Sunday Arts Magazine

1 May 2016

Films, Sensuality in the City, Kitchenalia, Museum of Me, MSO

Arts, Government & Organisations, Health, Kids & Family, Local, Music, Performing Arts, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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Films, Sensuality in the City, Kitchenalia, Museum of Me, MSO

Brendan wastes no time getting into film reviews. Florence Foster Jenkins stars Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant and is about a generous and loved American socialite in the 1920s who donated lots of money to the arts and, despite not being able to sing, staged her own opera recitals. Due to her generosity, audiences allowed her to believe she could sing including her husband (Grant) who produced the shows. Great performances from the leads and an interesting topic–enough for David to want to attend the cinema!— 3 to 3.5 stars. Amazingly, there is a French film based on Florence, called Marguerite–starring Catherine Frot–which was released in cinemas about 3 weeks ago! Brendan also reviews Captain America: Civil War which seems to be getting rave reviews elsewhere. David is not even mildly interested. Brendan sees it as well-made with slightly more depth to the characters but is essentially ‘Avengers Part3’—3 stars. Brendan also saw Purple Rain which he’d never seen. A story of urban decay it is essentially a vehicle for Prince. It is shot in a picturesque and artistic way and has great music BUT the acting is dreadful. Later our hosts discuss Brendan’s arty week which included 1)MSO’s Bach Suites with Haydn ‘bookending’ the pieces and 2) the opening of NGV’s Art Book Fair. Also both Brendan and David will see the opening of Opera Australia’s La Bohéme 3 to 28 May at the State Theatre.

Special guests today are:

13:48 to 33:02 mins–Artistic Director Evan Lawson and Soprano Rosemary Ball are from Forest Collective here to talk about their show Sensuality in the City on at The Recital Centre on 18 May at 6pm. It is part of the Metropolis New Music Festival. Both guests graduated from the VCA in 2009. Since graduating Rosemary has been studying and performing and in 2013 Evan invited her to collaborate with Forest Collective. This experience has widened her artistry and pushed her to test her boundaries. Evan studied composition at VCA and conducting at the Conservatorium. He has conducted here and overseas doing both old and new work. Forest Collective had its roots at VCA with Evan collaborating with musicians and visual artists and putting on avante garde experimental events which later became more structured. His passion is to work in small groups, with chamber music and living composers and collaborating with other artforms which Forest is about. Evan describes the layout of their one-off concert which has musicians, 2 singers and a visual art element. It involves pieces from 2 UK composers and one of Evans’s, as well as short leader songs from Schubert and Schumann –all focusing on sexuality along with some melancholia/sadness. Rosemary describes the pieces she’ll be singing and visually there is a take on a 1950s muscleman poster with a twist and a surprise which Evan’s not giving away.

33:58 to 45:08 mins–Sharron O’Kines is a visual artist, predominantly a Linocut Printmaker whose exhibition is called– Kitchenalia: an ongoing series of linocut prints exploring memory, love, loss–on at the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre 210 Lonsdale St, from 1 to 31 May. Sharon came late to art via a ‘mid-life crisis’ and went to fulltime arts school (Chisholm) for 2 years covering print-making, sculpture and painting. And she gravitated toward Linocut prints an artform requiring great precision which she enjoys. It takes 30 to 40 hours to carve each lino before the printing but Sharon and others call it ‘therapy’. David saw her previous exhibition depicting burlesque performers which is totally different to her present one. Inspiration came from her fascination with cut glass pieces when op-shopping. It occurred to her these pieces may have come from her nan’s, aunt’s and great-aunts’s kitchens back in England and she was creating an imagined history for herself (with jelly molds and crystal bowls & vases etc) which has also resonated with many others. This exhibition is comprised of her newer works which she created in the last 6 months and she has used newly available fluoro colours which she thinks was inspired by her growing up in the 1970s–so a combo of old and new.

52:37 to 1:14:07 mins–Elizabeth Welch is the Arts and Cultural Development Officer from the Museum of Me. Before this role, Elizabeth was an actor (mainly theatre) for many years but alongside this she taught young actors and did other community-based projects which became more prominent as her acting fell away. She came up with the Museum of Me when she started working as an arts and cultural development officer at the City of Darebin 3 years ago. It came from looking at the demographical spikes in Darebin with the highest being primary schoolkids and the over 70s and wondering how she could bring these groups together. Her first project started in 2014 and had a huge amount of scope. There is a 7 minute doco about it on the website which explains what they were trying to achieve. They improved on it and in 2016 they have 2 artists in residence at 2 aged-care facilities. At one of them a choreographer is working with a composer on a partner-dancing project. It involves elderly people with dementia and 8 year old kids dancing together and is about a way of getting together physically and communing, and being in the now which kids are very good at. This is key in helping the elderly feel like they’re listened to and who they are now is as important who they were 40 years ago. And it’s fun! Elizabeth gives another example and its effects. She also talks about the power of music, the artists’ experience and ongoing interaction with the kids and elderly beyond the project.

1:14:28 to 1:28:52 mins–Sarah Curro is First Violinist in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is here to talk about the 3 MSO concerts on 14, 18 and 21 May within the Metropolis New Music Festival 9 to 21 May at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Sarah’s dad started the Queensland Youth Orchestra in 1967 and Sarah went to many performances as a child so she always wanted to play in the Symphony. As a child he copied her older sister with learning violin, involving herself with the Youth orchestra, studying music at the conservatorium. But their path diverged with overseas study when Sarah went to Hong Kong and her sister to Michigan. The Hong Kong experience was mind-blowing for Sarah with electric violins and modern music and she has now got her own solo contemporary classical music show called Volume. She plays pieces she commissions from composers, on her husband’s electric and semi-acoustic instruments. She later details her experience with an unusual composer! She plays at The Toff in Town in the city. She started at the MSO in 2002 after playing for the Hong Kong Philharmonic. She came to Melbourne because her sister was here. Sarah will play in 2 of the 3 MSO concerts in the Metropolis New Music Festival and finds these more modern composers more challenging to practice and play than more traditional composers.

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