YEAR IN REVIEW
2020
WELCOME TO QCGU Year in Review
This year, despite the major disruption of COVID, our students, academics, professional staff and alumni demonstrated tremendous ability to adapt and contribute to an outstanding year of research, learning and broader engagement. While in lockdown, Queensland Conservatorium students found innovative ways to rehearse together across the country through online forums. Our students were also involved in community engagement activities with some performing in retirement homes, while others found ways to perform and bring joy to audiences worldwide online. Our performance season started with William Finn's Elegies: A Song Cycle performed by our 3rd year musical theatre students followed by A Midsummer Night's Dream, which featured our first ever cohort of 3rd year acting students and directed by Matt Scholten. A highlight of the year and one of which we feel very proud and fortunate, is that we were the first in Australia to successfully perform our semi-staged opera, Béatrice et Bénédict, to a live audience. The show operated within the University’s COVID Safe Plan and the COVID Safe Industry Plan for Live Performance in Queensland and showcased some of our best talent. In total, we were able to welcome 129 patrons back to our Conservatorium Theatre. The orchestral season featured some monumental works including Strauss’s epic Ein Heldenleben, conducted by Maestro Johannes Fritzsch and a newly commissioned work by Queensland Conservatorium alumnus Isabella Gerometta. We concluded the year with the Concerto Festival, conducted by Peter Luff and Peter Morris, highlighting some of the best and brightest instrumentalists at the Conservatorium. Queensland Conservatorium alumni, students and staff were recognised across the year for their remarkable work and research and they continue to grace stages, concert halls and festivals across the world and make an impact in schools and communities across the nation. Thank you for being part of our 2020 season and we look forward to welcoming you back in 2021 for another exciting year of events.
Professor Gemma Carey Acting Director Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
Elegies: A Song Cycle: Nick Morrisey
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YEAR IN REVIEW
J AN UARY/ F E B R UARY
The year began with some outstanding achievements from staff, students and alumni. Violin student Fiona Qiu was appointed concertmaster of the Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO) for the second year in a row. Dr Kate Foy was awarded the ‘Alan Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award’. Many of our students and alumni were nominated and recognised at the Green Room Awards, from opera to musical theatre. Creative Music Technology graduate, Anna Whitaker, took home a Matilda Award for Best Sound Design/ Composition for her work in Throttle. Many students and alumni were recognised at the Queensland Music Awards including 13 finalists and 4 highly commended.
Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre Director Brydie-Leigh Bartleet was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, which facilitates education and cultural exchange between Australia and the United States through research or study at a U.S. institution. Brydie will use her Fulbright Scholarship to undertake research with musicians and organisations in New York to harness the power of music to tackle complex social inequalities. Our opera alumni realised great success in Victoria with the Melbourne Opera. •Rosiario La Spina – The Flying Dutchman •Eddie Muliaumaseali’I – Norma •Ray Lawrence conducting Norma The Performing Arts department celebrated its 10th intake of students this
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY First graduating cohort of the Bachelor of Acting: Nick Morrisey
Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet: Griffith News Courtney Monsma: Griffith News
year and many of our Musical Theatre alumnae continued to make their mark in performances across the globe including Courtney Monsma (2017) who was cast in the lead role of Frozen: The Musical as Princess Anna alongside veteran musical theatre star Jemma Rix. Jordanna Morandin (2019) was cast as the cover to Doralee and ensemble in Dolly Parton's smash-hit musical 9 To 5. Georgina Hopson (2014) was cast in the leading role of Lily in Opera Australia's production of The Secret Garden and both Georgina Hopson (2014) and Tiarne Sue Yek (2019) were cast in Merrily We Roll Along at Hayes Theatre in Sydney. This year we were also excited to welcome our 3rd intake of the Bachelor of Acting students! 3 Fiona Qiu: Griffith News
YEAR IN REVIEW
M AR C H
In March, after only four weeks on campus for the majority of our staff and students, we were forced into lockdown as a result of COVID. Queensland Conservatorium was tasked with launching a comprehensive online program for all our students, and in one week our teaching staff were delivering the majority of our courses online. Due to the imminent shut down of the Performing Arts Campus, the 3rd year Bachelor of Acting students (and our first graduates in this degree) fast-tracked their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Matt Scholten. Performed on the 19th of March, 22 days earlier than scheduled, these students showed an amazing determination to present a colourful and memorable version of Shakespeare's comedic masterpiece.
