the b-side of a life through-composed

Oops

2009-12-19T16:39:00.003+11:00

So, being the idiot I am, I managed to completely delete my Top 5 Films post.

Really unhappy.

Cue: a deep funk.

I will eventually get around to re-writing my Top 5 Films and completing the 7 x 5 project.

Stay tuned...

Top 5 Musicals

2009-12-17T22:52:00.025+11:00

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

(in no particular order)

Chicago - John Kander / Fred Ebb

So sexy, hilarious and just overall so wonderful. I don't mind the film but fell totally in love with Chicago when I saw it performed in Sydney earlier in the year. Sharon Millerchip as Roxie was just amazingly fabulous and deserved every ounce of the Helpmann Award she won for the role. It was wonderful to enjoy her performance so much, especially considering I really only went to see it so I could see Caroline O'Connor perform (I love her!)... and I went to one of the five performances she had to pull out of due to an ankle injury. I have the timing of a ninja.

A Chorus Line - Marvin Hamlisch / Edward Kleban

This musical has some wonderful songs in it, At the Ballet is gorgeous and Nothing is both amusing and moving... and of course there is the show-stopping What I Did For Love. What I like about this musical is how real it is. The stories all come from real people who audition for chorus lines, and I love that there is no real plot to it... it's all about characters.

The Lion King - Elton John / Tim Rice

How can you not enjoy this musical? The tribal sounds, the fantaaaaastic costumes and staging, the heartwrenching songs Shadowland and He Lives in You, that phenomenal stampede scene... Seeing this musical in 2004 was such a wonderful experience. I only wish I could see it again without having to travel to New York or London.

Next to Normal - Tom Kitt / Brian Yorkey

I have only ever listened to this musical... it's only very new (opened this year on Broadway, in fact) but the music and the plot are very interesting and I would absolutely love to see it staged. Some of it is rather so-so, but there are also some very wonderful moments.

RENT - Johnathan Larson

I'm not really a huge fan of RENT anymore, but it was formative in my appreciation of musical theatre. I did a musicology viva voce on four songs from the musical for music in Year 10 (2004) and then discovered the film version on DVD, which I bought on a whim. I fell in love with it and it made me want to see investigate more musicals, and it all went from there. I still haven't seen this musical staged (mainly due to my own disorganisation, I've had an ample amount of opportunities).

West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein / Stephen Sondheim

This musical is such a classic. In both the sense of it being a classic musical and a classical musical... one of the few musicals that opera companies have managed to perform. The music by Bernstein is just amazing. This is the only musical I can think of where I like the instrumental score almost as much if not more than the vocal score.

Wicked - Stephen Schwartz

I got into Wicked in a rather big way when I first started listening to the music from it in 2006. I've been rather on-and-off with it ever since, and am still waiting for an opportunity to see it performed live, even though it is currently playing in Sydney. I really don't like a lot of the songs, but some are very good. I also adore the novel the musical is based on (Wicked by Gregory Maguire)... and am not sure how the adaptation of this into a cheery everything-is-fine-in-the-end musical will work... I'll have to see it to make a proper judgement, I think.

The Wild Party - Michael John LaChiusa

I love the cast recording of this musical, it gets a high rotation playing at my work haha. Toni Colette is fabulous as the feisty Queenie! The music in this is just great... it's such an alcohol-soaked, dark, jazz affair. I'd love to direct or musically direct this musical one day, but it would require a lot of work!

BARE - Damon Intrabartolo / Jon Hartmere, Jr.

To be honest, this musical was initially forced upon me. I decided to help my friend with a proposal he was putting together for a production of this to be staged in October of this year. I put myself down as musical director before even hearing a note of the musical, and then was given a copy of the soundtrack and a rather deliciously illegal under-the-coat video recording of the original off-Broadway production. The music might be very straightforward and the plot might be overly dramatic and saturated with teen angst, but there are some wonderful moments in the musical. I think our greatest mistake in our proposing this musical was that we pitched it as 'it's a musical about gay boys who fall in love and one kills himself and there's a lot of sex and stuff, it's funny as well'. What we really should have emphasised (and if I were directing it, this is the approach I would take) is the undercurrent of the church in the traditional sense vs. modern age spirituality and the implications this has in our everyday lives and the Zeitgeist of a particular period of time. When you look at it in this way, this musical has a lot to say about this and the treatment and view of homosexuals within, what is essentially, a society which has transcended traditional religious adherence, but is still not atheistic or secular in its values. And I think that's pretty significant.

EXTRA SPECIAL EVEN-MORE-HONOURABLE MENTIONS

(these musicals sit somewhere between my standard honourable mentions and my Top 5... they deserve to be given extra special mention - and are listed here in no particular order)

Company - Stephen Sondheim

I love Sondheim. I love his musicals so very, very much. And Company is one such musical. It has no linear plot and is rather abstract in its approach, but the music is just marvellous. So unbelievably catchy. Particular highlights include The Ladies Who Lunch, Sorry-Grateful, Another Hundred People, the very popular Being Alive, and my own favourite, Getting Married Today. I love that this musical is about very real things... there's no fantasy bullshit or need for extensive suspension of disbelief, it's a raw look at how our relationships more often than not don't work out. This is another musical I would kill, maim or steal to be able to direct or musically direct... a tricky one though in regards to vocal ability and staging, might be one to do after I've had a go at something easier to begin with.

Songs for a New World - Jason Robert Brown

Much like Company, Songs for a New World has no real plot, yet unlike Company, it doesn't have characters either. Essentially, Songs is a musical theatre song cycle. Nearly all of the songs are totally beautiful... the opening, The New World, is wonderful and there is of course the very popular I'm Not Afraid of Anything and Stars and the Moon but my own personal favourite is On the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1942.

TOP 5 MUSICALS

5. Titanic - Maury Yeston

This is a highly underrated musical. It seems strange to stage a musical production about such a tragic disastrous actual event in history, but at the same time it seems like the perfect treatment for the story. The musical focuses more on the class systems used and the relationships between the three different classes. It serves as a social commentary on social status, and ultimately comments that when everything goes to shit no matter how much money you have, what your occupation is, what gender you are or who you know... you are just as screwed as the person beside you. "It will be every man for himself all right! / The weak thrown in with all the strong! / First class, and third and second / Will mean nothing! / And sheer humanity alone will prevail / One single class / Brute, harsh and crass / That's what will come of the world that set sail." Or, perhaps, you should be, in an ideal world... The music in this musical is really cleverly written. It emulates the Zeitgeist in classical and popular composition in England at the time and there are very evident influences of Vaughan Williams, Gilbert and Sullivan and Ivor Novello. I've auditioned for two musicals this year with Barrett's Song from Titanic and would love the opportunity to perform it properly one day... it's a great one to belt out.

