THE QACI CONCERT SERIES 2009

proudly brought to you by

Queensland Academy for Creative Industries

Performance Theatre, Level 1, 61 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove

August – November 2009

Ba Da Boom             

Thursday 27 August     1.15pm 

Ba Da Boom Percussion Ensemble

Ba Da Boom was established in 2003 with the arrival of Dr Vanessa Tomlinson, Head of Percussion Studies. Taking the place of the pre-existing percussion ensemble at the Conservatorium, Ba Da Boom has 17 performers from all years of study.
In 2003 Ba Da Boom attended the Australian Percussion Symposium in Canberra, where they worked with internationally renowned percussionists Steve Schick, Mark Ford, and Mike Udow. At the symposium Ba Da Boom featured with now Sydney-based duo Karak Percussion. Also in 2003, Ba Da Boom led the Australian premiere of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and also presented Reich's Drumming at the Powerhouse in 2004.
Over the last two years, Ba Da Boom has performed the new music of composers Liza Lim, Erik Griswold and Gerardo Dirie.

Misinterprotato

Friday 28 August 7.30pm

Sean Foran – Piano
John Parker – Drums
Pat Marchisella – Acoustic Bass

Misinterprotato are one of Australia’s most inventive contemporary music ensembles. So much more than a traditional jazz trio, this group expands the capacities of the classic piano/bass/drums combination with elements of the avant-garde and a fresh attitude they bring to their music.
Truly captivating for a variety of audiences, Misinterprotato skillfully blend dense, exciting improvisations and delicate atmospherics, conjuring up sounds of modern jazz, ambient music, avant garde rock, free improvisation and contemporary classical music.
www.misinterprotato.com

La Gran Salsa            

Tuesday 1 Sept 1.15pm

Brisbane's renowned Latin band "La Gran Salsa" raise the tempo and guarantee an unforgettable dancing evening.
Lose yourself in romantic sultry soulful and captivating boleros, Caribbean party music, Cha-cha and a lot of red hot spicy salsa.
Enjoy great Latin hits. Gloria Estefan (Mi Tierra), Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, Buena Vista Social Club, Carlos Santana to the innovative Latin Jazz of Tito Puente (Oye Como Va).
You will enjoy "La Gran Salsa" from start to finish, as you shake your body to the Latin grooves!!!
www.lagransalsa.com

Clocked Out Duo            

Friday 4 September 7pm

New music with a sense of play and adventure Clocked Out Duo use traditional and modified instruments alongside a bewildering array of toys, found objects, junk and sound sculptures to create carefully designed sonic and visual experiences. Their unique style embraces a wide variety of influences from experimental, jazz and world music sources. In their playful and adventurous work Clocked Out Duo create links between disparate styles and artistic communities.
www.clockedout.org

Patricia Pollett & Liam Viney

Sunday 6 September 3pm

Patricia Pollett is one of Australia's leading string players. Formerly violist in the much recorded Italian string ensemble I Solisti Veneti, Patricia Pollett has studied with major international pedagogues including Peter Schidlof (Amadeus Quartet) and Bruno Giuranna (Berlin). A graduate of the University of Adelaide, Patricia has won numerous awards and competitions, including a Churchill Fellowship and an Australia Council International Study Grant. Always interested in new music for the viola, Patricia has commissioned and performed several new solo works by leading Australian composers, recorded several CDs, and is a founder member of the contemporary ensemble Perihelion. She was honoured for this work in 2004 with an APRA Australian Music Centre Classical Music Award for the Most Distinguished Contribution to the Presentation of Australian Composition by an Individual. She is in demand as a teacher, giving master classes for leading education institutions in Australia and overseas. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland.
www.uq.edu.au/~muppolle/

Australian pianist Liam Viney is a soloist, collaborative artist and teacher. First prize-winner of the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, Liam has performed regularly in Australia, the U.S., Europe and Israel. Now based in Los Angeles, Liam is pursuing a multi-faceted musical career centered on performing a broad range of musical styles, with an emphasis on new music and ideas. He has appeared as soloist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony, the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Youth Orchestra, the New Century Players and the CalArts Chamber Orchestra in concertos ranging from those of Mozart and Beethoven, to Prokofiev and Ligeti.
Liam earned a Doctorate in piano performance from Yale University's School of Music, where his teacher was Boris Berman. After graduating, in 2006 Liam shared a recital program of Prokofiev piano sonatas with Berman in Israel, and subsequently co-edited Berman's book "Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas" published by Yale University Press. He also received a Master of Music degree from Yale. Earlier, he completed his Bachelor of Music with First-class Honours at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, where he performed the Australian premiere of Peter Sculthorpe's "Simori" at the opening ceremony of the Conservatorium's new building, and studied with Natasha Vlassenko, and Stephen Savage. Liam is on the keyboard faculty at the California Institute of the Arts.
www.liamviney.com