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY A Midsummer Night's Dream: Nick Morrisey
The pandemic did not deter our students, staff and alumni from finding new ways to come together and bring joy to many across the world. Graduate Astrid Jorgensen connected 1,000 people from 18 countries while in lockdown to perform Burt Bacharach’s Close to You through Couch Choir. Alumnus Tom Hamilton got creative while in lockdown too and took to his balcony in Sydney to perform I Still Call Australia Home as neighbours joined in. A team of alumni created a socially isolated staging of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. Each episode was remotely filmed, recorded and staged from their flats and houses which was scattered across the world while in lockdown. Full episodes can be viewed at www.quarantine-cosi.com
Cast and crew of Quarantine Cosi: Photo courtesey of Chris McNee
Astrid Jorgensen's Couch Choir: ABC News
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YEAR IN REVIEW
AP R I L / M AY
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY Joff Bush:Griffith News
Georgina Hopson: Griffith News
Kate Miller-Heidke & Keir Nuttall: Griffith News
While our students and staff were settling into new ways of learning and working, more of our students and alumni were recognised this month in awards and festivals held virtually.
Popular music alumnus Olivia Dennis (DENNIS) took home a Gold Coast Music Award. The award ceremony took place virtually via Facebook.
April started well with a team of Griffith alumni behind the hit series Bluey being awarded an International Emmy Award. Alumnus Joff Bush is the mastermind behind the soundtrack and the infectious theme sound, with thousands of Aussie families recreating the famous ‘Bluey Dance’ to his tunes. Alumni Kate Miller-Heidke, Keir Nuttall and Georgina Hopson were recognised at the prestigious Green Room Awards. The longrunning performing arts industry awards recognise the best local productions, from musicals to opera, dance and theatre. The 37th annual awards ceremony was held online this year, with the winners announced on YouTube.
Alumnus Rachel Jones-Williams was recognised in TMN 30 Under 30 Awards 2020. From hundreds of applications and a shortlist of '50 finalists that followed, TMN revealed the 30 young professionals who represent the best and brightest minds in the Aussie music business. In May, composition alumni took centre stage thanks to a host of new industry mentoring projects. Recent Honours graduate Frankie Dyson Reilly was one of five female Australian composers selected for a national mentoring opportunity. Fellow alumnus Ian Whitney was selected for the Layton Emerging Composer Fellowship, during which he will write music for the Australia Ensemble and receive mentoring.
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YEAR IN REVIEW
JUNE
In June, we were excited to see jazz alumnus Angela Fabian impress the celebrity judges with a powerhouse performance on Channel Nine’s hit show, The Voice. Angela went on a whirlwind journey as she performed a spinetingling version of Amazing Grace to more than a million TV viewers across Australia. Later in the month, Angela and opera grad Jonathon Welch sang Stand By Me on stage together on The Voice. Graduate Rebecca Cassidy became a part of Opera Queensland’s Young Artist for 2020. The soprano joins a host of young opera stars from the Queensland Conservatorium selected for Young Artist programs around the world, from Kang Wang at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, to Samuel QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY Angela Fabian on The Voice : Griffith News
Johnson and Kiandra Howarth at the Royal Opera in London. Lecturer in Popular Music, Narelle McCoy received the Letty Katts Award. Ms McCoy will use the State Library’s collections to research Queensland-born composer Letty Katts, the first Australian to have an original song in the pop hit parade in the 1950s. June was also a busy month for performing arts as the 1st year Bachelor of Acting students presented their Storytelling Project (directed by Andrew Cory), which evolved over a few days via various online methods - Zoom, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. This was a great way to connect the whole department as it encouraged engagement
amongst viewers and performers. Musical theatre and acting students were also keeping busy getting all-access passes to the country’s top performers, casting agents and musical directors, thanks to a series of online workshops and masterclasses with key industry players. Students benefited from feedback and advice from industry heavyweights including musical theatre star Lucy Durack (The Wizard of Oz, Wicked), producer Michael Casssel (The Lion King, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and casting agent Natalie Gilhome (Matilda The Musical, School of Rock). Our musical theatre students also performed and recorded a socially distanced version of The Riviera which can be viewed on our social media channels.