4. The Hatpin - Peter Rutherford / James Millar

This musical is not very well known at all. It's a very new Australian musical that was produced at the Seymour Centre in Sydney in early 2008 starring Melle Stewart and Caroline O'Connor. The musical is set in Sydney and follows the tale of Amber Murray (Stewart), a homeless woman with a baby out on her luck. She gives the baby to a well-to-do couple to look after for her and pays them a weekly sum of money as part of this arrangement, which she earns from a job she is given by the kind and strong Harriet Piper (O'Connor). However, nothing seems to be going to plan, as whenever Amber comes to visit her baby, Horace, the couple who took him in always have an excuse for why she cannot see him. They eventually move without any warning whatsoever, and Amber loses hope of ever seeing her son again. Her worst fears are eventually confirmed when it is uncovered the couple routinely take in children to care for them and murder them by putting a hatpin through their ear deep into their heads, bury the bodies in their backyard and continue to receive payments for the children they are meant to be caring for. Disturbingly, this is actually a true story. Aside from the very dramatic story, the music is wonderfully fitting and has some very touching and dramatic moments. It's yet another musical I'd love to have a hand in bringing to life either by directing or musically directing.

3. Sunday in the Park with George - Stephen Sondheim

This musical is the most intelligent, thoughtful musical and is very worthy of academic study. It looks at the role of 'the artist' within our society... how he (or she) functions, and relates what they see in the world around them to their work. The way they can be driven mad by what they do to exist. The other wonderful aspect of this musical is the way the characters look to both the future and the past... it's a comment on how we may very well be living in the moment, but we are part of such a larger spectrum of time and space. We belong to something so large and have so much responsibility for our past, present and future. And, again, the music is gorgeous... as I've come to expect of the fabulous Stephen Sondheim. Beautiful songs like Finishing the Hat, Colour and Light, Beautiful, We Do Not Belong Together, Children and Art and the fabulous Lesson #8 and Move On. From beginning to end this musical is an exquisite work of art, and every moment is so very valuable, you feel that blinking will get in the way.

2. Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Stephen Sondheim

Referred to in one critical essay I've read as a gruesical, Sondheim's Sweeney Todd has haunted and chilled both musical theatre halls and opera houses for decades. The gothic operetta attends the tale of Benjamin Barker, a barber who is sent to Australia on false charges and returns with a murderous revenge as Sweeney Todd. He decides after fate deals him a poor hand once again that he will turn his revenge on everyone who comes into his tonsorial parlour, where his accomplice and devoted admirer Nellie Lovett turns the corpses into pies which she then sells in her shop. Sondheim's score is terrifying, using very ferverent moving motifs in very low, dark registers, peircing and shrill sounds like a factory whistle, bizarre and dischordant lines and harmonies and some exceptionally difficult notes out of the standard register of a specific voice type. I had never really heard or seen much of Sweeney Todd until the Tim Burton film adaptation was released, and I decided before I went to see it I had to see the original and know it so I can appreciate the adaptation and from there I fell in love. The film was fantastic for a film, but is nothing on the original musical. I'm currently part of a production of Sweeney Todd with the Sydney University Musical Theatre Ensemble (MUSE) playing the role of Beadle Bamford. Having the opportunity to perform in a musical I hold so very close to my heart means the world to me, and I am so, so excited for the production to get up and running as we come closer to the performance dates (17-20th March, 2010 - Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre, Sydney).

1. Into the Woods - Stephen Sondheim

The first time I ever heard anything of this musical was when I went home to my parents' house the year after I finished school and visited my high school to see their musical, which happened to be Into the Woods. I went with odd expectations... I wasn't sure what to expect as the performing arts department in the school was flourishing at an exponential rate when I graduated. I was amazed... it was so touching and funny and artistically beautiful. I immediately rushed out and bought the original broadway production on DVD and I have been a devoted fan ever since. What irks me most about this musical, or rather the people who see this musical, is the very common reaction of 'It really should have finished at interval... the second half was just odd and morbid.' Well, der! The entire point of this musical is consequence, and the second act is one big chain of consequences. The second act has more of a point than the first! It is a tragic but very touching fable about learning to love what you have and who you are. Trying to be anything that you aren't is not going to end with a 'happily ever after'. I would love so very much to direct, musically direct or be in the cast of a production of this musical... I worry though, that if ever I was a part of a production I would take it on board far too much and it wouldn't only become a part of me... but it would totally consume me. In the most wonderful way. I dare to not be overwhelmed while watching this musical, Children Will Listen is one of the most gorgeous and heartbreaking songs ever written.

Top 5 Pieces of Music

2009-12-16T12:03:00.029+11:00

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

(in no particular order)

City Life - Steve Reich

This was the piece that made me fall in love with Reich. It made me view minimalism in a new way, and appreciate it all the more. I love the 'speech melodies'. Check it out, the first movement, is great if you wanted to... well... check it out...

I Was Looking At The Ceiling And Then I Saw The Sky - John Adams

I'll be the first to admit that as a whole this opera/musical is rather shit. However, the opening 'I was looking at the ceiling...' is addictive, and there are some truly gorgeous and inspired moments... '¿Donde Estàs?', 'Dewain's Song of Liberation and Surprise' and '¡Este País! (This Country)' to name a few.

De Staat - Louis Andriessen

This, along with City Life, were two of the pieces that really stuck with me when I studied Music in Modern Times at the Conservatorium. I love the political persuasion of the piece and the way the grinding and dissonant brass keeps evolving and turns into a brilliant chorus in Ancient Greek in consonant minimalism.

Peter Grimes - Benjamin Britten

A new addition to the repertoire I listen to a lot. I heard amazing things about the Opera Australia production earlier in the year and decided I needed to see it. When I managed to get a ticket, I was stunned. This is a phenomenal work of art and so, so touching. It's the first opera I've ever been able to fall in love with.

The Infinite Heartbeat - Stuart Greenbaum

A simple, short (only 5 minutes long) minimalist piece (can you tell that I thoroughly enjoy minimalist music?) by Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum, but so amazingly moving. I weep nearly every time I hear it. The solo pianissimo pizzicato which opens and closes the piece, the subtle key changes introduced by the unending piano accompaniment... it's the nuances in this piece are what makes it so beautiful and so intimate.

Lux Aeterna - Martin Lauridsen

I was first introduced to this piece in 2007 when I sang the third movement, O Nata Lux, with the Sydney University Music Society and a touring choir from Harvard University. This is such a beautiful piece to be a part of in performance. Every time I have performed it in the years since, I think back to when I moved to Sydney away from my family and friends and had this piece to rehearse and perform to keep me company.

Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel - György Ligeti

I love this piece purely because it is so insane. Ligeti's music has always attracted me in an indescribable way, and this is the only work of his where I've been able to pinpoint a reason for loving it... its sheer insanity and humour. I played this piece to my Year 1 class when I was prac teaching last month and it made one girl cry because it was so foreign to her young ears... she didn't know how to deal emotionally with the sounds she was hearing.

Oblivion - Astor Piazzolla

The most intimate and sexually fulfilling of all pieces of music. Written for violin, violoncello and piano, the tango sounds as though the instruments are making tender and passionate love. I cannot help but be overcome when listening to this piece. Ute Lemper, one of my favourite singers, has written lyrics for it and Katie Noonan (yep, she's back...) performed it with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (them again too) in their most recent collaboration, Luminous, which was accompanied by photos from one of my favourite artists/photographers, Bill Henson. The experience was truly magical.

