an accessible and vibrant way.

This year the program is headlined by bassist Richard Bona (NYC) with fellow New York artists Barney McAll and Vivian Sessons also making the trip to Perth. The international line up also includes  Rachel Claudio (Paris), Troy Roberts (although I still count him as a Perth boy!, Timo Vollbretch (USA) and Keisuke Matsuna (Berlin), Gianni Denitto (Italy), Artur Dutkiewicz.

Local artists include Allira Wilson, Victoria Newton, Johannes Luebbers Dectet, Trisk and student ensembles WAAPA Big Band, Hale School Jazz Band and John Septimus Roe Jazz.

Check out the program for more details.

Musical Soiree @ New Edition

There are still some places available for the Musical Soiree at New Edition Bookstore on Tuesday.

I'm starting to get excited... :-)

It's essentially an author talk but more fun with musical samples and scandalous stories which invariably provoke plenty of discussion. My presentation gives a quick history of Australian composition by tracing three generations of women composers. The musical range is enormous. I find people are surprised by how much they enjoy my talks - I guess most people assume classical music is going to be a bit dull, but the lives and music from Women of Note are anything but dull!

(Either that or it's the free wine and nibbles!!!)

I hope you are able to come. Feel free to circulate among your networks but do note the rsvp requirement; the bookstore is cosy so there are limited numbers.

Reviews for Women of Note; the rise of Australian women composers (Fremantle Press 2012)

“A welcome – and overdue – publication. Appleby displays an expertise probably honed by her years as a journalist. She writes engagingly, achieving a fine balance between conveying information about the women’s personal lives and their music.”

Jillian Graham

Australian Book Review March 2012.

“Women of Note makes an excellent starting point for anyone interested in exploring the music of Australian women composers. The musical lives and survival stories of all the women are inspiring. One can almost believe anything is possible. At the very least women of all ages can find in it a variety of survival tips...”

Jenny Game-Lopata, Musicological Society of Australia Journal July 2013

Diego Matheuz: music and hope

“I saw children having lessons and giving concerts and I fell in love,” says Diego Matheuz remembering his first visit to El Sistema as a child. “I knew from that first day that I would be a musician all my life.”

Matheuz is in Perth rehearsing with the WA Symphony Orchestra. The conductor was a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema, a music education program which WASO has recently begun to implement in schools in Kwinana. The 30 year old is the perfect ambassador for the Sistema program with his deeply passionate approach to music and self-effacing personality, not to mention his pin-up good looks. 

The Venezuelan El Sistema was founded in 1975 by economist and musician Jose Antonio Abreu whose vision to empower disadvantaged children through music has revolutionised both social intervention and music education worldwide.

Matheuz grew up in the city of Barquisimeto and while crime and drugs threatened many of his peers Matheuz spent his childhood making music. He attended Sistema for five hours a day most days of the week, working hard to fit in his normal schoolwork. He began the violin when he was nine and by fifteen was touring internationally with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, the Sistema’s professional orchestra. Matheuz firmly believes music can create social transformation.

“An orchestra is like a perfect community. It is a wonderful way of learning to communicate, listen to each other and create a sense of community. If you are part of creating that experience as a child then as an adult it gives you hope; you have a vision, a possibility of a different life.”

Providing new opportunities to impoverished children is what inspired WASO’s community engagement manager Cassandra Lake who launched the orchestra’s Sistema music program with pre-primary classes in Kwinana last year.

“I am inspired by the stories from teachers saying the classroom dynamic is different because children are concentrating better and learning to work together,” Lake said. “I had a mum say to me ‘My son looks forward to going to school now. He’s singing all the time because of your program’. Another parent who was struggling to put a roof over their child’s head said to me they never imagined their child would have this opportunity.”

The community education initiative came from WASO’s desire to be more relevant to the community in which they operate. 300 students from Medina Primary School, Kwinana Christian School and North Parmelia Primary School are having weekly group lessons using their inbuilt instrument – the voice – as a starting point. Lessons on stringed instruments will follow with the goal of forming an orchestra.

The Sistema approach is renowned for its joyful and encouraging atmosphere. Matheuz explains this is because the emphasis is on music making as a group rather than an individual pursuit.

“We are not thinking about competitions,” says Matheuz, “we don’t have the vision of creating soloists like a conservatorium would.  It is more about being a group, an orchestra, like being a family together. In football you have a psychologist to keep the team together because there are too many ‘stars’. But an orchestra doesn’t need that because the focus is the music.”

