Monday, October 31, 2011

All Star Program - under the stars


Today, 31st October, 2011, is the 50th anniversary of The CSIRO Parkes Observatory, iconified in the 2000 Rob Sitch film The Dish.

Public Open Days were held to celebrate this on the weekend of 8-9 October, 2011, culminating in a grand opera concert, which was the brainchild of soprano Helen Barnett.

Two thousand people attended Bellini to Broadway, a wonderful evening of great operatic music, including US Consul-General Niels Marquardt, who read out a congratulatory letter from NASA, and Australian Governor-General Quentin Bryce.

The orchestra featured was our own regional Macquarie Philharmonia, conducted by Mark Shiell.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Antony Field and Daniel McKay
On Friday, 21st October, 2011 we had the privilege of witnessing Duo 19's first performance in the ACT, at a Canberra Classical Guitar Society concert, in the Wesley Music Centre.

Taking their name from their tram route, Duo 19 consists of Antony Field and Daniel McKay, both of whom are graduates of ANU's School of Music and currently teach at the Victorian College of the Arts.

The concert included performances of works by beloved Australian composers Phillip Houghton and Nigel Westlake. It was interesting to hear Westlake's Hinchinbrook Riffs, originally composed to be played by one guitarist with a digital delay machine, expertly executed by this duo.

We also loved hearing Songs from the Forest, also by Westlake, and originally written for Antony and Daniel's teacher, Tim Kain, to play with John Williams.

It was also intriguing to hear two of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's preludes and fugues from his Well-Tempered Guitars. His 24 pieces were written as a homage to J S Bach and for his favourite guitar duo, Pesti-Lagoya. You can hear one of these works performed by the Brasil Guitar Duo in the following clip.


Thursday, October 20, 2011

What Is The Easiest Instrument To Learn?

Reggie McKay
The ukulele may be the one of the easiest instruments to play, as this picture may reveal. You don't have to manage six strings as guitarists do, on the standard ukulele, and its size suits small hands.

But, as Michelle Griffin, Mitchell Conservatorium teacher, will tell you, it takes skill and practice to play any musical instrument well.

Jay Laga'aia's My Ukulele reminds us of the instrument's Hawaiian roots.



And Jake Shimabukuro's amazing rendition of George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps, shows what the humble ukulele can sound like, in the hands of a virtuoso.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Anyone for a piano duet?

Painting by Ron Hedrick



This clip, of a PDQ Bach piece, shows why piano duets were invented. Schubert knew all about it, and wrote some cosy piano duets, too.

I'd love to know who the two young folk are and if they have made any other videos of their performances.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Music therapy: a satisfying career

If you would like a career which engages your musical creativity and which makes a worthwhile contribution, you should check out the terrific article by Sue White on page 9 of The Good Weekend, October 8, 2011.

Verena Clemencic-Jones is a musician who works with children who are patients at Sydney Children's Hospital. She has trained as an early childhood teacher and has specialised in the specific field of music therapy.

She says that
the best thing about being a music therapist is being able to sing for a living while facilitating creativity, self-expression, relaxation and laughter in families of children with life threatening illnesses.

The Good Weekend article shows that this vocation allows musical people to use their skills creatively to engage people in experiencing the joy of musical creation. An experienced therapist can enable a client to discover their own musical ability, which, in the 21st century, might involve a teenager composing a song using an iPad and conveting it into an MP3 which can be shared with family and friends.

There is some sadness in the job, too, because working with clients with cancer can involve losing some to the disease. Ms Clemencic-Jones says that this made the first year of the job difficult, but that therapists develop ways of taking care of themselves when they experience these situations.

This Youtube clip shows a Brisbane music therapist working with Baby Flynn.



Jammin Jenn, a New Jersey music therapist, shows how she can assist children with autism through her music therapy skills in the short film here.



Mitchell Conservatorium's Graeme Hunt and Kerrie Davies are music therapists who have worked with clients in a variety of locations, including Lithgow Correctional Centre, at St Vincent's Hospital, Bathurst as well as in the conservatorium itself.

If you would like to know some more about music therapy, whether as a career or for a music therapy client, please contact the conservatorium on 02 6331 6622 for more information.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Songwriting: sometimes it's easy

About 40 years ago, someone asked Paul McCartney how the world's most successful songwriting team approached writing a song. He gave this cheeky answer:
There are two things John and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song.

And some of The Beatles' most well-known songs came very easily, as this website reveals.

John David's account of the composition of his beautiful song You Are The New Day shows how easy it can sometimes be.

The inspiration for New Day was quite simple; I had just had a major blow in my personal life, and was sitting alone late at night on the settee feeling very low, and watching an ominous story on the news about the very real possibility of nuclear war.

I started singing to the (hopefully) soon-to arrive New Day like it was an entity, that would rescue me from the depths. If the sun came up and the birds started singing as usual then I could believe that it really was the new day in which life would go on, and in which hope would survive.

The tune and the words popped into my head at the same time, and it was all written in about 10 minutes, which is why (to me at least) it's not perfect. But I didn't feel I had the right to change anything.

The best performance of this song is undoubtedly by the group who made it famous - The King's Singers. But the video below has 2 minutes and 10 seconds of chat before the fun begins.



This very good performance by Marchmont St Giles' Church choir begins immediately.