Summa for Choir - Arvo Pärt

I stumbled upon the music of Arvo Pärt by complete accident, picking up a $10 'Best of Arvo Pärt' CD in a dump-bin from a now-defunct CD store on Glebe Point Rd on the offchance of discovering something new and wonderful. Oh, how I did. His Summa has been arranged for many different ensembles, including string orchestra and is a gorgeous example of his own compositional style, 'tintinnabuli', where two voices co-exist, one moving in arpeggios on a tonic chord while the other moves diatonically in a step-motion. Just amazing. Other works of Pärt which should really be here as well include Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten as well as his Fratres, also arranged for many different ensembles including violin and piano as well as string orchestra and tuned/untuned percussion.

Cloudburst - Eric Whitacre

A highly complex choral work accompanied by piano and both tuned/untuned percussion and involving body percussion to emulate the coming, being and departing of a storm. Sung in Spanish, the lush and unexpected chords are beautiful and Whitacre's signature tonal clusters along with an aleatoric section make this piece both a unique experience for performer and responder alike. I was supposed to be singing this in the Canberra Inter-Varsity Choral Festival in January next year until I had to pull out due to commitments to work and Sweeney Todd, which is very sad (but Sweeney Todd will be amazing, so it's okay!)

TOP 5 PIECES OF MUSIC

5. Song for Athene - John Tavener

Performed, and brought into significant international attention as a result, at the funeral of Diana Princess of Wales, this piece fluctuates between tonic minor and tonic major, reflecting both the light and dark feelings one experiences when a person close to their hearts dies. The piece for a capella choir is held consistent through a low drone from the beginning of the piece as it builds gradually through repetition and an increase of intensity to a liberating climax, celebrating the freedom of the deceased's soul into a better place. This builds to the dramatic, textural and dynamic climactic point of the entire piece, and then falls abruptly away into pianissimo where we here that familiar drone quietly and one of the initial Hallelujah sections is repeated so quietly it's almost impossible to hear and in a major key. It's as though the deceased person is still with us, one hand on our shoulder assuring as that everything is okay, but they are only there quietly. I love this piece purely for it's beauty. It really has no great personal significance for me, particularly as I am an atheist, but if I do have a religion, it is music.

4. Symphony No. 2 - Philip Glass

Pure minimalism in its most obvious form... Philip Glass. If you've been observant, indeed if you've read anything more than a few sentences on this post, you'll notice that I am quite a big fan of minimalism, particularly American minimalism. In fact, 4 of my top 5 pieces of music are minimalist, and the odd one out (number 2 on the list) has many minimalist influences. This symphony is a wonderful example of Glass' work, his repetitive fifths and chords, straight and consistent rhythms, varying emphases. The opening movement of the symphony holds particular significance for me. In Year 11 Drama we were split into groups and required to create group devised performances on the topic of 'warfare' each in the style of a different practitioner which was assigned to us. My group did an excellent piece in the style of Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, but it was another group which had some very close friends in it who did their piece about the Holocaust in the style of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty that grabbed me. I was obsessed with it and the style of theatre... how wonderful to not only have an excuse, but to be required to figuratively smack an audience across the face and abuse them. The piece of theatre was phenomenal... nearly everyone who ever saw it cried and was terrified by it. My friends asked me for my assistance in presenting the performance and I assisted them with some sound design and ran all their audio/visuals. Part of this performance was the opening of this symphony... those repeating arpeggios and intervals and that haunting oboe melody over the swelling chords in the strings. To this music, the actors performed a sick and disturbing choreographed movement sequence displaying the relationships they had with other prisoners in the camp and their hopes for escape. One particular tableaux in the piece consisted of all actors reaching as high as they could towards a central point on stage... this mirrored a photograph the group found in their research of actual prisoners of war in a gas chamber, all reaching towards the one single vent in the ceiling in their final moments, desperate to escape from the gas surrounding them. At the conclusion of this movement piece, each of the actors lined up and performed an eerie swaying movement, before settling and being shot one by one, before the slide '...we must never forget.' flashed up on the screen behind them. This performance both haunts and excites me to this very day. It was spectacular and I find myself pulling out the DVD every now and again to experience it yet again. It was in doing this assignment, and helping this other group, that I knew I wanted my life to never be bereft of life-altering performance and theatre. I plan to teach drama (as well as music) when I graduate and go out into the 'real world' and I think that this performance was the main reason that I want to do that.

3. Ice Man - Stuart Greenbaum

The first time I heard this piece was when one of the movements, The Dream, was played in a student HSC music concert in high school. Part of the Music 2 Syllabus is the compulsory component, 'Music of the Last 25 Years: Australian Focus' where all students must perform a piece written in the last twenty five years, preferably an Australian composition. Often this means students procure very obscure pieces from bizarre places. One of these pieces was The Dream. When it was performed at my school, nobody seemed to know where the music came from so every time a Music 2 piano student wanted to play it for their HSC they couldn't because nobody knew where the piece came from or who the composer was... but everybody loved it so much. Then, when I was in year 12 doing my HSC, even though I was majoring in voice, I decided that I loved this piece so much that I too wanted to play it (I've done my 8th Grade AMEB in piano as well) so I sought out a copy and began to learn it. I was helping a fellow music student from another school with his Music 1 performances and one of the pieces he was accompanying another student for (The Infinite Heartbeat) sounded almost familiar... and then he performed another piece, Affinity, which was the closing movement of Ice Man, and instantly I knew I had found the piece from which The Dream came from. It was such a serendipitous moment of realisation I had to keep myself from bursting out into a fit of laughter. Ice Man has stayed with my ever since, and I managed to track down a copy of the score from the Conservatorium library and have ever since been teaching myself the entire half-hour work. It is so beautiful. Iove its gorgeous use of the sustain pedal, the way the notes fade and the overtones meld into each other to create this disparate mood of emptiness. Greenbaum, an American-born Australian composer who is currently Senior Lecturer in Music and Head of Composition Studies at the University of Melbourne, wrote the piece about fellow Australian James Scott who was trapped in the Himalayan snow for 43 days. The piece reflects the emptiness and loneliness he felt and is hauntingly beautiful. I'd love to perfect this piece and one day perform it in recital... but that's just one of my many dreams. For now I need to work on being able to play it on an actual acoustic piano instead of the digital piano I have at home which doesn't do sustained notes or overtones very well.

2. Carmina Burana - Carl Orff

This piece in itself is prolific enough to not need a description. It was the first classical piece I ever saw in performance when the Sydney University Music Society (SUMS) performed it in the University of Sydney Great Hall in 2004. I was in Year 10 and my music teacher was in the choir and had insisted we all came and saw it. I was hooked. I went and bought the Naxos recording the next week and listened to it over and over. It was this performance I saw that set me on the path of classical music as a career path. I didn't realise it was possible to still work in amateur choirs once school had finished. The year after I graduated, despite not being successful with my application for the Conservatorium, I still moved to Sydney and joined SUMS. Everything came full circle when earlier this year I performed Carmina Burana with SUMS... it was an affirmation of my decision to follow the path of music and performance for the rest of my life. This piece stands as almost the contract of the commitment that I made to myself to do this. Aside from this, it's just an awesome piece with some excellent moments (obviously the opening and closing movements, O Fortuna are highlights that immediately spring to mind) but the gorgeous baritone solos and soprano solos are also what make this piece so special to me. It might seem a tad clichéd to have this piece on my list, especially at number 2, but hopefully this story gives you some insight as to why it's so special to me.

