NEWS
Strings for cicadas BY LIZ JOHNSTON
Sweet victory for Stradbroke Honey BY MARIA TAN t’s back to business as usual for veteran beekeeper, Charlie Bowman and his family, after a yearlong battle with the former state government to keep their hives on national park lands. Under the new Queensland government the Bowmans have been promised that their beekeeping business will be allowed to continue as it has done for the past 30 years. “As far as I am concerned, my problems are now gone,” Mr Bowman said. The Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing (NPRSR) told SIN that the new state government was considering a range of options to assist North Stradbroke Island residents and businesses, including “providing a more reasonable adjustment period for mining activities and the Island’s overall economy”. “The interests of all relevant parties, including the Bowman family, are being taken into account as a part of this process,” NPRSR Marine general manager, Rebecca Williams said. Beekeeper Bowman also confirmed that planning was still underway and said that the process would take time. “But in the meantime, everything has stopped. All the threats and that have all gone, so we’re happy.” The Bowman family’s beehives were banned from national park lands by the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) in June last year after the Naree Budjong Djara national park was declared. After protest, the Bowmans were given an extension that allowed them to keep their hives on national park lands until 2019, when mining leases were also set to expire. Premier Campbell Newman’s new environment and conservation portfolio has split DERM into three different environment departments, which will separately handle multiple issues including mining and apiary permits on the Island. These new environmental departments are the NPRSR, Environment and Heritage Protection and Natural Resources and Mines.
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omposer Robert Davidson (above) likes to get out of his comfort zone. Though with an impressively long list of works and collaborations under his belt, he may be pushed to find new boundaries to cross. From collaborations with an Indian theatre company on a production of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady of the Sea, to works with comedians the Kransky Sisters, Davidson has not been shy of setting himself a challenge. For his next act, Davidson – composer, bassist, lecturer, and founder and artistic director of Topology, ensemble-in-residence at the Brisbane Powerhouse – is heading to the beach, where he will premiere a string quintet commissioned to celebrate the fifth birthday of the Stradbroke Chamber Music Festival, July 27–29. Davidson says he has been inspired by Straddie’s cultural and ecological influences on visits to the Island, including appearances with Topology at the 2011 Stradbroke Chamber Music Festival, where the group performed another Stradbroke-inspired composition written by Robert. WINTER 2012
His as yet un-named commission for this year’s festival will be quite different because it is for strings, rather than Topology’s usual instrumental mix of wind, keyboard and strings. “This composition is inspired by the sonic environment of Straddie, a place that has very dear associations for me going back many years. The chorus of cicadas, the wind through the casuarinas, the friarbirds,” Robert told SIN. “That’s not to say the piece will imitate or mimic these sounds, but they will inspire the mood of it. “I travel quite a lot and sometimes you get a smell of eucalypts in California. But it’s not till I’m back here that I hear all these sounds you cannot hear in any other place.” Dr Davidson’s string quintet for the festival was funded by a grant from the Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF), a Queensland Government and Redland City Council partnership to support local arts and culture. For Stradbroke Chamber Music Festival tickets, accommodation bookings and the full festival program visit www.stradmusic.org
STRADDIE ISLAND NEWS 5