ANZAC Day

i played the last post and reveille this morning, for the buninyong rsl. and what a lovely and moving ceremony it was. a new initiative for this year (by vic bradley~ a member for 65 years!), there were 206 white wooden crosses next to the cenotaph, each representing a deceased local anzac. the sun was shining, clear blue skies above and many people gathered to pay their respects. over a cuppa & scones afterwards, i figured out with the local rsl members that it has been 17 years since i joined them. it was 1994 when i first played the last post on bugle for the club, in my school uniform! i remember asking my dad if i really had to wear my uniform on a holiday!! and i'm still there (not in my school uniform though). wowee.

and now as the sun goes down, i'm back home practicing piano, preparing for the first sunwrae 2011 tour rehearsal tomorrow. can't wait! got some new tunes to put in front of the fab four (the string quartet that is).. just gotta finish a few bits and pieces on their parts/notations tonight and i'll be ready. the fire is lit and i have a bottle of red at the ready too, so i'm set for the evening!

better get back to it. stay tuned for more news soooon!

tour dates..

ok. so tour dates have finally been announced. phew! check out the website for details.. sunwrae.com
please subscribe to our mailing list, help spread the word!!

it was a busy week's end on friday gone, licking stamps (how fun you say), stuffing envelopes and organising the distribution of tens of thousands of flyers and posters. i can now happily say that they'll arrive in your letterbox today or tomorrow (not all of them)... and that is, if your name is on our mailing list already!

then it was off to the ballarat acoustic music festival on saturday. and what a lovely festival it was.. a great range of music performed entirely acoustically (how refreshing!) in intimate venues & cute coloured tents at the ballarat observatory. mel robinson and i performed two sets (cello & vibes) for a very attentive audience.

and now it's heads down. music creation time. hoping to post some mp3 snippets here this week if i can work out my recording device... fingers crossed.

and good news...
rabbits without spleens album is finished... finally... 6 years later (i never thought i would take that long to finish something!).
as well as my improv album with eugene skeef! yay! hoping to have both albums pressed for the tour, or at least the melbourne show. we'll see.

10-4.
r

a day in the life...

so it's been a busy few weeks here, hence no blog posts! i have a little cabin fever from the 3-week-12/14-hour-each-day studio time, but i think it's been worth it and i've been very productive! i've finished notating 7 piano solos (including some back from 2001), an eighth is on the way and i've made a good start on two works for string quintet, as well as (gulp!) an orchestral work. wowee huh? hopefully i'll be inspired to keep it up when i'm back keeping the home fires burning in australia....

it's great to be so productive here and also kind of ridiculous to realise that i've been 9 years behind in putting my works on paper. i've made a plan to keep in front from now on. the other composers at the centre are busily working, so it's not hard to hibernate for a few days, then emerge with some stories (and new manuscripts!) over a beer or two. i've met new swedish composers here almost daily in the past week (who are studying at the school, which is in the same building at VICC), each with fabulous stories about their work and various projects and who are genuinely interested in all things music (they also assure me that gotland genuinely has lots of sheep, not just concrete ones). it has inspired me to think about studying again (yikes, did i really say that?) to challenge myself a little. yesterday a few of us saw the gotland symphonia perform at the university library. beethoven, ives and a local composer were the flavour of the day. it's a little strange for me, because day by day i'm interested in listening to more & more orchestral work. it must be a sign.

mmm. so as well as music for sunwrae, i've been doing a little electronic work. a week or so ago jon cohrs (NY/berlin, who i work with in 'rabbits without spleens') visited me here in visby, to continue working on some tracks we started (has it really been four?) years ago.


coffee, whiskey, peanuts and chocolate kept us going into the early hours each night, editing, recording and mixing what will eventually be an album of wicked electronic work (recorded in banff canada, melbourne australia, new york usa, berlin germany and now visby sweden... where to next?!). i'm sure any sunwrae fan will enjoy this fine music. i can't wait for it to be complete!

i also hear in the pipeline that the latest sunwrae recording (live at the thornbury theatre) is just about complete! i'll have it in my hot little hands when i arrive back in oz in may. stay tuned to our website homepage sunwrae.com in the coming weeks for sales...

so there's not long to go now. i'll take a few more pics this week and put a few mp3s up here to give you a taste of what's coming..

home sweet home again...

so 2010 is here.. and i'm back home in victoria, australia. the last month in brasil went very quickly as i had imagined, but was the most memorable part of my adventure. i met a number of amazing musicians there during december and had the chance to play with some of them as you see below... it was a shame that i left when i did, as i was just starting to make my little mark, meet the right people, understand more portuguese and learn the things i wanted to. of course, this just means that i must go back and initiate another project! now that i have some perspective on the journey, i can easily say that it changed me. experiencing brazil with your own eyes is the only answer to any questions one may have.. and certainly this blog hardly even scratches the surface. i'm choosing not to write about so many things i experienced, because writing about them doesn't justify anything~ and when you're that close to the bone, there's nothing you can write in this space that explains who, what, when, where, why and how. all i know now, is that my eyes are wider and i'm definitely wiser for having been there. thankyou unesco for that opportunity...

so..... below is a band i saw in the pelourinho~ a hoot of a night out and about in salvador! crazy adventures meeting many musicians, singing in the streets with spontaneous bouts of body percussion... then 'the cortejo afro band', the singer pictured was crowned king of carnaval in salvador this year...
i also played a show at the museum of modern art (on udu/moringa!)... with a group of amazing jazz muso's. every saturday night for the past 10 years, ivan huol has lead this band, with many guests each week from around the world. it was a great experience and my first ever show on udu!
after this show... a small set-back... yikes! the large udu had a crack! ouch! so into the bahian wilderness i went again ~ to maragogipinho ~ to have another one made, just in time for my final show in itaparica. the ceramicist mended the old moringa too, which i gave to a fellow brazilian musician~ another reason to go back!

later in december, i met up with ronaldo borges (bass player with carlinhos brown, whom i met at the cortejo afro band show).. below is pic of us playing together on the steps of the famous bonfim church~ very funky bass played indeed!

and again, later that evening, another musician i met roque vinicius (just incredible voice), ronaldo and i played into the night at a bar near the church... very memorable evening... i had met roque at the museum of modern art gig.. and learned this night that he and ronaldo had known each other for 25 years! i think i must have been in the right place at the right time... and at the end of my residency, instituto sacatar had an open day, where all the artists showed their work in progress. what a day of amazing visual art, a few delightful christmas presents, delicious traditional food and many-a-caipirinha (drink made from cachaca, brazilian rum)! we played well into the evening once again...

so my journey home to australia was long (5 flights!).. my luggage was of course left in chile, but arrived a few days later... miraculously, my moringa (and bottles of brazilian rum) arrived in one piece! yay!

and now onto my next adventure... europe! i'll keep you posted of my plans in the coming weeks as they come to light... in the meantime~ happy new year and see you very soon!