1. Symphony No. 3 'Symphony of Sorrowful Song' - Henryk Gòrecki

The most-sold classical piece of all time, in terms of recordings. There is a reason for this... and that is that this piece is just the most heartwrenchingly beautiful work of art. If you've never heard this piece before, you need to find a recording of it (I suggest the Naxos recording with soprano Zofia Kilanowicz and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra - it's my favourite), sit in the dark or near-dark with a glass of red wine, close your eyes and listen. I found this piece in a very backward way. One day when I was listening to Triple J doing mindless work I heard the song Cotton Wool by Lamb and decided I really liked it. I then looked it up online and downloaded it and found that every site I read talked about a Lamb song called Gorecki so I downloaded it too and fell completely in love (you might remember it was number 1 on my Top 5 Songs post). I read all about this song in the liner notes of the Lamb CD I rushed out and bought immediately, and saw that Lou Rhodes and Andy Barlow wrote the song about a shared experience they had had when they heard Gòrecki's Third Symphony for the first time, so I picked up the aforementioned recording of this piece. I listened to it without stopping on my discman in the car on the way to the South Coast that afternoon and wept. I had never heard anything more beautiful in my whole life. Such despair, so beautiful this torturous agony in this music. A intensely slow, gradual build of sound to a climax of soaring soprano notes over luscious strings. To read the story behind the composition of this piece then furthered my intense appreciation for it. The text used in the first movement is a 15th Century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus,the second movement a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II and the third movement a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son, killed in the Silesian uprisings. I can't say too much more than you need to experience this piece yourself to understand why it sits here at the number one spot on this list. It runs for about an hour, and if you haven't heard it before (or even all the way through) you owe it to yourself to first read up on the story behind the composition (a good place to start is the piece's Wikipedia entry) and then listen to the piece from beginning to end with no interruptions. You will be a changed person for the experience.

Top 5 Albums

2009-12-15T15:10:00.036+11:00

N.B. This one was a tricky one... couldn't help but add a list of honourable mentions to my Top 5. It may be a commonplace thing for the next few lists as well... picking 5 was tricky!

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

(in no particular order)

Birth of the Cool - Miles Davis

Classic jazz from my favourite jazz musician of all time. The perfect album for cocktails on a Saturday evening.

Eyes Open - Snow Patrol

This album got me through a time in my life when I was sorely missing someone very special who was far away.

Kid A - Radiohead

This album is only a new favourite of mine, but I love the impersonal, terrifying, yet emotional feel of it.

Le fil - Camille

This concept album is amazing. The album consists almost entirely of vocal sounds. A drone on middle B links the songs together, creating a 'string' of sound (Le fil translates literally as 'the wire').

I Am a Bird Now - Antony and the Johnsons

The ethereal voice of Antony Hegarty and his gorgeous, honest words make this compelling album a heart-wrenching plea for a release from a world which isn't big enough to contain such a beautiful and unique person.

Volta - Björk

Industrial, warm, gentle, rough, loud, soft, foreign, real, contemporary... totally unique and totally Björk. The most amazing combination of conflicting ideas that just... works. The first Björk album I ever heard, which totally sold me to her sound.

Echolalia - Something for Kate

The first Something for Kate album that I bought for myself after being given their album The Official Fiction for Christmas. It made me want more, it began my epic crush on Paul Dempsey and Clint Hyndman (and Stephanie Ashworth, I suppose she has to be included) and I feel in love with Monsters, which, in my opinion, is one of the best Australian songs ever written.

TOP 5 ALBUMS

5. Simple Things - Zero 7

This trip hop album is the perfect soundtrack for a chilled out summer afternoon. Served perfectly with cocktails, paddle pool and fresh seasonal fruit. I am by no means a summer boy at all, but this album makes the whole thing all the more endearing to me. Whenever I listen to this album I am immediately transported back to living in Forest Lodge with my wonderful friends... cleaning the kitchen, returning from a shopping trip and packing away the shopping while nibbling on blue brie and crackers, endless glasses of white wine and champagne while getting ready to walk up the street to our favourite cocktail bar. It takes me to a place where I am totally relaxed and happy. They were wonderful days, and I cannot wait to relive some of them when I move back to the south side of the Harbour Bridge at the tail end of the year.

4. Medúlla – Björk

What an experience this album is. Similar to Le fil, the album was made with only a few non-vocal sounds on a select few tracks. The vocal sounds from both Björk and a wide array of collaborators contributing beatboxing, choral arrangements and throat singing blend into a wonderful soundscape of otherworldliness. Being a singer and chorister, I have a particular fascination with this album and the many varied ways in which the voice is used on it. I love that the album makes reference to and uses vocal techniques from ancient times through to different styles of contemporary vocal performance such as jazz, classical, pop, rock, dance, electronica, musical theatre and melts them all together with influences from vocal techniques and styles from different cultures into a beautiful mess of sound.

3. Blackbird - Katie Noonan

Anyone who knows me, or anyone who read my Top 5 Songs seven.by.five post will not be at all surprised to find a Katie Noonan album on this list. I adore her, especially when she performs jazz repertoire... so what better album than Katie Noonan along with some of the most fantastical living jazz musicians (Lewis Nash, Joe Lovano, John Schofield and Sam Keevers) performing arrangements of the inspired songs of Paul McCartney and John Lennon for jazz quintet! The interpretations of these songs are original and fresh, and add so much to original songs penned by McCartney and Lennon. Truly the most amazing moments on the album are Norwegian Wood, with a stunning solo from Joe Lovano on saxophone and the phenomenal Eleanor Rigby, in itself a masterpiece but performed here as an 'up-tempo fierce jazz waltz thing' it takes on a new life. The first time I met Katie was after her concert with the Australian Chamber Orchestra as part of their Sublime concert series in March 2008 at City Recital Hall in Angel Place. The last thing I said to her as I left was, 'Please, please record some more jazz.' This was her next release... coincidence? I like to think not...

2. Beautiful Sharks - Something for Kate

My favourite album from my favourite band. I was introduced to Something for Kate through their album The Official Fiction, which I got for Christmas the year it was released and really adored the sound it brought with it. A few weeks later I stumbled across a cheap copy of their most popular album, Echolalia and I began to fall in love with them. My friend bought me a copy of their one and only DVD, A Diversion, which had video clips and footage from live recorded gigs from their Echolalia album and the album previous to it, Beautiful Sharks. When I heard a couple of songs I rushed out and bought a copy of the album and my crush turned into a deep and fulfilling romance. I was in love. The album flutters between lush and gorgeous songs like Anchorman, The Astronaut and Whatever You Want through to songs that buzz with energy like Electricity and my own personal favourite Hallways. And who could let the beautiful, heartbreaking and empowering Back to You go by? Part of the reason this album is so special to me is because I fell in love with it while I was living at home, before I came out to my parents. The heartbreaking songs, the songs full of rage... they all served a purpose in healing my troubled soul. While this was a difficult period of my life, wrought with teenage angst, it was a formative one... and a time I hold very close to my heart. It was so strange to be so close but so distant from my parents and I felt as through I was on the precipice of some massive plunge into a scary, unknown place. This album was my closest friend on some very sad and lonely nights, and when I listen to it now I am reminded of how lucky I am that that plunge ended up not being so scary, and that after a year or so I could leave that angst and worry behind me to feel comforted and safe and loved by my wonderful parents.