Despite (or because of) the democratic ideology Sistema’s graduate list includes plenty of stars. 33 year old Gustavo Dudamel is chief conductor of the Los Angelos Philharmonic and Edicson Ruiz plays bass with the Berlin Philharmonic. And of course Matheuz who made his professional debut in 2008 with Orchestra Mozart in Bologna and is now principal conductor of Teatro la Fenice and principal guest conductor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Mozart. Matheuz has attracted the attention of mentors like Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado and Abreu and is now considered global hot property. But he deflects the focus away from the individual. 

“I am lucky to have all these people and my family supporting me,” he says. “I thank God for this opportunity.”

This weekend Matheuz will conduct Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 with WASO which he promises will give the audience a vision of their own.

“This piece can make you cry and fall in love and remember things, it gives you hope. It gives you a very special moment and that is what I hope the audience will experience.”

This article copyright the West Australian newspaper.

Author Talk at New Edition Bookstore - doing it my style!

Great news!
I have scored an author talk at New Edition Bookstore in Fremantle.

Except I am doing it my style which means there will be wine and nibbles as we listen to music from Women of Note :-)

For those who don't know the shop New Edition is a Freo landmark. It has weathered the bookstore crisis and has owner Allan has recently opened a sister store in Victoria Park called Crow Books. They are dangerous shops because every book in the store is the kind that you've always wanted to read: independent, cult, literature, art, music, low brow, poetry... impossible to leave without a purchase!

New Edition is open till 9pm every night and if you swing by at 6:30 on Tuesday 21st April you will be offered free wine and nibbles while you listen to the music and stories from my book Women of Note. As autumn falls and the evenings get darker it is going to be a cosy and enthralling way to spend an hour.

Mark the date: Tuesday 21st April and send your RSVP to fremantle@newedition.com.au or phone 9335 2383

A Song for Good Friday

Gavin Bryars visited in Australia last month (Adelaide Festival) which reminded me of his famous tape and orchestra piece Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet. The piece is built around a crackly recording of a London tramp singing an old hymn. Bryars looped the recording so it kept repeating and added a slowly building orchestral accompaniment. The simplicity of the piece is striking and it invariably has an impact on listeners. I remember the meditative stillness at St George's Cathedral when Bryars conducted the work here for the Perth Festival many years ago. Jesus Blood has also been recorded with singer Tom Waits weaving his voice with the voice of the tramp.

To my knowledge a piece of art music has never been written to feature the Easter Bunny. (Although Ros Bandt has written a piece using wind up toy rabbits). Today I'm going to reclaim the soul of Easter with this ancient hymn, sung by an unknown tramp and reworked by English composer Gavin Bryars.

Happy Easter!

April Gig Guide

April begins with Easter and an intriguing composition by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins promises to be an inspiring way to engage with the mystery of the season. Jenkins' Requiem will be performed (Good Friday April 3rd) at Trinity Uniting Church directed by Jangoo Chapkhana. Listen out for Japanese haiku and hip hop rhythms within the traditional liturgical formant.

The other big date this month is of course ANZAC Day with celebrations of the 100 years since Gallipoli reaching a climax. Personally I'm not excited about the plethora of war stories finding outlets in government-funded emotion-laden musical reflections. If the tributes helped us seek non-violent solutions I would be more interested....

Hopefully these two concerts will bring us to a place of greater enlightenment: on April 23rd the WA Symphony Orchestra's ANZAC tribute concert includes Purcell's When I am laid in Earth and Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending; on April 25th Collegium Musicum will present  Mozart's Requiem at the Government House Ballroom.

WASO's activities this month also include a Russian flavour (on April 17th) with Rachmaninov's Symphony No 2,  (on April 10th) songs from James Bond movies with Kate Ceberano and (on April 20th) Vivaldi's Four Seasons led by violinist Shaun Lee-Chen.

On April 12th an interesting concert at St Catherine's College, Crawley will showcase the compositions of the lat Derek Moore Morgan, former critic for The West Australian. Also on April 12th pianist Piers Lane will be the star of Music on the Terrace where he will perform piano duo music in collaboration with local pianists.

The WA Academy of Performing Arts have put together a fascinating program for April 16th including Shostakovich's Piano Trio and Martinu's one-act ballet La Revue de Cuisine. The performers include the dynamic new Head of Strings Alexandre da Costa and friends. Also at WAAPA on April 30th is a Defying Gravity concert with Kaboom Percussion featuring the premiere of Joshua Webster and Catherine Hall's superman-inspired Doomsday.

And I must make mention of the Mace Francis Orchestra which is celebrating its 10th birthday on April 30th at the Ellington Jazz Club. What better way to celebrate International Jazz Day than with an all-original, all-local jazz band at Perth's best jazz venue!