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!

A Good Friday discovery

I have just discovered Karl Jenkins. He is a Welsh composer with a shaggy moustache and an amazing Requiem which is being performed on Good Friday at Trinity Uniting Church.

Jenkins' Requiem combines the traditional Latin liturgical structure with his trademark ethnic elements - in this case five Japanese poems about death. The Dies Irae is particularly unique, driven by percussion with the choir singing a hip hop triplet rhythm over the top.

Hear Jenkins talk about the work below.

The Requiem promises to be a moving way to engage with Good Friday. It will be performed by Camerata 1685 conducted by Jangoo Chapkhana.

10am Trinity Uniting Church
72 St George's Terrace

Duncan Gardiner's debut album as a composer

Perth guitarist Duncan Gardiner is releasing his second album Incense & Arabie at the Ellington Jazz Club on Monday 30th March. The album marks Duncan's debut as a composer - a term he has only recently owned despite composing for as long as he can remember.

For many years the focus has been on guitar: the WA Academy of Performing Arts graduate released his debut guitar album Of Dreams and Fantasies in 2009 and critic Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine UK) said "I must say that this CD is one of the very best CD's of guitar music to ever come my way... I have returned to this CD more than most others just for the sheer pleasure of it." Duncan's busy performing career encompasses international tours and performing in local groups including the Perth Guitar Quarter, mimi duo (piano and guitar) and Duo Caliente (flute and guitar). He is also renowned as a guitar teacher, adjudicator and educator.

Listen below to the Perth Guitar Quartet perform a selection of Duncan Gardiner's compositions.

More recently Duncan has allowed his compositional talents to emerge. He has been commissioned by groups such as the Fremantle Symphony Orchestra and his compositions have been selected for the exam syllabus of the Australian Guild of Music and Speech. The album Incense 7 Arabie which will be launched on Monday contains all-original music. Duncan expresses poignantly in the CD liner notes (the CD is beautifully presented) the journey involved for him to regard himself as a legitimate composer, despite the burning desire within him to compose.

"I think it was my initial fear of being compared to my fellow composers at WAAPA (not to mention Bach and Beethoven etc!) ... But I am a composer. I compose music. I assemble series of pitches and rhythms and textures to create feelings and mood; a synthesis greater than the sum of all the individual parts and musical devices alone."

The works on Incense & Arabie are pensive, melodically exquisite and immaculately performed and produced. All are written for guitar and ensemble with the addition of a piano suite called The Peridot Sutie. Duncan is supported on guitar by vocalist Lucy Rae, pianist Faith Maydwell and members of the WA Symphony Orchestra including cellist Louise MacKay. The multi-talented Duncan also contributes on piano, recorder, vioin, cello, bass, sitar, flute, voice and percussion.

The launch at the Ellington is on Monday 30th March at 7:30pm. Duncan's compositions will be performed by the Aria String Quartet, mimi duo and the Perth Guitar Quartet. For more details visit duncangardiner.com.

offBEAT Festival review

Fremantle Arts Centre's inaugural offBEAT Festival made a solid imprint on the WA music scene over the weekend, using unexpected collaborations to present rhythm in fresh ways.

The WA Academy of Performing Arts’ percussion ensemble Defying Gravity opened the festival on Friday night with a performance of John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, a piece inspired by the stone navigation markers used by the Inuit in the Arctic. Ensemble director Tim White and 22 black-clad performers stood around a tree in the arts centre garden gently blowing through paper cones – the sound barely discernible above the wind in the trees. Gradually the players dispersed to various corners of the garden to form instrumental ‘sculptures’. Musical themes were passed between performers: the haunting call of conch shells and other horn-like instruments, the deep thudding of drums and the metallic chiming of bells and cymbals. 

The audience - adults and children alike - moved around the garden with unguarded inquisitiveness. The immersive effect was extraordinarily effective. I’ve never been so aware of the physiological impact of music: conch shells pushed air against me, bass drums thudded in my chest cavity and standing in the centre of the garden as the drums thundered from every side my skin was shivering from the vibrations. The aural acupuncture gradually faded and the performers regathered at the tree, drawing our attention back to the music of the wind in the leaves. 

(listen below to Inuksuit presented by Make Music New York and Colombia University's Miller Theatre)

On Saturday night 200 fans crammed the inner courtyard to witness three leading WA electronic artists collaborate with Josh Hogan’s percussion ensemble The Wheel Turns. The four-piece percussion group added beats to the moody folktronic pop of Joni in the Moon, gave a hypnotic edge to electronic duo Rockwell & Groom and an aural assault to MC Mathas' intellectual hip hop.

Sunday’s free afternoon concert featured drum virtuoso Daniel Susnjar and his Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group which drew a packed crowd of picnickers. Susnjar has put the riveting rhythms of Afro-Peruvian music at the centre of his jazz band resulting in compositions full of tricky duple/triple cross-rhythms and loads of groove. The addition of the Peruvian cajon or box drum (Iain Robbie) and Spanish guitar (Harry Winton) gave Latin American colour and the jazz horns (Ricki Mallet trumpet, Carl Mackey tenor saxophone) added bronze tones. Tom O’Halloran on keyboard and Pete Jeavons on bass completed the star-studded line up, with Susnjar steering confidently from his drumset. 


This review copyright The West Australian 2015.

WASO and Stefanie Iranyi

The WA Symphony Orchestra’s concert of Broadway and Viennese classics attracted a full house on Saturday night. The gilded elegance of Strauss operetta and the jazz glitz of Gershwin’s songs provided opportunity to witness the growing relationship between principal conductor Asher Fisch and orchestra.

The opening notes of Johann Strauss II’s overture to Zigeunerbaron had a golden roundness and the focus on beauty of sound continued throughout the night. The strings in particular navigated the 19^th century Viennese overtures, arias and marches with a robust glow. The less well-known overture to Heuberger’s Der Opernball was an inspired inclusion with its wispy tune passed between the violins and a seductive melody in the cellos. Under Fisch’s supple conducting it was the most persuasive music-making of the night.

Bavarian mezzo soprano Stefanie Iranyi was a seamless addition for three operetta arias. The frivolity of Kalman’s In the mountains (Die Czardasfurstin) was expressed with foot-stomping gypsy abandon; Lehar’s When I hear the sound of the cimbalom (Zigeunerliebe) revealed the fabulous richness of her lower register, while in Lehar’s My lips kiss so hotly (Guiditta) Iranyi’s phrases sighed and stretched seductively.

Iranyi’s smooth classical sound was transformed by breathy vibrato, sliding between notes and a throaty vehemence for Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm, Someone to Watch Over Me and The Man I Love. In both the operetta and Broadway numbers Iranyi’s personalised touches were closely supported by Fisch revealing the shared musical vision between singer and conductor who are partners on and off the stage.

Fisch led Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue from piano in a display of musical camaraderie with his orchestra. Fisch’s fast tempo and plentiful use of the sustain pedal smudged some piano detail and the orchestra was less cohesive without the conductor on the podium. But Fisch’s energy was infectious and the orchestra came striding noisily along for the ride with vibrant brass chords and a gloriously long opening glissando from clarinettist Alan Meyer.