1. Before Time Could Change Us - Paul Grabowsky, Katie Noonan and Dorothy Porter

This album is the perfect marriage of the talents of three of my favourite artists. Paul Grabowsky, my favourite Australian composer and one of my favourite jazz pianists, Katie Noonan, my favourite of favourites of... well, life... my all, my everything, and the late Dorothy Porter, my favourite Australian poet. Before Time Could Change Us is a gorgeous song cycle that began its life as a series of 16 poems written by Porter for Grabowsky to use as song cycle 'traversing that first flash of love, the tumult of an affair and the wistful and sometimes painful memories of something that was not meant to be.' The poems were given life by Grabowsky, each in a different style of jazz (standard, ballad, freestyle, etc.) and then pushed over the edge into another world by the indescribable talent of Katie Noonan. I have wept to these songs, I have been elated because of these songs... but what I love most about these songs is that I have lived them. I can identify with the sentiment of every single song in this cycle. Not only have I lived them, but I have sung them. Singing makes me what I am, and purchasing the score of the song cycle was such a fantastic decision. Not only have I been able to understand these songs from an aural perspective, but I've been able to sing them and take them deep inside my soul. Being able to sing these songs has meant that the experience of having them has been broadened and I have been able to make them my own songs. But of course, nothing compares to listening to Katie Noonan perform them... she truly is just so beautiful. I dare each and every one of you to listen to If Snakes Could Fly and not be completely taken aback by it. It is the most exquisite song you will ever hear.

Top 5 Books

2009-12-14T12:20:00.017+11:00

5. Wetlands - Charlotte Roche

So this book is a very, very interesting one. Originally written in German, its title Feuchtgebiete translates literally as 'wet areas' and refers to the author's vagina. It is a partly autobiographical novel which is narrated by a girl, Helen, from a proctological ward in a hospital while being treated for an anal fissure. Essentially throughout the novel, Helen details her fascinations with the genital region of her body. She obsesses over every secretion, every fluid, every anatomical part of herself. The novel goes into extraordinarily explicit detail of her thoughts and activities. So... why do I like this novel, indeed, why is it number five on this list? Mentally and constitutionally I am a very strong person. It takes an awful lot to offend, upset, scare or trouble me. This is the only text (print, film, visual or otherwise) which I have ever had to put down while reading because I physically could not bring myself to read anymore, which is amazing. The book really has very little point to in terms of the traditional aspects of a novel; plot and character. The plot underlying the sexual exploits is rather unoriginal and the character of Helen has massive potential that isn't developed nearly enough. Essentially, it is a conceptual novel. What makes this book wonderful are the fascinating ideas it brings up about the way we both appreciate and are disgusted with natural parts of our own bodies. Every possible taboo regarding personal hygiene and human anatomy is smashed in this book, and it really serves to expose not only our bizarre hate of these natural parts of ourselves, but the ingrained sexist attitude that both men and women have towards vaginas and female anatomy. While I mentioned that I'd never had to put down a book in disgust before, I can assure you it was just for a quick break, usually an hysterical laughing fit and a text message to a friend who gave the book to me along the lines of, 'I can't believe she sucked the blood and juices of her surgically removed anal fissure off her fingers!'. A very confronting and intense read, but short and sweet and phenomenally interesting. Not for those with a weak constitution!

4. Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling

I figure this post can apply to all seven books in the Harry Potter series. Bending the rules a little bit... but screw you, I make the rules! So I think I can assume we all know the story of Harry Potter either from the films or the books (but if you haven't read the books, there is something very wrong with you), so I have no need to detail that. In fact, I don't think I really even need to explain why these books are on this list. I've never read any other books where I have become so immersed in another world. There have been times after reading these books where I have forgotten I'm not actually a wizard. One time I remember seriously thinking that using the lumos charm would be a good idea. But then, we have light switches for that.

3. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and

Through The Looking Glass (and What Alice Found There) - Louis Carroll

Both of these books, much like Harry Potter, can be lumped into one unit. And in fact, due to their brevity, they often are. Both are regarded as classic novels, and most people have read them, have had them read to them or have seen one of the many, many film adaptations. What is wonderful about this book is that it is so outrageously absurd that it can mean almost anything, so everyone who reads the book will read it in a completely different light. If you've never read the books but have seen the Disney film (which is unfortunately the position most people seem to be in) you should definitely read the books. Very different to the Disney film, which is very Americanised and patronising. Part of the appeal of the very broad ways in which these books can be interpreted is the array of adaptations of them that are out there. My favourite by far is American McGee's Alice - a computer game which sets the story in a horrific Wonderland, where Alice is self-destructive and psychotic and must kill everyone to reach the Queen of Hearts, a scary worm monster, whom she must defeat to save Wonderland and herself.

2. In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje

I studied this novel in Year 12 for HSC Advanced English, for the Critical Study of Text component of the course. Initially I hated it, but once I was introduced to postmodernism as part of studying this novel I fell in love. I don't really have a lot to say about why I love the book so much. I think it is just a fabulous example of excellent storytelling. Ondaatje's writing is eloquent, exquisite and beautiful. I remember being astounded when someone commented on the use of swear words in the novel... I hadn't even noticed they were present as they were so seamlessly interwoven into the text... typically I would be excited to read swear words in a book I was studying for school, so it was quite amazing I hadn't even noticed they were there. And who could forget the sex scene in the kitchen...

1. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

I'm not quite sure why this novel has stuck with me so fast. I think that it is essentially because it's a futuristic novel painting a terrifying picture of humankind without using science or paranormal/extraterrestrial as a catalyst for this... it is based purely on the fact that humans can be shit. Very shit. Parts of this book are very tough reading (one scene in particular when Winston reads from a book of propaganda to Julia is quite dry. Orwell abandons being figurative and uses Winston to simply read out the point he is trying to make in the most blatant way possible for pages and pages and pages), but nonetheless the book is creepy and fantastic. One of the scariest parts of reading this book is noting how things in this fictional futuristic totalitarian world are actually now a part of our everyday lives. One has to wonder how many more parts of this story will come into being...

Top 5 Songs

2009-12-13T19:42:00.021+11:00

5. Tip of Memory - elixir

I can still remember the first time that I heard this song. I won a National Youth Week online competition by answering a question about safe sex and scored myself a Sanity Online voucher. With it I bought elixir's self-titled album and an Andrews Sisters CD (the shame...). I put the CD in our surround sound system at home when it came in the mail. I was home alone and it was dusk. Katie Noonan's soaring ethereal notes absolutely set my soul adrift. It's such a serene song... I love that it doesn't take me somewhere foreign but inside myself. Isaac Hurren on saxophone is to die for.

4. Spawn - george

Again... perhaps I am a tad obsessed... but this song is what it is because of Katie and her amazing high notes. Her high D is to absolutely die for. The song closes george's debut album Polyserena and certainly leaves a lasting impression. Spawn is very out of character with the rest of the songs on the album... it manages to both retain the joyful, soulful feel of the album by while twisting it with a much darker, rock feel. The piece starts and ends in G minor, and the chorus fluctuates between G major and G minor, creating a very surreal effect of being uplifted and left to sink again. I listen to this song when I'm in a really happy mood, it escalates my mood through the ceiling and then mellows out at the end, leaving every muscle in my body feeling wonderful. I suppose you could say listening to this song is a lot like having sex.

