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!

a whole new world...

so recently i joined twitter. and i upgraded the sunwrae group to a 'page' on faceybook (with a little help from some computer-friendly friends ). it's a whole new world in the social stream for me and frankly i'm not sure i can keep it up, but i'll give it a red hot go for the sunwrae tour (you'll notice, all four of you that are reading anyway, that even this blog is out of date.. you see? i tells the truth). anyway, back to tweeting. still not sure exactly what i should tweet. afterall, who wants to know that it's past 11pm and i'm still working? don't i have anything better to do? well, at the moment, no. just tour stuff. i updated my website, the faceybook thingemy, i tweeted about limelight mentioning the sunwrae tour, drafted an e-mailout to the subscribers, replied to way too many emails, had a skype meeting with my fabulous tour manager KJ and it'll start again all tomorrow. i suppose however, that the most part of the day (until 4) was spent (finally) at the piano... i want more days like today!

i'm nearly finished writing the string parts for 'sem duvida', a brazil-inspired work. can't wait to perform it... but there's a long way to go on my other new pieces before they'll get to the stage. still, tomorrow will again be at the drawing board (literally, it's where i'm writing music, with a big screen, laptop & midi keyboard, next to my grand piano), with less business, more music.

my playing has been given a rev-up the past month, with me practicing some crazy scalic runs. trying to train my let hand to be more like my right. i think it has become a little lazy after the summer silly season. but you get that. well, i do. the book's called 'the virtuoso pianist'. apparently it's meant to be playable (up to speed) in an hour. freak, if anyone can do that, with this book, including the repeats, they deserve a medal (it'd want to be a big one and i'm not paying). but good luck to them with having any kind of life. i don't think it's possible anyway. and if someone challenges me (that probably means one of your four as i'm not sure anyone else reads this), go for it. i'll give some kind of special prize. if you have suggestions, bring them on.

oh. and trumpet practice this week too. of course, anzac day is coming up and i'll be suitably celebrating the day (well, commemorating) with the buninyong rsl in victoria. i think this, 'the last post', my community service, now stands at 16 years (or thereabouts).. who would've thunk i could have lasted that long?

other stuff...
played a gig with david ross macdonald last week, an album launch at the northcote social club. lovely show all round, playing with some fab muso's.. and i'm happy to say that my name is now on a vinyl release. it's definitely inspired me to release something of sunwrae on vinyl. sometimes it's all i play at home (vinyl that is, not sunwrae, that'd just be weird).

and last thing for tonight. lordy how many things i'm learning, day by day, i can't believe it. even if it's to nod, smile and back away from people who you know aren't going to listen. or to double check that last move in that hard sudoku (you feel crap if you mess it up in pen). or practice makes perfect (or does it?!). whatever the case, i'm listening and learning and can't wait to turn off my computer and fall asleep. if anyone is still reading this, thanks. you've made my day, and certainly the blog, worth writing.

i'll leave you with an image i found from the archives... from the apollo bay music fest in 2007.. sketched by kellie o'dempsey during our performance there... not sure who took the photo..

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

tour planning...

it's been a busy few weeks here, planning for the next sunwrae tour with the string quintet. i was in brisbane for a couple of days, spruiking sunwrae to queensland venues for a possible 2012 tour, then soaked up some music at golden plains festival in meredith, victoria and since then it's been all go, finalising tour dates, flyer design and marketing materials for publicity and promotion...

i'm playing a show for the ballarat acoustic music festival this saturday (26th march) at the ballarat observatory. i'm on vibes, playing with a wonderful cellist melanie robinson. it's an event for earth hour, so all acoustic performances, with some other fabulous muso's from victoria. hopefully it'll be a clear night so we can gaze at the sky through the telescopes too!

after that, it's all looking very exciting.. it'll be heads down for me to write some tunes, then the tour begins... mid way through, the sunwrae string quintet are jetting off to ho chi minh city to perform for the australian consulate too! of course the preparations are rather frantic, but i have a fabulous assistant kellie jayne chambers working with me to make sure all the logistics are smooth sailing.

more news to come when we officially announce the tour dates.. sunshine to ya'll!

a new season..

