ros pic

Ros Dunlop
clarinettist
The 2002 Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour

East Timor multimedia

Leichhardt, Mittagong & Kangaroo Valley, Nov 28-30 2002


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julia pic

Julia Ryder
cellist

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Ros Dunlop is one of Australia's leading clarinettists, especially of contemporary repertoire. Julia Ryder is an outstanding cellist who has played an enormous amount of contemporary music. Together they form the duo Charisma, which has recently given concerts in Belgium, Holland and Germany. The Anin Murak Quartet consists of four young East Timorese singers who were part of the Anin Murak choir that toured New South Wales, to great acclaim, in 2000. Martin Wesley-Smith is one of Australia's best-known composers and multimedia artists, with many of his pieces being frequently heard (and seen) in many parts of the world. On May 20 2002, East Timor, a country and people ravaged by Indonesian occupying forces from 1975 to 1999, became the world's newest nation. Charisma, The Anin Murak Quartet, Wesley-Smith & East Timor were the four main elements of The 2002 Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour.

In 2002 Dunlop and Wesley-Smith visited East Timor twice, giving concerts in Dili, Ermera, Hato Bulliko, Laga, Los Palos and Same. In November 2002 they, together with Ryder, presented concerts in Leichhardt, Mittagong and Kangaroo Valley that focused on East Timor. The repertoire included Wesley-Smith's multimedia pieces X (about Xanana Gusmão), for clarinet & CD-ROM [1999], Welcome to the Hotel Turismo, for cello & CD-ROM [2000], and a brand-new piece about Afghanistan and Afghan refugees called Merry-Go-Round, for clarinet, cello & CD-ROM [2002].

Live clarinet and cello, computer sounds, and stunning images of East Timor, many taken during the carnage of the Indonesian occupation ...

the proceeds from these concerts will assist in the reconstruction of the lives of the people of East Timor (all performers and other concert workers donated their services in order to maximise the money raised); the beneficiaries - "Friends of Maliana" and "The Kangaroo Valley-Remexio Partnership" - each received c.AUD1600



an image from X for clarinet & CD-ROM: torture photo [click photo to enlarge]


X CD blank the new Ros Dunlop CD of X
(click on graphic for details of how to purchase)


concert repertoire | review | bios | schedule | e-mail Ros | e-mail Martin

Ros Dunlop has been a strong advocate for the cause of new music for the clarinet for most of her professional life. She has premiered many new compositions for clarinet and has had many written especially for her. She has performed throughout Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe and the USA, including a recital of Australian works at the International Clarinet Festival in New Orleans in August 2001. Her two solo CDs have received wide acclaim (her third was released just last month). As a member of the chamber duo Charisma, she premiered five multimedia works at the 2002 Darwin International Guitar Festival and recently released a CD of works for clarinet and cello. She is also a member of the clarinet duo Touchbass, with whom she premiered a number of newly commissioned works at the 2002 Australian National Clarinet Festival. She teaches clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Julia Ryder is one of Australia's most accomplished performers. She has won various prizes for her interpretation of Beethoven and chamber music as well as for her performances at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik. Her high-octane performances have inspired composers from three generations to write for her. She has worked with composers such as Messiaen, Xenakis, Ferneyhough and Finnissy and has toured and recorded extensively as a soloist and with Australian and European ensembles, appearing regularly at major festivals in Australia, Asia and Europe. She lives on a mountain on the outskirts of Melbourne, dividing her time between teaching, performing and growing delphiniums.
mw-s pic

home page
Martin Wesley-Smith is an eclectic composer at home in a diverse range of idioms. Two main themes dominate his music: the life, work and ideas of Lewis Carroll (e.g. the chamber piece Snark-Hunting, the choral piece Songs for Snark-Hunters, and the full-length choral music theatre piece Boojum!); and the plight of the people of East Timor (e.g. Kdadalak (For the Children of Timor) and VENCEREMOS!). A multimedia version of the "audio-visual music theatre" piece Quito - about schizophrenia and East Timor - has been performed many times in many countries by The Song Company. One of his pieces - For Marimba & Tape - is the most-performed piece of Australian so-called "serious art-music" (it exists in versions for other instruments, too, including For Clarinet & Tape). For many years Director of the Electronic Music Studio at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Wesley-Smith is now a full-time composer and duck-farmer.
The Anin Murak Quartet consists of (from left to right, below) Milca Esmeralda Pinheiro, Maria dos Santos, Antonieta Magno and António de Padua Martins Soares, who were all members of the Anin Murak Choir, from the Balide church in Dili, that toured New South Wales in 2000. They sang, a cappella, old and new songs from East Timor (and, in Kangaroo Valley, a piece by Mozart).
anin murak 4
miguel pic The Solidarity Choir was formed in 1987, when Oliver Tambo, then President of the African National Congress, came to Sydney on a speaking tour. Sydney-based anti-apartheid activists brought together ANC members and Australian supporters to learn African freedom songs to sing at a public meeting at Sydney Town Hall on 30 March. It was so much fun that the members decided to continue singing together. And so the choir was born. It now does about 40 gigs per year at rallies, fund-raisers for a wide range of community groups and solidarity movements, and folk festivals. Miguel Heatwole (pictured, left) has conducted the choir since the early 1990s. He also conducts the environmental choir Ecopella, which has just released a CD. This is available for AUD28 ($105 for 5 copies), posted, from Ecopella, 8 Pritchard Street Annandale NSW 2038 Australia. Overseas buyers should email Miguel first.
Accordionist Michael Spencer is a teacher and choir master at Frensham School. He plays traditional Irish music on the side.
Guitarist Danny Ross recently spent a couple of months in East Timor, travelling the length and breadth of the country playing, teaching, and doing guitar workshops. In Kangaroo Valley he played, with Julia Ryder, Departure, a duet for guitar and cello by Adelaide composer Ian Seaborn.