3. How To Disappear Completely - Radiohead

This is perhaps the most surprising addition to this list. If you thought my obsession with Katie Noonan ended with the last two songs, you're wrong. My love affair with this song began when I saw Katie perform it with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in their 2008 Sublime concert series. In fact, somebody did a bit of a camera-under-the-coat recording of the concert in Melbourne and put the video on YouTube... I highly suggest you check it out, it's not a great recording and it ends before the song does right before the climax, but you get an idea of how truly spectacular the performance was. Thom Yorke wrote the song about his experience touring after the band's very successful album OK Computer was released. The constant attention and touring got too much for him and he thought he couldn't go on with it anymore, however Michael Stipe from R.E.M. offered the advice to him, "Pull the shutters down and keep saying, 'I'm not here, this is not happening.' " These words form the basis of the song, and the idea of moving aside and pulling the shutters down resonates so well with my own life. This is my favourite song to listen to when I need to get away from the world. I go for a walk somewhere dark and empty late at night, and play this song on my iPod as loud as my ears will allow me to. The almost mechanical drone from a foreign key is unsettling, and the falling third motif played in guitar and strings grounds the piece and assures it's assuring tonality against this drone. The string orchestration by Johnny Greenwood is utterly sublime. I listen to this song when I am in real pain. This song, for me, is the ultimate song for escapism.

2. Let Go - Frou Frou

As the title suggests, this song is all about letting go. I was introduced to this song by a group of friends who were discussing it in context of it's use in the film Garden State. So, I hired the film and really enjoyed it, but it was this song which closed the film that caught my attention. I bought the soundtrack the next day and sat in my room listening to Let Go on repeat. How To Disappear Completely is my ultimate escapist song, helping me leave my existential angst and ennui behind me... Spawn is my ultimate energising song, liberating me from the confines of a stagnant mood... Let Go is a very strange medium. Logically this reasoning would suggest that it creates a neutral mood, but actually it is somewhat more enigmatic. The experience of this song for me is based entirely on context. I have wept to this song, it has healed my broken heart, I have danced drunkenly in a state of ecstasy to this song, I've had sex while this song played, I've vented amazing amounts of anger to this song... and I've simply listened to this song en route to Uni and have been entirely emotionally unaffected. It's this song's shape-shifting ability, durability and comforting nature that draws me to it... I feel as though when it's playing it's in my bones.

1. Gorecki - Lamb

This song is based on Henryk Gòrecki's 3rd Symphony, 'Symphony of Sorrowful Song'. I won't start talking about that piece, because I am certain you will be hearing about it when I do my Top 5 Pieces of Music. Lou Rhodes and Andy Barlow wrote the song after hearing Gòrecki's symphony for the first time. I find it hard to describe what effect this song has on me. Attempting to do so here will not do the song or the experience any justice whatsoever. All I can say is, this song means more to me than all four others in this list together and then some. If it's a song you've never heard before, it's time that you heard it. You can listen to it on YouTube here (although I suggest closing your eyes to listen to it... the only video with the complete song I could find on YouTube was a Tomb Raider video). This song has left a very lasting impression upon my soul. I have grown up with this song, not in the sense of having had it from childhood, but it has been there for some of the most formative experiences in my life. This song is a part of the fabric of my existence, part of my story. It has become a part of me and I will carry it with me as though it were a fragile bird's egg for rest of my life. Listen. Love. Read...

Gorecki - Lamb

L. Rhodes / A. Barlow

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
Still my heart this moment
Or it might burst

Could we stay right here
Till the end of time

Until the earth stops turning
Wanna love you until the seas run dry
I've found the one I've waited for

The one I've waited for

All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

Wanna stay right here
Till the end of time
Till the earth stops turning
Gonna love you until the seas run dry
I've found the one I've waited for
The one I've waited for

All I've known
All I've done
All I've felt was leading to this
All I've known
All I've done
All I've felt was leading to this

Wanna stay right here
Till the end of time until the earth stops turning
Gonna love you till the seas run dry
I've found the one I've waited for

The one I've waited for
The one I've waited for

Wanna stay right here
Till the end of time until the earth stops turning
Gonna love you till the seas run dry
I've found the one I've waited for

The one I've waited for
The one I've waited for

seven.by.five

2009-12-13T18:13:00.009+11:00

I've decided to copy Kenny's 7 x 5 project, because a) I need something to get me blogging again, I've slacked off, b) it's a pretty nifty thing and c) you'll all get to know me a bit better and might like to have a look at some of the things I hold near and dear to my heart... you might discover something you will love as well!

So basically what I'm going to do, starting from today, is each day blog a 'Top 5' list of things in a particular category. The categories are as follows.

Sunday - Songs i.e. 'popular' music
Monday - Books
Tuesday - Albums
Wednesday - Pieces of Music i.e. art music
Thursday - Films
Friday - Musicals
Saturday - People to Get Stuck in an Elevator With

They sort of run in an order that starts with lists that will be easier for me to procure and discuss through to trickier ones.

Hopefully this gets me back on the blogging wagon! I'll post my Top 5 Songs list later tonight.

It'd be an honour...

2009-11-15T16:15:00.006+11:00

As I mentioned in my last blog posting, epic as it was, I am applying for Honours in Music Education commencing next year. Basically what this involves, I am just now discovering, is that I need to put the rest of my life on hold.

Honours in Music, as part of a Bachelor of Music at the Con, involves studying your regular BMus subjects as well as conducting Honours simultaneously. For the Bachelor of Music (Music Education) Honours course, this commences in the third year of the degree and runs over Semesters 5, 6 and 7. To spare you all the boring and very confusing details... what this translates to is that I am going to have to sign a contract promising to discontinue my work with one of the two societies I am in and considerably lessen the input I have to the one I choose to continue with. As you'll see when you read my proposal below, the choice is a rather obvious one. Technically what this means will happen I am at this stage unsure, but it seems I will only be allowed to be a part of one production over the whole of my Honours study, and that I will need to be involved in it in a way that is beneficial to the research I will be conducting. Tricky stuff...

So, much as it pains me, I really do want to do Honours, and it seems I will have to make some very large sacrifices for this to happen.

Nonetheless... the point of this particular blog posting is to provide you all with a copy of the 'this is where you write a rough idea of what you think you'd like to research' part of my Honours application. I'm going to put it below this post.

Please let me know if it makes sense, if you think it's a good idea or not, any ideas you have for other avenues of research or ideas you might have in general. Any feedback at all would be so very much appreciated and you might just get a mention in the acknowledgements section of an internationally published thesis!

If you have trouble posting feedback please email it to me at patt.howard@gmail.com. I plan to submit my application this Wednesday, 18th November, so don't hesitate to jump in. Thanks guys! It'd be an honour to have your input on something I am so excited about and value so much (I am disgusted with myself for making such an obvious and terrible joke).

Part of My Application:

Outline of Initial Ideas for a Research Topic

The ideas I have for a research topic revolve around the place of musical theatre within secondary schools – in music education, the culture of the school / learning environment and the lives of students.

Below I have provided a list of raw ideas that I have considered to be relevant to my own interests which could be researched as part of this general idea of ‘musical theatre within the secondary school’.

