20 August 2002
All hail Vincent Plush
Congratulations Vincent Plush! The Mini[]Max festival held in Brisbane at the end of July/beginning of August was fantastic - inspirational, fun, thought-provoking - all the things a festival ought to be. I met some really interesting & lovely people, and discovered some brilliant music - if you've never heard anything by William Duckworth, Kyle Gann, Warren Burt or Lynette Lancini, I urge you strongly to go forth & discover. The festival started with a performance of Satie's Vexations, which was truly amazing - I'll be compiling my notes from the experience (yes, I stayed for the whole 19 hours) and adding them to the Research section of Erik Satie's Crystal Ball in the next couple of weeks. ABC Radio did good work in recording all the concerts and broadcasting 2 of them on their Classic FM New Music Australia show. Andrew Ford also devoted the whole of 2 August's The Music Show to the festival, interviewing key visitors and broadcasting several live and recorded performances of music from the festival. Many thanks to Topology, who did lovely work with my Pieces of Eight.
Coming home was quite an anti-climax! But not to worry - there was the Australian Music Centre/APRA Awards to attend, which was truly a gala event with great performances by Synergy, The Song Company, and Jeanell Carrigan - not to mention an unprogrammed performance by Miriam Hyde who was presented with the Long-Term Contribution award.
My current projects now have an addition in the form of creating a logo for Paul Stanhope's new ensemble, Generator. My latest piece, Red drops, scarlet heat (mentioned in the last journal - text by Walt Whitman) now just needs a few tweaks and I'm working on a glockenspiel accompaniment for it. It should receive its first performance in a couple of months' time.
While in Brisbane I picked up - and now find I can't put down - Nicholas Cook's pocket-sized Music: A very short introduction which is marvellous - exploring concepts such as authenticity, and the place & perception of music in society, among others. Definitely worth a look.
I've also been working on some more recordings of my pieces - so keep your eyes peeled (like grapes) for changes coming to the scores & recordings page which will be receiving a complete revamp so that it loads a trifle faster and can handle all the content coming its way! I'll also be reviewing the facilities for ordering scores and recordings to make things a little more straightforward than they are at present... Looks like the month ahead's going to be pretty full!