Mzaza                   

Tuesday 8 Sept 1.15pm

This six-piece Brisbane group combines sounds from East and West with ease and sensuality, creating music that is one of a kind. Mzaza's repertoire spans from classical Turkish tunes fused with jazz-style improvisation vocals, to French chanson, and interpretations of Sephardic/Spanish songs. Born in France to French and Moroccan parents, Pauline Maudy sings in French, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic. Bill Anderson plays ud, and wind instruments including, ney, kaval and tin whistle. Greta Kelly plays violin and kemanche (a spikefiddle with Persian/Turkish origins). Miranda Deutsch, on guitar, plays with a manouche flavour. Steven Cuttriss is on the accordion, and percussionist Jordan Stamos plays darabuka and bendir. Mzaza’s first record “Parliament of the Birds” showcases the band’s versatility and guarantees to transport you to faraway places. The CD doesn't just sound good. It features photography by the no-less-than-amazing Richard Walker, art by the talented Jesse Olsen, and graphics by the fantastic Georgia Thompson.
www.myspace.com/mzaza

QYO Big Band

Sunday 13 September 2pm

The QYO Big Band was formed in 2000 to undertake tours to Weipa and Far North Queensland sponsored by Bundaberg Sugar and Comalco. The band has continued to undertake this tour each year with 17 performances annually in various regional towns. From 2003 to 2005, sponsorship from QR enabled the band to increase its concert activity. As well as many performances for QR in Cairns, Winton and around Brisbane, the band has performed at Queensland Pops Orchestra concerts, gala dinners, the River Festival's Riversymphony at New Farm Park, and at the Opening of the Museum of Brisbane. Under the leadership of David Coit, the band performs a wide range of repertoire including popular, jazz and swing standards.
www.qyo.org.au/orchestras.htm

A French Butler Called Smith   

Tuesday 15 Sept 1.15pm

A French Butler Called Smith is an instrumental band playing high energy funk and latin music. Essentially a trio (guitar, bass, percussion) but with guest horn sections, the music is very dance-able and very original.
Gold Coast based world music band A French Butler Called Smith have been performing their high energy Latin, funk ,instrumental fusion over a 2 year period to ever increasing audiences on Australia's East Coast. The initial creators behind this all organic dance music sound were acoustic guitar aficionado (Scott French), bass maestro (Jake ‘the Butler’ Martin) and respected world percussion artist (Brennan Smith). These original members have now been joined by esteemed musicians Mark ‘Gibbo’ Gibson on saxophone and Liam ‘Rasta’ Dorney on trumpet and it has invariably lifted the energy of the band and their multi-layered sounds of Latin, gypsy, world-roots and funk to ecstatically captivating levels.  They are all consuming to watch, and it is impossible to keep your feet still once you are within the energy realms of their music.
www.myspace.com/afrenchbutlercalledsmith

David Bridie & George Telek    

Sunday 11 October 8pm (public concert)         
Monday 12 October 1.15pm               
Tuesday 13 Oct 1.15pm

Seven time ARIA award winning songwriter and composer David Bridie has enjoyed a distinguished career as one of Australia's most innovative and classy artists. As an international soundtrack composer, producer, lyricist, leading expert on Pacific music, uniquely Australian songwriter and singer, Bridie has certainly stamped his mark.
As lead vocalist, keyboard player, co-composer and co-producer of critically acclaimed band Not Drowning, Waving, David built a world-wide reputation through the six albums and two soundtracks that the band released during its illustrious career.
David is also well-known for his solo work (Act of Free Choice and Hotel Radio), and for composing countless feature film, documentary and television scores, including the recent APRA AGSC award winning RAN soundtrack.
www.davidbridie.com

Telek is a band, a man and, in some parts of the world, a legend.
George Mamua Telek, or Telek as he is known to his legion of fans in Papua New Guinea, has long been at the forefront of the PNG music scene.
Telek comes from the village of Raluana, near Rabaul in the Papua New Guinean island province of East New Britain, where he continues to live with his wife Bridget and their seven children, despite the volcano which destroyed the idyllic Pacific town in 1994. “The traditional songs are about our daily life, songs that the people sing when they pick the bananas or collect the coconuts or go fishing,” he says. The towns and villages have now been rebuilt and because the Tolai people represent a living tradition, the volcano too has now entered their songs.
Telek's songs and his haunting voice, traverse many musical styles perfectly capturing the spirit of the proud cultural heritage of the Tolai people of Papua New Guinea. Songs of the “midal” (magic charms) and “malira” (love magic) draw on Tolai culture blending contemporary grooves with Melanesian rhythms, enriched with textured environmental sounds. Rich and unique three-part harmonies are sung both in the Tolai language of Kuanuan and in a creole called Tok Pigin. Telek also delves into Stringband Music: a rich blend of guitars and ukeleles sitting beneath interwoven vocal lines and harmonies in a unique gospel/country folk style that is typical throughout the whole of the Pacific.Telek and his musical peers in the Rabaul music scene also immersed themselves in a steady diet of Bob Marley,Chuck Berry,the Stones and the Beatles and the NDW lads introduced George to the atmospheric grooves of Massive Attack and Talking Heads and you can hear elements of all of these artists in Telek's writing.
www.telek.com

