Perth Festival overview

The Giants are taking to the streets and I'm looking forward to checking out The Rabbits as a diverse Perth Festival opens tomorrow.

The classical music line up isn't as diverse. The program (as devised by Chris van Tuinen) involves repetition (lots of Baroque ensembles), reinvention (do we really need another Madama Butterfly?) and some collaborations.

Definitely the most innovative night out will be The Rabbits, opening Friday 12th Feb. The composer is pop artist Kate Miller-Heidke who describes it as opera/musical/song cycle/wierd pop concert/puppet show/art play. The production features opera singers and indigenous theatre performers bringing to life John Marsden and Shaun Tan's book The Rabbits.

Another multi-disciplinary idea is the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra's House of Dreams which brings to life the Baroque era. The concert on February 19th will use music, art and drama to recreate the European houses where Vivaldi and Bach lived and worked.

On March 7th the Baroque theme continues with instrumental and vocal ensemble Les Arts Florissants (William Christie) presenting In An Italian Garden featuring Italian lyric works. The early music revival continues at St Mary's Cathedral will resound on March 3rd as The Sixteen (Harry Christophers) present choral music from the Renaissance with some new works by James Macmillan.

On February 20th the Australian String Quartet will collaborate with the Festival in a concert that will include the premiere of Ross Edwards Gallipoli. I had a fabulous chat with Ross late last year and the conversation will appear here soon. Ross will be in the audience for the premiere.

WA Opera are presenting yet another Madama Butterfly opening Feb 24th but there is hope as this time it is Anthony Minghella's Olivier Award-winning production (from London in 2005) with Mary Plazas as Mimi.

Now here's something different: Fremantle Arts Centre are hosting  Soft Soft Loud on Feb 27th featuring a Finnish jazz pianist (Tuomo Prattala) and beat boxer (Felix Zenger) with an ensemble of 10 WA classical musicians. More info on this gig coming soon...

Perhaps I'm being harsh. Have you been enticed to buy tickets to anything? Or are you still, like me, recovering from the excitement of Fringeworld?

FRINGEWORLD for kids

FRINGEWORLD festival launched on the weekend and Northbridge was buzzing like a carnival. The outdoor opera (In the Shadow of Venus) I went to attracted a crowd of passersby including a front row of children in a sandpit who paused in their play to watch the singers. There is so much on for kids and also the unexpected moments like the one I just described where children will just delight in the things happening around them.

Children transfixed by soprano Sara Macliver as Rose in the opera The Telephone

Here are a few suggestions to get you going. (My list is mostly for 0-5 or preschoolers as that is the age of my family. There is another whole realm you can check out for school aged children.)

Jan 31 Huggers - The Family Friendly Comedy and Cabaret Show - a line up of some of the best comedy circus and cabaret stars from the festival in a one-hour all-age show.

Jan 30-31, Feb 1 The Big Bubble Show - promises the biggest bubbles you have ever seen in WA! Fun and slightly educational

Feb 7-8 Lords of Strut: The Family Show -  Irish comedy, acrobatics and dance for the whole family.

Feb 7-8 BAM! A Superhero Circus - saving the entire planet with their secret weapons of circus and comedy

Feb 14/15, 21/22 Squisher and Squasher in the Great Bug Hunt - an interactive adventure including songs, dance and silliness.

For more shows go to http://www.fringeworld.com.au/
The festival runs until February 22nd.

Fringe Festival Fit List

Perth's Fringe World festival (Jan 23-Feb 22nd) is back bigger than ever and you will need to be fit to get through this marathon. There is so much on the question is how to fit it all in? It's enough to give you a fit!

OK enough puns on my blog title. Here is my Festival Fit List for art music lovers:

(dates listed are opening night)
OPERA/MUSICAL
Jan 23rd In the Shadow of Venus - Lost & Found opera company working their magic with 3 sopranos in 3 comic operas in various locations at PICA.
Jan 23rd Point and Shoot - returns from last year. Four performers rotate frantically through over fifty navigate the film industry in 2042.
Jan 23rd Threepenny Opera - Queens Hall Music presents Weill's Threepenny Opera.
Jan 25th Anna Bolena - presented by Operabox starring Jenna Robertson
Jan 29th Promise and Promiscuity Penny Ashton mashes up Bon Jovi, bonnets and big balls with alacrity!

JAZZ
Feb 1st Jack's Jazzy Bites - Jack Doepel's Jazz Quartet performing an original composition
 Jan 29th European Summers Cotton Club - an ambitious project by jazz singer Cathrine Summers recreating 1920's America

Feb 17th The Jazz Standard of Living - Mace Francis Orchestra giving jazz standards a modernist twist.

RANDOM

Feb 10th Duo Caliente - flute (Rebcca Guy) and guitar (Duncan Gardiner) duo playing South American dance music

Feb 12th Quo Tardis - Fiona Campbell cabaret-style

Feb 14th  Hey Music We [heart]You
Feb 29th Brothers and Sisters - 20 local musicians collaborate to recreate the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Jan 24th  percussionist Ron Reeves playing wind and guitar in a solo show

NEW MUSIC
Jan 27th Through the Looping Glass - violinist Helen Bower use looping technology to create different sound worlds drawing on Australian and British compositions.
Jan 30th From a Small Distant World - song cycle by local composer Rachel Dease

Opera Alert this weekend!

