EVENTS
The secret is out The Stradbroke Island Chamber Music Festival has had its fifth and most successful year, and artistic director Rachel Smith has already begun preparations for 2012. achel told SIN, ticket sales were double that of last year and accommodation booking agents and local cafes had reported increased business during the festival. “It has set the bar high for next year,” Rachel said. “I’ve already begun booking musicians and the committee has started planning the enormous task of arranging accommodation for musicians and dealing with the logistics of getting instruments – including a grand piano – musicians, sound and lighting technicians to and from the Island.” The piano in question must be moved between venues in the three townships, sometime twice in one day, and tuned and retuned at each stop. This year’s program kicked off with a performance in the Dunwich Community Hall by Brisbane-based singer-songwriter Katie Noonan who, along with her husband, saxophonist Isaac Hurren, has long been a visitor to Straddie. She charmed the audience
A performance by Katie Noonan kicked off the 2011 Stradbroke Chamber Music Festival. with her music and stories of holidays spent on Straddie, where she said she had penned many of her songs. In theme with the festival Noonan had rearranged her songs to be performed with a chamber quartet. While some chamber music aficionados were unsure about the two avant-garde performances on the bill, most were won over, and inventive musical quintet, Topology, received a standing ovation at the festival’s closing concert, also in Dunwich.
And if watching the waves roll into Main Beach at dusk, through the legs of a grand piano, isn’t one of the best ways to spend a Saturday afternoon, then listening to the smokin’ hot improvisations of jazz trio Misinterprotato while doing so, definitely is. The hot tip from this year’s concertgoers is to book early for next year, because the secret of the Stradbroke Island Chamber Music Festival may have just got out. — Kate Johnston
Celebrating and sharing culture Minjerriba CELEBRATING and SHARING CULTURE is a one-week program celebrating the art and culture of the Indigenous people of Quandamooka (Moreton Bay) and Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).
PHOTO:DESLEY SPECHT
Uncle Bob Anderson
Children participate in a percussion workshop, 2010. ultural awareness sessions will include a talking circle with Elders, women’s business, men’s business and cultural tourism. A workshop and performance program for Island children includes music,
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SPRING 2011
film and performance workshops, song writing and recording. Uncle Bob Anderson, Ngugi Elder, said: “It is a wonderful time for the Aboriginal peoples of Quandamooka. With our proven capacity to endure through long periods of
economic and social hardship, we are at the threshold of certainty in this new era. As a community we carry out responsibilities to Country that include building new economic structures such as cultural tourism.” Visitors are welcome to join the October cultural awareness and performance component of the project, however children’s workshops are for students of Dunwich State School only. Full program to be advised closer to the event. — Jo Kaspari
10 YEARS OF LIVING IN SIN — STRADDIE ISLAND NEWS 13
PHOTO: WILK
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