TELEK AND BRIDIE TO TOUR EAST NSW AND QLD

It has been 21 years since Papua New Guinea’s George Telek and Melbourne’s David Bridie started working together. To celebrate this anniversary, they are playing special shows together up and down the east coast.

Read more... download PDF (3MB)

Grant Collins           

Wed 21 October 1.15pm

‘Master Drummer', Grant Collins is an innovative and revolutionary soloist, who has a vigorous passion for the drums.
Grant's influential and inventive dedication to the instrument has spanned over twenty years, in which time he has developed new techniques and instrument combinations. This extensive commitment has also seen him make significant musical contributions, not only to the drums, but the music industry itself as his dedication extends from professional drumming, to corporate motivations and also educational instruction.
Grant’s instrument is as unique as his creative musical attributes. His one of a kind custom drum-set is valued at over $75,000 and takes his team two hours to assemble. The drum-set consists of almost eighty pieces with twenty six drums, thirty four cymbals, and eighteen foot pedals, prompting comments on the kit looking ‘more like an artistic sculpture than an instrument’, as the Morning Bulletin published.
www.grantcollins.com

Steve Newcomb and Hannah Macklin         

Sunday 25 October 3pm

Two of Brisbane’s most in-demand musicians, Hannah Macklin and Steve Newcomb, form the collaborative duo  “Macklin & Newcomb”. With an emphasis on new sounds, improvisation and playful interaction, this new musical venture seeks to create something removed from reality and inspired by constant curiousity.  
Macklin & Newcomb set up comprises Newcomb playing a Nord Stage keyboard and Macklin sending her vocals through a Boss Twin delay pedal, either creating rhythmically- driven loops or sparkling delay effects. Continuing on the theme of new sounds, the pair also experiment with the use of melodica, music box and percussion, interweaving each spontaneously as they feel so inclined. With a repertoire that consists of Macklin and Newcomb’s original compositions, modern jazz and heavily layered pop (with influence from Bjork, Rufus Wainwright, Radiohead), their music places an emphasis on spontaneity and allows one tune to morph, through walls of sound, into another.  
www.myspace.com/macklinnewcomb

Richard Haynes           

Tuesday 27 October 1.15pm

Richard was born in Brisbane, studied at Griffith University, Australia and at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland. He is a doctor of philosophy candidate at SIAL (Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory), a part of the school of Architecture+Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). He is the winner of major prizes in performance such as the 2003 Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year, the award for Best Performance of Australian Composition from the Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and the Australian Music Centre (AMC), a Lord Mayor of Brisbane Performing Arts Fellowship, the 2006 Musikpreis of the Berner Oddfellows (Switzerland) and the prize for most outstanding graduating soloist, the Tschumi Musikpreis 2008. Richard has appeared as soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, The Queensland Orchestra and members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
web.mac.com/richardehaynes

Topology                 

Friday 6 November 7pm

Forming in 1997, the band still has the same line up and is a tightly organised enterprise, with a professional outlook and matching ambition. Topology works across genres in order to explore new territories in music. They collaborate with a range of artists from wide-ranging fields including comedy, pop, jazz, world music, experimental arts, film, indigenous arts and chamber music. Their music grapples with complex themes and multi-layered ideas involving politics, philosophy and contemporary life, often with a great sense of fun and within the context of hand-crafted virtuosity.
Topology’s principals are Christa Powell (violin), Bernard Hoey (viola), Kylie Davidson (piano), Robert Davidson (bass), and John Babbage (saxophone). The instrumentation is distinctive and highly flexible, allowing a wide range of possibilities and stylistic approaches, particularly when extended by Topology’s ever-growing expertise in composition and collaboration.
Topology is recognised as one of Australia’s leading new music groups. Their energetic, full-blooded sound continues to invigorate and reward participants with exceptional experiences. Topology has built a solid audience, and regularly performs to sold-out houses around Australia and the group’s concerts and recordings are also broadcast nationally on ABC radio.
www.topologymusic.com

FREE ADMISSION

HOW TO BOOK

Schools and Group Bookings

email: register@qaci.eq.edu.au

or SMS details to 0438 834083

Click here to go to Concert Series Overview