I have just returned from two weeks in south-west WA enjoying beach and books and summer leisure to discover there are 3 (three!!!) operas on this weekend in Perth as part of the Fringe World festival.  Time to get out the opera glasses!

1. Opera Box (grassroots company doing great community projects) are presenting the modern Australian premiere of Donizetti's Anna Bolena featuring Jenna Robertson in the title role.

2. Queen's Hall Music are putting on Weill's Threepenny Opera at the Perth Town Hall.

3. Lost & Found (producers of the amazing Emperor of Atlantis last year) have crafted an unusual evening called In the Shadow of Venus featuring three sopranos in three one-act comic operas at various locations around PICA. Sara Macliver,  Fiona McAndrew and Elisa Wilson will enact Menotti's The Telephone, Jake Heggie's At the State of Venus and an opera transcribed from a classic Julia Child TV broadcast. The audience is invited to drink at the bar, wander through the gallery and sample the cooking!

It all sounds sensational and there is more to come with two operas on the program at the Perth International Arts Festival in a few weeks time! More on that soon...

Unsilent Night

A group of boombox fanatics are putting an avant garde spin on the Christmas carol tradition this weekend. The Guardian reported thousands of people from New York to San Francisco will be walking through city centres with vintage boombox cassette players on their shoulders playing an ethereal sound track of bells and chants.

The idea began when composer Phil Kline turned his boombox orchestra into a mobile phenomenon. Kline has been designing pieces for tape recorders since the eighties and in 1992 developed a 45 minute piece for Christmas carolling. Participants in Unsilent Night have a choice of four cassettes. They press play at the same time and then begin to wander the streets with their alternative Christmas music.

The concept has grown from 24 people to thousands. Many now use a smartphone app rather than the original boom box.

It's a pretty fun communal celebration of the music and mystery of Christmas night.

There have been versions in Sydney and Melbourne; do you think it would take off in Perth? 

Soiree Society

This week I had my final soiree for the year. The Soirees have been such a fun way to introduce people to the composers and music in Women of Note. Each soiree has had its own unique flavour: a birthday party, a wintry mulled wine soiree and this week a champagne and cupcake extravaganza at the home of John and Marcia.

Responses to my presentation were enthusiastic and somewhat surprised. From "I didn't know any of that, it was so interesting!" to "I've always loved Philip Glass, now I'll have to listen to some Elena Kats-Chernin." There was lots of laughter, conversation and intent listening to music ranging from the pastoral (Becky Llewellyn's Berceuse), popular (Elena Kats-Chernin's Eliza's Aria) and punk (Cat Hope's Corridors of Pain). People also expressed concern at the struggles and oppression some of the women composers faced in their careers. It certainly generated avid discussion afterwards.

Marcia - most generous of hosts

 

A huge thank you to my hosts throughout the year for your enthusiasm for Women of Note and your generous hospitality.

Long live the music!

St Georges' Cathedral Consort in Fremantle

 It is rare to hear the St Georges’ Cathedral Consort outside its cathedral home and singing secular repertoire. The Fremantle Arts Centre courtyard’s relaxed setting was an inspired choice and an icy wind didn’t keep away the sell-out crowd. In fact the wind caused barely a rustle in the intimate courtyard and the choir’s renowned technique was beautifully showcased across a program of Negro spirituals, popular classics and madrigals.

Fremantle Arts Centre

Mozart’s Laudate Dominum might be familiar territory for cathedral singers but The Lion Sleeps Tonight certainly isn’t. The 16-voice choir pulled off the African classic convincingly with tenors and basses chanting ‘Awimbawe’ while countertenor Adam Boyt crooned the lullaby over the top. Tippett’s Five Negro Spirituals was equally successful with resonant pedal notes from bass singers, a warm broadening of vibrato and thankfully no over-exuberant ‘ethnic’ appropriations. 

St Geroges' Cathedral Consort

I’d hazard a guess that this choir could make anything sound good, but conductor Joseph Nolan has a knack for sourcing outstanding repertoire and arrangements. Guest soloist Sara Macliver mellowed her silvery soprano for a Barbershop-style arrangement of Summertime and a hushed Somewhere Over the Rainbow. In Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer she sang with sweet pleading while the choir delivered the dramatic extremes of the accompaniment. Nolan led from an electronic keyboard - a sad substitute for a pipe organ – in an immaculate performance. A moment of exquisite beauty was provided by Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium. The American composer, described by Nolan as ‘like Rutter but better’, would have been delighted to hear his restful melodies sung with such delicate purity.

Sara Macliver

Three 17^th century madrigals (by Bennett, Gibbons and Dowland) were sung by just 10 singers and sounded exposed in the open-air venue. It made an underwhelming start to the concert, the only weak point in the program.

Macliver compered the concert and included a revealing interview with Nolan whose ambition has been driving the choir to great success since its formation in 2008. This was a rare opportunity to hear the group and its leader up close and personal.