from Dunlop and Wesley-Smith's concert tour of East Timor, March 2002 (click to enlarge):


rob with kids audience at ermera timorese kids
Rob Wesley-Smith
with kids in Gleno [72K]
audience in Ermera [58K]

photography © 2002 Martin Wesley-Smith

Timorese young people
near Hato Bullico [128K]

"I had complete strangers coming up, with tear-stained faces (saying) how powerful it was ..."

concert repertoire includes
East Timor multimedia:
X

Commissioned by American clarinettist F. Gerard Errante, this piece has been performed, by him and by Ros, many times in the USA. It was composed in 1999 as the Indonesian military-promoted militia carnage was raging across East Timor. At the time, resistance leader Xanana Gusmão (the "X" of the title) was in Cipinang Prison, Jakarta.

see separate web page

cl & CD-ROM
[1999]

review

Martin Wesley-Smith

images by various photographers

"The result is genuinely confronting and moving ..."
(Sydney Morning Herald critic Harriet Cunningham - see full text)

an audio-only version of this piece has been included on Ros Dunlop's new CD X (Great White Noise GWN003)

12'
Welcome to the Hotel Turismo

Hotel Turismo

"... they went mad - they cried, and cheered (four times back to the stage, and I was beginning to get emotional too), and were spellbound. A couple of times - like in the cadenza, and right at the end before the 'Welcome to the Hotel T' comes back), it was SO quiet - it freaked me out ... I had complete strangers coming up, with tear-stained faces (saying) how powerful it was ..."

cellist Rachel Scott after her recent performance of Turismo in London

bass cl & CD-ROM
[2000]

review

Martin Wesley-Smith

images by various photographers

David Vance in The Sydney Morning Herald, August 13 1998, writing about Wesley-Smith's Timor piece Quito:
"(His) music has never been far removed from political or social comment, and his gift for pastiche has served him well in adopting familiar styles, often (but not always) drawn from popular music, to ironic or satiric purposes."

from a Timorese listener in Darwin to the ABC broadcast of Quito, May 6 1997:
"It is a masterpiece of music. I cried my eyes out until no tears were left. I felt the tragedy of East Timor perforating my bones as I never felt before. I'm going to buy the CD."

** to download and view a short Shockwave movie (2.6MB) of the last section of this piece, click here

16'
Afghanistan multimedia:
Merry-Go-Round

about Afghanistan and Afghan refugees

Griffiths, John C.: Afghanistan - A History of Conflict, Timat Publishing, 2001:
"Any outsider who sticks his finger in the Afghan pie finds it was a damn sight hotter than he thought and ruins the pie for the Afghans. Persia, Britain, Russia and now the United States have all found their goals unobtainable and the cost of seeking them unsustainable, but the greatest price has always been paid by the poor, bloodied people of Afghanistan."

cl, vlc & CD-ROM
[2002]

review

Martin Wesley-Smith

photography by George Gittoes
and Alice Wesley-Smith

16'
acoustic pieces include:
Benny's Gig

Morton Gould wrote this for the occasion of his close friend Benny Goodman's 1962 Russian Tour in celebration of his 70th birthday: "What does one do for a special long-time friend and super-colleague on a special birthday? Had you turned 70 before inflation a special gift worthy of this event would have been the answer. But under the circumstances, and as the last of the small spenders, I thought and thought - and finally decided to write you a piece - on 2 staves, no less! To quote you, "It Aint Sweet Georgia Brown" - but it does signify my affection and friendship and admiration for you."

cl & cello
[1962]
Morton Gould

Gould

"Composing is my life blood," said Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Morton Gould, who died in 1996 at the age of 82. "That is basically me, and although I have done many things in my life - conducting, playing piano, and so on - what is fundamental is my being a composer."
Capping a life full of achievements in all facets of music are Morton Gould's 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Stringmusic, commissioned by the National Symphony for the final season of music director Mstislav Rostropovich, and his 1994 Kennedy Center Honor in recognition of lifetime contributions to American culture.