Rebecca Cassidy: Griffith News
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YEAR IN REVIEW
J U LY/AU G UST
In July, restrictions started to ease and more stories began emerging of Griffith students who shared their creative talents during lockdown, including QCGU students who performed for aged-care residents and created online shows for primary school students. Aspiring musicians were afforded “a sneak peek” of the new online audition process for the Queensland Conservatorium as part of Griffith’s 12-week virtual Open House initiative, the on-demand alternative to QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
the traditional Open Day. Open House showcased music and performing arts at Griffith, with live chat sessions, webinars, videos and career talks. A range of online resources were available, including a series of videos with tips for students auditioning online for music, acting and musical theatre degrees at the Queensland Conservatorium. As a result, Queensland Conservatorium received an unprecedented number of applications!
Jeremy Stafford playing for care residents: Griffith News
In place of the cancelled production of Wicked, the 3rd year Musical Theatre students worked with director Alister Smith and Musical Director Heidi Loveland on the verbatim musical theatre piece London Road. The musical is set in and around London Road in Ipswich, Suffolk (UK), during the Ipswich serial murders and subsequent trial of killer Steve Wright in 2006-08. It is a difficult and challenging piece and the students had to learn to record vocals for mixing, as well as self-tape their various scenes - a valuable skillset for the future!
Graduates Katie Noonan and Kate MillerHeidke both appeared on The Masked Singer in August, with Kate Miller-Heidke awarded runner up for Season 2. Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship titled The role of community music in addressing social inequalities in Australia. This prestigious award which has a total funding amount of $1,062,982.00 is a wonderful recognition of Brydie's work and will have far reaching impact on community music. 11
YEAR IN REVIEW
SE P T E M B E R
Performances and events across Brisbane started to re-emerge. We are proud that Queensland Conservatorium brought to life Australia’s first opera production since pandemic restrictions took effect, working within strict COVID safe guidelines to ensure the show proceeded. Singers rehearsed donning gloves and masks, the orchestra moved out of the pit and onto the stage to allow for social distancing and audiences returned albeit limited in number. This year’s mainstage opera production was a semistaged production of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, inspired by Shakespeare’s beloved comedy, Much Ado About Nothing. Students and staff were also able to perform across the city as part of our partnership with Brisbane Festival. A host QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
of small ensembles from the Queensland Conservatorium entertained music lovers across the city, from jazz duos to string quartets, in the ‘Street Serenades’ event, and our musical theatre students performed the first post-covid concert at Brisbane City Hall in front of a socially- distanced audience. Faculty members Professor Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold were also part of the festival performing an immersive environmental experience. We were excited to welcome back alumnus Dami Im to the Conservatorium Stage to collaborate with Conservatorium and Griffith Film School students to produce two showstopping music video performances for the Griffith University Alumni Awards which can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
Béatrice et Bénédict: Nick Morrisey
Brisbane Festival's Street Serenades: Griffith News
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YEAR IN REVIEW
O C TOB E R Ein Heldenleben: Nathaniel Chin
We presented our main and first orchestral concert in October. Ein Heldenleben was conducted by Maestro Johannes Friztsch and featured a newly commissioned work by Isabella Gerometta, winner of the Silver Harris and Jeff Peck Composition Prize.
Our 2nd year acting students presented their first public production, Night Sky Over Our Town, a reimagining of the classic play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. This QCGU commissioned new Australian play was written and directed by Elise Greig.
3rd year musical theatre students presented Musicale which provided an opportunity for the students to learn more about auditioning skills in order to prepare them for the Music Industry.