The role of the student within a school production; a comparative study could be conducted between schools which only allow students to play in the orchestra or perform on stage and those who also allow students to take on production roles such as choreographer, director, etc. Furthermore, seeing how these opportunities benefit both students and a production.
The marriage of the three performing arts subject areas; are school productions the only time that music, dance and drama should intertwine... could there possibly be benefits from using techniques and material from dance and drama in a music classroom, perhaps in context of a school production the students are involved in at the time?
How are the ‘Theatre Music’ areas of study in both the Stage 4 and 5 NSW Board of Studies Music Syllabi taught? To what extent does the practical experience of being in a school production assist learning in this subject area, and to what extent is this experience utilised by teachers in the classroom?
The personal and individual benefits of being in a school production for secondary school music students – musical, social and otherwise. This can be looked at with reference to the ‘Life Skills’ elements of the Syllabi.
The school production as an extra-curricular school activity...
- the inability of teachers to provide the experience to students without their electing to partake in the production or to use the production as a compulsory educational initiative,
- the workload a production entails for teachers and students out of school hours and
- the availability of funding for productions (which tend to be expensive) and how this affects the experience that can be provided for students. This can be looked at in relation to the value placed on performing arts / school production by a school.

I have a great deal of personal interest in musical theatre and a great deal of experience in both school productions I was involved in during my time in primary and secondary school and in my role in the Sydney University Musical Theatre Ensemble (MUSE) – both on the executive of the society and as a performer and part of the production personnel within its productions. These experiences have lead to my having an increased amount of contacts within the relevant field of study for this research topic, both in Sydney and in regional areas of NSW, as well as an ever-growing passion for musical theatre within an educational context.

I plan to study MUSC2674 – ‘History of the Musical’ and GENS2002 – ‘Practical Stagecraft’ during the course of the third year of my degree and believe these subjects will benefit my research into this subject matter.

Life Behind / Through the Fourth Wall

2009-11-06T20:37:00.013+11:00

I have had many wonderful life and artistic experiences since the last substantial post I made on this blog, and after being prodded by Kenny, I thought I should finally make the epic post that has been building for the last month.

Sure as hell beats attempting to learn this atonal melody off by heart for my solfège exam...

Not having the most wonderful time with Uni work at the moment. Just so excited for next year... but that and more is to come in the following epic post. Ahem...

Best place to begin, I believe, is with The Mystery of Edwin Drood, where this musical has taken me and all the events that have occurred along the way.

Firstly, I must start by saying I don't know how or why I didn't join MUSE in O-Week of 2007. The experience I had in doing this production reminded me exactly of who I was and where I wanted my life to be heading.

I auditioned for Drood cautiously, as I was part of the production team for the contesting production in the slot that lost to Drood, and felt that I was somehow always going to be a part of the 'other' team that lost. However, right from my initial audition, I felt a welcomed party and began to take the whole thing much more seriously, but also to enjoy it more.

I auditioned with a full-blown first day of the flu... fever, nausea, every resonant space in my head completely filled with fluid... and somehow managed to sing rather well. Well enough to in fact, be given a callback for the lead. Upon completing my audition for the part of Jasper in my callback, I was informed my only other contender, Rowan - a good friend of mine and fellow Conservatorium voice student (only he is much more talented than I), had turned down the role, so I had been given the part.

The next few months were a whirlwind of blocking, singing, frenetic dancing, drinking, conflict, scripted casual racism and a barrage of in-jokes. In short, I cannot detail everything of what happened as it would go on for far too long and not be particularly interesting for someone else to read, but these few months have truly transformed me as a person and truly affirmed me in where I want to take my life. I will attempt, below, to detail the wonderful, wonderful things that have happened to me as a result of this musical...

The experience of once again being on stage affirmed both my undulating love for performance and musical theatre and, oddly, my desire to not perform professionally for a living, but to help other young people to experience the giddy and exciting rush that being part of a staged musical brings.
I have made some of the most wonderful, amazing, beautiful friends that ever there was to be, and become even closer to the wonderful people I knew before Drood. This, I think, has been my favourite aspect of being a part of this production. For reasons I will explain further on in this post, these people and the chance to work with them on this production, were the one thing that kept a very fragile Patrick from falling into pieces during an epically stressful period of my life. If you are out there, I fucking love you all. You have become like family to me, and to work with some of you again in Sweeney Todd next year would just be my most rapturous dreams come true. I am a truly blessed and spiritually wealthy individual for having come to know and love you.
Drood inspired me to pursue studying Honours in Music Education. I was umming and aahing about it for a few months, unsure if I had the passion that was required to research through literary sources and fieldwork research, write about a topic for two years and procure a 16,000 word thesis and presentation at the end of it. Being a part of Drood, and in particular having an extensive chat with my high school music teacher Liz at the end of the matinee performance she came to, made me realise this topic requiring passion was right under my nose. Let's hope my application will be successful (just quietly, I'm pretty confident it will be).

Overall, this experience was wild, and hilarious and just wonderful in so many ways. I have learnt so very much about the world and the way people work as well, of course, about the ins and outs and practicalities of putting on a musical. It'd be great to get some experience on a production team in the future.

And now, I'll move on and talk about other wonderful artistic things that have happened to me in the last month... beginning with Opera Australia's production of Britten's Peter Grimes

I have not been so in awe, so gobsmacked and affected by theatre in years. Not since 2006 when I saw Sydney Theatre Company's production of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, which is still in my mind the most brilliant performance (whether it be theatre, opera, musical, recital) I've ever witnessed. Nonetheless... Peter Grimes comes an extraordinarily close second.

Typically I never make it to see professional productions. They interest and excite me greatly, however I usually instantly dismiss them due to the expensive prices for tickets and my phenomenally small income. This opera, though, had a particular hype surrounding it before it was performed and my wonderful colleague Sarah, who writes a particularly well-renowned blog on opera in Sydney, insisted that, 'if you make it to one opera this year, it should be this one'. I was lucky enough to see a production of Madama Butterfly earlier in the year with student rush tickets, but decided that one opera was not enough and if it really was going to be so wonderful I should go.

And lo and behold, the Con offered all Con students and staff free tickets to opening night, but I had a rehearsal for Drood and couldn't attend. Depressing, I can assure you. However, all was not lost as the wonderful and divine aforementioned Sarah managed to wrangle me a company rush ticket to a Tuesday night performance. What a performance it was...

I won't attempt to review it, others have managed this much more eloquently and covered most of what I'd love to say (mainly the lovely Sarah here, here and here) but I just wanted to say that I never understood the true heart-wrenching appeal of opera until I saw this performance. It was a true marriage of an exquisite score played (and conducted) to much aplomb, epic talent in the way of Stuart Skelton, Susan Gritton and the ever-wonderful Peter Coleman-Wright, the most beautiful and moving lighting, set and costume design I have ever seen and of course the unparallelled vision of the virtuosic Neil Armfield, surely one of Australia's finest ever directors.

I just feel that anything I write here will not do this amazing performance I attended and experience I had any justice at all. So, I will leave it there. But, it changed me.

Another wonderful performance I attended was my good friend from high school David's graduation performance of Angels in America Parts I & II by Tony Kushner. He was graduation from his Dean's Scholar Degree from the University of Wollongong - Bachelor of Creative Arts with double major of Performance and Creative Writing.