10'
Bulgar Frailisch

This dance from Bulgaria is an example of traditional Jewish folk music called Klezmer. The Klezmorium were professional musicians, generally of a high standard, who entertained at festive occasions. At times this type of music was banned by some Christian authorities - for example, in Prague during the early 1700s. Originally the instruments used were flute, organ, violin and percussion. In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, double bass, clarinet, trumpet and piano accordian were more often used.

cl & accordion
(trad)
arranged by Peter Jenkin 3'
Departure

a sad but beautiful duet by Adelaide composer Ian Seaborn that we discovered at the 2002 Darwin International Guitar Festival and performed in East Timor

cello & guitar
Ian Seaborn 4'

Charisma
Leichhardt Town Hall, November 28 2002
reviewed by Harriet Cunningham

written for The Sydney Morning Herald, but for reasons of "space limitations" not published



In March and July this year, clarinettist Ros Dunlop gave concerts in East Timor. She was so concerned and inspired by what she saw that she set up a concert series, the 2002 Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour, to raise awareness and funds for the East Timorese cause. On the way, she roped in a number of other willing participants for a spirited and thought-provoking evening of words, music and pictures.

Composer Martin Wesley-Smith has been a staunch supporter of the East Timor cause for many years, and this event was an ideal forum for three of his compositions, inspired by recent world events. Welcome to the Hotel Turismo tells of Dili's main hotel, where journalists, soldiers and homeless Timorese sheltered during the violence following the 1999 independence vote. Like all Wesley-Smith's works presented here, the acoustic part was accompanied by images and sounds on CD-ROM ...

Generations of artists have struggled to find a language to give meaning to the senselessness of war. In X, a work for clarinet and CD-ROM dedicated to Xanana Gusmao, Wesley-Smith has taken up the challenge with every modern resource available to him, including extended techniques (brilliantly delivered by Ros Dunlop) and electronics. The result is genuinely confronting and moving: one cannot hope (or wish) to recreate the horror of East Timor in 1999, but this work is an important historical document. Perhaps not surprisingly, although the music is a fascinating patchwork of interwoven ideas, the most chilling moments are marked by silence.

Merry-Go-Round was commissioned by Ros Dunlop and Julia Ryder for cello, clarinet and CD-ROM. Its inspiration is photographer George Gittoes' collection of images from a recent trip to Afghanistan, including a series of poignant shots of kids playing on a crude wooden merry-go-round. The music is rich in tone colours and drones evoking the traditional music of Afghanistan. My one criticism here would be that the stunning images deserved more measured presentation. The impact of the multimedia ephemera in the two previous works was enhanced by slick digital magic, but the haunting music and images of Merry-Go-Round needed no such hi-tech packaging.


concert repertoire | review | Dunlop & Ryder bios | Wesley-Smith bio | other bios | pics | top of page

enquiries: e-mail Martin Wesley-Smith


tour schedule:
concert one:
8pm Thurs Nov 28
Leichhardt Town Hall, Marion St, Leichhardt, Sydney
associate artists: The Anin Murak Quartet & The Solidarity Choir
tickets at door: $20, $10 (concession)
pre-concert events starting at 7pm
main concert starting at 8pm
post-concert events starting at 10.15pm

proceeds to "Friends of Maliana" - assisting the people of Maliana, East Timor

see here for a full review of this concert

concert two:
8pm Fri Nov 29
Frensham School Hall (near fountain), Range Road, Mittagong
associate artists: The Anin Murak Quartet & Michael Spencer (accordion)
tickets: $20, $10 (concession) available from Powerpoint Music Centre, Mittagong, and The Brown Bookshop, Bowral

proceeds to the Kangaroo Valley-Remexio Partnership -
assisting people in Remexio and other parts of East Timor

concert three:
8pm Sat Nov 30
Kangaroo Valley Hall, Moss Vale Rd, Kangaroo Valley
associate artists: The Anin Murak Quartet & Danny Ross (guitar)
tickets: $20, $10 (concession) available from
Kangaroo Valley Newsagency, Moss Vale Rd, Kangaroo Valley [44 651 150]
and Dymocks Booksellers, 68 Kinghorne St, Nowra

enquiries: call 02 44 651 299

proceeds to the Kangaroo Valley-Remexio Partnership -
assisting people in Remexio and other parts of East Timor


concert repertoire | review | schedule | Dunlop & Ryder bios | Wesley-Smith bio | other bios | pics | top of page

enquiries: e-mail Martin Wesley-Smith | Dunlop's home page | Wesley-Smith's home page


please consider signing the online petition appealing to the Australian government
to allow East Timorese asylum-seekers to remain in Australia



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site updated Dec 1 2002