Views to the left, middle and right (west, south-west, south-east?) from Mount Pleasant
Does Susan T's Post-Christmas Party, complete with ukeleles, count? It was enjoyable, concert or not.
The concerts included fewer than usual Art Song concerts as aforementioned, Gillian Dooley at the Jane Austen Festival, and one each by Oriana, the Pocket Score Company, Igitur Nos, and the Canberra Choral Society. There were more from these groups that I didn't get to because of my back. I have specific comments about some of the musical events I made it to.
This, although no one knew it, was the last of Jill Downer's wonderful Early Music Enterprises concerts. Jill died in September. (Local writer Helen Musa has written an obituary.)
I will always remember that Jill's concerts, unlike most in Canberra now, preserved a proper atmosphere - what Anthony Rooley described as temenos. The concert as sacred space. As music is the nearest I get to spirituality, this is important to me.
The quickest way to desecrate a concert is for the conductor or performers to rabbit on about the music, rather than leaving it to the (usually ample) programme notes - not to mention the music, which can speak for itself!
There was no rabbiting on in Jill's concerts. There were useful, unpretentious programme notes and superb musicians instead. This concert was no exception.
I attended five concerts at CIMF. Some appealed more to me than others. Oriana's performance of the Victoria Requiem in the Fitters' Workshop was so beautiful that I wept. It was the best performance I heard in 2011 - and that's saying something.
My blog entry Blandfordia 5 - The Rant describes what I learnt at one of the other CIMF concerts, Amazing Space 3: Sounding the Axis: tracing Constitution Avenue and the Molonglo. It can't be every music festival that carts audiences around on buses to hear performances in all sorts of strange places, but CIMF makes a feature of this and I must say I find it very interesting.
This particular bus trip went from City Hill (where I'd never before been, probably because you have to take your life in your hands, crossing three lanes of Canberra drivers, to get to it) to Sir Thomas Blamey Square (between the Defence buildings, near the rabbit ears American War Memorial) and on to Mount Pleasant. Where I'd never been before.
Views to the left, middle and right (west, south-west, south-east?) from Mount Pleasant
It's wonderful up there: a moderately-sized hill, so you're right in the middle of the scenery. I liked it so much I dragged Dac up there the following weekend, and took a whole bunch of photos, many of signs which I have yet to transcribe.
In 2011 the theme of the Coriole Music Festival was the music of 19th century Russia, Czechoslovakia and the early Soviet era - well, why not? The experience was instructive and beautiful, as always.
Ken Healey, speaker | Chris Burrell, organiser | Coriole sunset
From my notes: "I never thought Tchaikovsky could sound restrained, but wedged between Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov, he was almost inaudible!"
Pre-concert talks are another way of informing the audience while preserving temenos in the performance space. Ken describes his as "just a talk with my mates" but they're much more than that, thanks to his rich background and sense of humour.
Dac was good enough to accompany me to South Australia for the festival. We stayed on an extra day and paid a quick visit to his parents.
(The photo on the left was taken at Glenelg, where we had breakfast. It wasn't a Weekend Walk so I couldn't blog this photo, but I didn't want to waste it, having bothered the woman for permission to take it. I just love the way people love their dogs! And what a sweet dog it seems to be, sitting up at the cafe on Mummy's lap. Probably called a strudel or something - all dogs seem to be variants of poodles these days.)
Julie and Gez were also at Dac's parents' place, along with Julie's daughter Danielle and her baby, Elliot (born January 2011) - Dac is a great-uncle!
I wouldn't have organised myself sufficiently to go to this concert, the first held in the new National Arboretum, but I am indebted to my swimming mate Sue for booking us in early in the year and seeing that we got there. She also had to give me her arm to get me out of the low-lying deck chairs that constituted the seating, so I'm extremely grateful to her.
The concert itself was great fun. Anne Sofie von Otter (Swedish mezzo-soprano) joined locals Louise Page, Henry Choo, Christina Wilson, and a composite choir, in singing popular opera and show tunes. Like the music of 19th century Russia, this is not my thing, but I knew just about all the songs, and they were very well done. Louise Page in particular gave an intelligent and flawless performance.
I'm glad to have been to this inaugural concert: the complications of getting myself there and the awfulness of the seating mean that I won't go to any more.
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Page created 31 December 2011; last updated 11 January 2012