Canberra International Music Festival

Inclusion, Connection and Relevance … the Idea of Vienna

BY ANTHONY PLEVEY

The 26-year history of the Canberra International Music Festival may have its roots in classical and chamber music, but acclaimed pianist and versatile musical director Roland Peelman has been working over his six-year tenure as Festival Artistic Director to shift the festival to a broader focus.

Following the hiatus enforced by COVID-19 last year, 2021 is something of a breakthrough year for the Festival as the organisation activates its key values of inclusion, connection and relevance in an expansive program that engages with a wider variety of musical forms, reaching out to new audiences.

Seeing the Festival theme “…the Idea of Vienna” as a pivot point, Peelman explains:

“To some people, Vienna means coffee, chocolate and schnitzel. For music-minded people they think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Mozart, isn’t it? Hayden, Beethoven, Schubert and all those guys’.

“For a lot of people it stands for the tradition, the western tradition. So we have this “…idea of Vienna” and a perception of it.

“But we live here in Australia,” Peelman continues. “We have a culture that goes back over 40,000 years, so I thought we should actually turn the table; let’s look at Vienna from the other side.”

Peelman is enthusiastic about “upping the ante on Indigenous music” and the expanded Canberra International Music Festival running from 17 April to 9 May, whilst presenting a core of classical works by Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart, has over a quarter of its program incorporating Indigenous performers, works, and themes.

To whit, major works include Brenda Gifford’s 2020 composition Djiribawal presented as part of the festival’s Opening Gala at The Fitters Workshop. There’s a presentation of festival composerin-residence Brian Howard’s dreamtime themed Rainbow Serpent

Josh Cohen plays Radionhead on piano

at the National Gallery of Australia with songs by Jo Geia and traditional songs from the Tiwi Strong Women. And there’s festival commissioned Indigenous music Hand to Earth by Yuin Woman Brenda Gifford at the National Gallery of Australia.

Performances by Indigenous artists include Magic Garden at the Australian National Botanic Gardens featuring southeast Arnhem Land Songmen David and Daniel Wilfred. Eyes and Ears at the National Film and Sound Archive, with live performance by the Tiwi Strong Women linking traditional song with archival footage. And two events, All of them, and one of us and Heartland will feature composer and acclaimed Didgeridoo player William Barton.

Festival Open Day, CIMF@Belco Arts, will include further performances by the Tiwi Strong Women. Rapper, drummer, and Murrawarri Republic member Dobby is performing with DJ Diola as part of Sessions@Verity, and Traditional songs by David and Daniel Wilfred, Wagilak-speaking Songmen from southeast Arnhem Land, will feature as part of Great Hall Rising at The Fitters Workshop.

The Canberra International Music Festival’s expanded program also offers more for fans of Jazz and Contemporary music with a new alliance between the Festival and Verity Lane Market in the city’s CBD offering an accessible, less formal environment.

Among the featured artists in the Sessions@Verity series are aforementioned rapper Dobby and DJ Diola, Canberra’s own classical guitar duo Andrew Blanch and Ariel Nurhadi, while Christine Johnston and Sonya Lifschitz will present Crumb’s Lyre preceded by Localjinni’s Alleyhart video walk.

Sessions@Verity will also include the festival’s youngest performer Ronan Apcar on piano presenting Third Stream, and the highly regarded jazz combo The Sandy Evans Trio. Also included are free lunchtime concerts by Anna Fraser and Calvin Abdiel.

The free open day CIMF@Belco Arts at the new Belconnen Arts building is worth further mention. Featuring a smorgasbord of musical experiences, CIMF@Belco Arts presents a broad range of festival artists from the Indigenous songs of the Tiwi Strong Women to the guitar riffs of Jess Green and the hip-hop grooves of DJ Diola.

Asked about the standout works of the Festival, Peelman, pianist and fan of the genre-bending, unclassifiable Radiohead, identified the highpoint of the Sessions@Verity series as Josh Cohen’s Radiohead for Solo Piano, a sanctioned piano interpretation of their songbook by the band themselves.

“I’m really excited about it. I’ve always loved Radiohead and it works so well on piano,” says Peelman.

Peelman highlights new work Djiribawal (2020) by Yuin woman and emerging composer Brenda Gifford as a highlight of the Festival’s Opening Gala.

Sandy Evans

“We are celebrating her [Gifford]. We’re celebrating that new work which is a different way of looking at the world,” says Peelman, reinforcing his take on the Festival’s theme.

Freshly commissioned by Canberra International Music Festival, Indigenous work Hand to Earth composed by Yuwaalaraay storyteller Nardi Simpson also gets praise from Peelman.

“It’s absolutely remarkable,” he says. “Because it’s about ancient women’s culture that was lost about 100 years ago. So it’s about reviving the old traditions that died out.”

Uniquely, Nardi and her sisters, Six Yuwaalaraay Women from Lightning Ridge, will perform Hand to Earth using a possum skin cloak, newly created by the artists, as an instrument.

Youngster Ronan Apcar

The festival program also highlights female performers drawing on the strength and stewardship of Indigenous women as much as the refined skills of classical instrumentalists and soloists and the audacity of Christine Johnston and Sonya Lifschitz’s collaboration.

Discussing Katy Abbott’s innovative Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter?, an engaging and challenging work at anytime, Peelman acknowledges the absolute synchronicity and relevance of this work in the context of current events.

A cross discipline collaboration between composer Abbott and writer/cartoonist Kaz Cooke, and linked with University of Houston researcher Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability and shame, Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter? is based on the anonymous responses of

over 200 women to four questions: Do you have hidden thoughts and feelings? What have you learned to be brave about? What would you like to be braver about? Would you like to say anything more about hidden thoughts and/or courage?

Christine Johnston as Madame Lark

In her artist’s statement, Composer Abbott characterises Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter? as: “A journey into that murky place, the chatter in your head …asking you to consider the thoughts that confine you and to become their witness rather than their slave.”

Focussing on the themes of personal disclosure, self-censorship and role expectations, Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter? takes a verbatim theatre approach designed to incorporate the audience’s thoughts in real time. Based on a vocal style of writing and composing, developed by Abbott for using words that aren’t designed to be set to music, this timely work is anticipated to be a highly evocative and emotional feature of the festival program.

Matt Keegan and friends

Festival Artistic Director Peelman’s picks of festival highlights clearly point to the 2021 Canberra International Music Festival’s expanded scope and diversity in pursuing musical excellence, maintaining its core traditions whilst being courageously determined to look at the world in a different way, flipping …the idea of Vienna.

Noting again the impact of COVID 19 on the planning and development of the Festival program, Peelman emphasised that most events repeat across the festival program to ensure audience access. The Canberra International Music Festival runs from 17 April 17 to 9 May across various venues. Full program details are available at cimf.org.au

MC Dobby