ok. an update in the life of rae.. 2011 has started fabulously.. fabulously challenging, busy and creative in oh so many ways. i've been playing piano more in the last 3 months than i have for 3 years. i now wonder why there's quiet times as it's always the best way to start the day (well, after my walk through the forest with my dog!). here's a summer pic of the hound looking surprisingly innocent!

i've started writing an orchestral piece (partly funded by the regional arts fund in oz), so i have my head buried in orchestration and arrangement books some of the time. i've also built a cork board, from many years of wine drinking (who ever knew that drinking so much wine would make me more organised?!)... and a hat stand from an old wooden cot i found in the garage (if you saw my hat collection, you'd wonder why it took this long).. it's also probably about time the old letterbox out the front of my place got a workover... maybe next month's energy spurt!

apart from all these creative ventures, it's been pretty darn crazy in the office. the sunwrae string quintet (piano & string quartet) are touring may 5th to june 9th in australia... and there's also (ssshhh!) a date in the waters outside oz in the middle of that. it's due to be announced very soon...

from the feedback we've been given lately, from our lovely audience members at many years of sunwrae performances, i've decided to start the easvesdropping series in melbourne again.. it'll be a bit different that the richmond shows, smaller groups to start with, but also an exciting finale performance with (hopefully!) an international guest... and the launch of a long lost album to go with it! very exciting indeed.

mid-year i'm also involved in a theatre show with st martins youth theatre in south yarra. i'm looking forward to working in the theatre again... solo performing has never been more missed than now!

well. that's probably about it for the moment.. i'll update you shortly when the tour is announced... and hopefully this blog will become more a weekly splurge of thoughts whilst things progress over the next couple of months...

rae :)

happy festive season....

for the first time since i was, perhaps, 5 years old, i was in bed by 10pm on new years... it was actually quite exciting to be up at 6am and walking through the bushland near my place, and not because i had been up all night! who would have thunk?! it was sooo quiet. absolutely no disturbance. well, except for the early morning revellers at nuggety dam that is. they were still up dancing or swaying awkwardly around the campfire (is that allowed this time of year?) as i walked through the forest.. i felt like a real dork being so sprightly that early!

my bright idea was to start the year on a positive note, creatively, so i was on the piano by 9am and switching between playing and editing some piano compositions on the computer.... day 3 now and still feels good, so hopefully i can keep up the productivity! i have a few projects to sink my teeth into over summer.. an orchestral piece and a number of piano & string quartet works, as well as a solo piano recording... many hours to go yet, hopefully my studio can keep up... above is a late night pic of my piano & vibes where i work by the way...

i'm not sure i really believe in resolutions, but i have decided (and i've said this before i know) to write more here. i'll probably need to vent a little more once the orchestral piece comes along. mmmm. see you back here soon then eh?

ps. happy festive season. i spent christmas day at home with a few friends. prawns and champagne for breakfast, roast turkey for lunch and many mixed drinks for dinner! the table tennis table and dart board got a bit of working over too!

Artist in Residence and Tour Preparation...

we're half way through an artist in residence program at the moment.. that is, the sunwrae trio... myself on vibraphone, luke richardson on double bass and emily rosner on harp. we're preparing for the 'primavera tour' in september, which heads up the east coast of australia.. performing in Ballarat (our preview show), Melbourne VIC, Corowa NSW, Albury NSW, Sydney NSW, Port Macquarie NSW, Uralla NSW, Bundagen NSW, Byron Bay NSW, Brisbane QLD and Eumundi QLD. for details of dates etc., please check out out official website...

for now and this coming week, we'll be based in regional victoria (ballarat), at the 'backspace' arts venue.. for those that know, it's the old police station in camp street, behind the art gallery. it's a cultural initiative of the city of ballarat, providing us with a space to rehearse from, developing our music for the tour. we're holding some workshops this week for the local music students here and presenting a performance on thursday august 19 at the helen mcpherson smith theatre. the students from the university of ballarat's live production course will be recording and filming us during the performance too.

so it's been great this past week to focus on the music, arranging some pre-existing compositions of mine, especially for the trio, as well as learn a couple of brand new works i've written since i had the amazing experience of my residency in brazil. the tour's looking to be absolutely fabulous!! in the meantime, here's our promo flyer for the ballarat show...
i'll post some pics of the events during the week as they unfold...
stay tuned for more!
rae