In alumni news, three of our graduates were nominated for ARIA Awards! Katie Noonan was nominated for Best Jazz Album, Megan Washington was nominated for Best Comedy Release and piano virtuoso Jayson Gillham was nominated for Best Classical Album. Alumnus and jazz lecturer Kristin Berardi was awarded the Mr and Mrs Gerald Frank New Churchill Fellowship, which will allow her to travel to Germany, Austria and the US to study with the world’s top singers and composers.
You may have also caught a glimpse of our musical theatre students on Television as they performed for the 2020 AFL Grand Final!
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
Night Sky Over Our Town: Nick Morrisey
15 Musical Theatre students backstage at the 2020 Toyota AFL Grand Final: Photo courtesey of Paul Sabey
YEAR IN REVIEW
N OV E M B E R
November was a busy month for performances, as we were finally able to present postponed concerts from earlier in the year… On the Conservatorium stage, we presented Val Machin Opera Scenes Dido and Aeneas which was conducted by Queensland Conservatorium’s former Director Peter Roennfeldt and directed by Sue Rider. This performance brought to life Henry Purcell’s dramatic work which tells the compelling story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, a Trojan hero. Once again, many of our students performed in the community alongside industry mentors at Bleach* Festival. After a week of intense rehearsal, a special chamber ensemble featuring Griffith University students and members of the renowned Southern Cross Soloists (SXS) presented a program of works by Australian composer and pianist Elena Kats-Chernin at the Gold Coast Botanical Gardens. In performing arts, 1st year actors performed their in-house workshop
production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Senior Lecturer in Acting, Jacqui Somerville. This was followed by the 1st year musical theatre students' in-house performance of Song & Dance, which was musically directed by Professor Paul Sabey and choreographed by Helena Moore. The final musical for the year was Legally Blonde The Musical, performed by the 2nd year musical theatre students in their first public performance. Directed by Penny Farrow, with Musical Direction by Heidi Loveland and Choreography by Joseph Simons, this production gave our 2nd years a wonderful opportunity to showcase their talents. Our final acting performance for the year was Michael Gow's Away, directed by Timothy Hill. Presented by the 3rd year Actors in their last production for the Performing Arts department, it was a moving and fitting end to their degree. We have no doubt we'll be seeing them and our 3rd year Musical Theatre graduates in professional productions around the country as the arts sector gradually re-opens.
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY Val Machin Dido and Aeneas: Nick Morrisey
Away: Nick Morrisey
In alumni news, First Nations opera alumnus Nina Korbe was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to the renowned Royal Academy of Music in London which will prepare her for a career with the world’s top companies. The soprano has been joined at the Royal Academy of Music by fellow Queensland Conservatorium opera graduates Phillip Costovski and Cassandra Wright.
Legally Blonde: Nick Morrisey
track how First Nations' music and musicians are shaped by, and in turn may shape, powerful social determinants of health in Australia. The project responds to calls for health approaches that are strength based, First Nations-led, and culturally secure.
In research news, Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre brought together singers, musicians, researchers and midwives to deliver 'Sing to Connect', a 12-week pilot initiative in Logan combining midwifery check-ups and antenatal classes from Metro South Health with a singing program. Associate Professor Naomi Sunderland and Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet (AEL, QCRC) together with researchers from the University of Sunshine Coast and Edith Cowan University were awarded $820,000 (including a Discovery Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award) for project titled 'The role of First Nations' music as a determinant of health'. This project aims to
Nina Korbe: Griffith News
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YEAR IN REVIEW
DEC E M B E R
We finished the year with the Concerto Festival (rescheduled from August). Two orchestras were formed under the batons of Associate Professor Peter Morris and Associate Professor Peter Luff to present a mini festival of concerto performances featuring soloists from across all instrumental areas of the Conservatorium. QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
Finally, we very much look forward to welcoming you back to one of our many exciting performances in the new year. To view the 2021 season visit queenslandconservatorium.com.au
Concertos Festival: : Nick Morrisey
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