I have only ever seen one other tertiary drama school production before (a 2004 performance of The Grapes of Wrath by the then-3rd Year students of NIDA - which was wonderful) and didn't quite know what to expect when seeing this play. What I did see was a wonderfully experimental and postmodern production that wasn't afraid to use confronting nudity, very confronting sex scenes and copious amounts of (very realistic) fake blood - but used so well. These were all combined with some of the most realistic, tight and fluid acting I have ever seen from people so young really made me pay attention.

I hate to say this, but I never really saw my friend going anywhere with his acting, especially (USyd snob coming out of me here...) if he went to UOW. However, I was shocked and so very happy to see him perform so very well. He was really in his element and totally unphased by very violently raping a man in the arse in front of his unsuspecting mother and sisters (who I had the delightfully awkward pleasure of sitting next to during this scene).

Seeing this play (all five hours of it) made me so much more excited to have more performance experience and hopefully study Performance Studies after I have finished my BMus.

Goodness, this post has become quite lengthy indeed. I did mean to talk about the specifics of my idea for my Honours application, however I think I will synthesise these a bit more and put them into a separate post later where people can give more direct feedback and won't be overwhelmed by all the other things I've put into this post. So, time to conclude.

HOW APPROPRIATE! Sunday in the Park with George just came on shuffle... and which track but Sunday, the conclusion to the musical. So exquisite... it is such a beautiful work of art.

The past month has been one of great adversity. I have had many things occur that have really challenged me and somehow I have managed to press on and pull through them all. It is this 'somehow' which I have realised is the most wonderful combination of artistic satisfaction, intellectual substance, personal nourishment, irreplaceable friends, a smattering of alcohol, a brisk night and musical theatre. It is here in this 'somehow' where I want to spend as much of my life as I can. For now, studying subjects based around musical theatre, expression and education, being a part of the wonderful opportunity that MUSE is and opting to follow my pursuit of musical and dramatic education through my electives and Honours research is how I will stay in this 'somehow'. In the future, working with young adults in context of the HSC Music/Drama classroom as well as extra-curricular performance areas while dabbling in my own amateur work on the side will fill this void.

But for now, I have MUSE. For now, I have an extraordinary group of friends. I have so many opportunities and I truly cannot be grateful enough for these.

"White: a blank page or canvas,

his favourite.

So many... possibilities..."

Absence

2009-11-03T01:53:00.003+11:00

I must firstly apologise... it has been quite a while indeed.

I began this blog with a pledge to take it seriously, started well with four posts in the space of one day... and then nothing. This is due to a number of reasons.

I was dealing with having a long-term relationship very suddenly whisked away from me.
I was involved in one of the most fantasmagorical experiences in my life, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
I have been inundated with an epic amount of assessments and other associated stresses from Uni.

Well... they are the three main reasons. However, here I am! I have not given up hope... I have been reading all the blogs of the wonderful people I subscribe to, and it has only been a matter of time. I have many things to blog about, but such little time. However, I promise to find time over the next couple of weeks to write about the following things.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood - what the experience meant for me and where I am going in life as a result of it.
Peter Grimes (Opera Australia) - without any doubt the most stunning performance of any nature I have ever witnessed in my life. Plenty to say about this.
Angels in America (UOW 3rd Year BCA Grad Students) - not at all what I was expecting, a surprisingly moving, intense and marvellously executed play.
The road ahead - where I can see the new year taking me.

That's about all for now... it's past 2am, time for me to get some rest. More Uni assessments to get on top of, not to mention prac teaching lessons to plan and exams to study for.

Shiny Happy People

2009-10-05T22:44:00.006+11:00

This is the lovely smiley cookie that the gorgeous Kenny bought me today to make me feel better, as I have been feeling rather down lately. As you can see it worked. It was gingerbread and yellow and so yummy. It made me very happy and made the rehearsal today much easier to get through. Thank you Kenny :-)

I look like a serial killer...

2009-10-05T22:09:00.012+11:00

Our wonderful logo designed by Caitlin Kenny

So, the musical I will be performing the lead role in in a fortnight, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Rupert Holmes, finally has a website of it's own up and running. You can find it here...

http://www.museatusyd.com/drood/

Here you will find information on the musical, the composer, the book it was based on by Charles Dickens and Dickens himself. As well as this, you will also find a wonderful collection of photos taken in rehearsals and headshots/mugshots of the eight suspects of the murder of Edwin Drood... which are chillingly creepy with a little bit of sexy thrown in for good measure. You'll find mine below...

The most exciting part of this website, however, is the link allowing you to purchase tickets online to our six performances from Tues 20th - Sat 24th October. It really is going to be a most excellent show, and it's my performance debut in Sydney (in fact, my first performance since high school) so I'd love for you to come and see it! Tickets are selling rather quickly so be sure to book soon if you'd like to come... and you know you do!

The Suburbs

2009-10-05T21:15:00.015+11:00

Yes, Bardwell Park is rather steep... but not in price!

Today I had a rather pleasant day in Bardwell Park for a rehearsal for The Mystery of Edwin Drood at our lovely musical director's house (insanely jealous of her amazing and beautiful house).

It was so lovely to not be surrounded by concrete and modern aesthetics and instead walk across streams and through a park and up funny shaped streets with all sorts of different houses. It made me a little bit home sick for Mittagong, where I grew up.

In fact, I have felt quite homesick lately. Current circumstances have really made me miss my family and the simplicity of living at home and not having to work everything out for yourself. Adding to that it's been a few months since I've seen my family, and I'm feeling particularly alone at the moment.

Anyhow, due to these particular circumstances I also am looking at moving at the moment, and cannot wait to move away from this concrete jungle. I'm sick of living in a place that is abuzz with professionals in suits smoking in my face and doing business-over-coffee from 9 to 5 on weekdays, while an empty, minimalist, beige carcass every other time of the day and on weekends. Being in Bardwell Park today reminded me of all the wonderful things about living just a little bit further away from the city... and really, what's a half-hour train trip into the city? Sure... it may not be as safe as St Leonards (apparently there is a lady in Bardwell Park who approaches you with a stocking on her head and tells you how much she loves sex until you bribe her away with cigarettes), but my non-existant god... GREEN! Life! Cafes that aren't go, go, go! Amusing crazy people!

I think, in summary, I want to move somewhere with character. Not too much character, mind, like Newtown, say, which I love to visit... but I could never live there. Maybe somewhere like Leichhardt, or preferably somewhere close to a station with frequent trains to and from the city.

Biggest advantage; cost. I am paying way too much rent for a Uni student where I am at the moment, so moving away from the North Shore will be wonderful!

But shall we just say, for the time being, I hope I don't have to move too soon... or by myself.

Take two... annnnnd... action!

2009-10-05T02:15:00.003+11:00

Well, hi there!

This is my second attempt at a blog. The first blog I published managed to make it to one and a half posts in length. Fail.

However, I am determined to make this blog successful. I have the impetus this time... my desire to transcribe my life and be able to visually organise and record my thoughts and musings has built to a towering mass of inspiration. And when my bestest friend Eliza decided to make a blog herself for much the same reason, it was the straw that broke the camel's back... and here we are.

It's rather late at night and I am attempting to learn my lines for the upcoming musical I am in, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, so I should probably shuffle off.

So, here we go...