31 October 2013
Corroboree in Bogotá
On October 10 a signal event occurred in Australian music. It
happened neither in this country nor in any of those cities to
which we have conventionally, and often fruitlessly, tried to
export our arts. It was a concert in the Colombian capital,
Bogotá. That was remarkable in itself. What made it extraordinary
was that this was not an Australian rock band or pop group,
plenty of which have appeared in this city of 8 million souls.
This was a symphonic concert and the evening was entirely of
contemporary classical works by Australian composers.
Two years ago the Australia Latin America Foundation invited
Ramiro Osorio, the distinguished Director General of Bogotá's
newly built Teatro Mayor to visit Australia to choose work for an
Australian arts season which he was planning two years hence.
This was to be a month-long 'festival' ranging over our
contemporary achievement in various genres. Above all, alongside
dance and theatre productions, Mr Osorio wished to include a
symphonic concert to ensure that his audience would have the
chance to hear modern musical works of scale - an ingredient
which is usually absent from such events. Even when Australian
orchestras tour abroad they will take at most one local work.
Some take none. But amazingly, Mr Osorio wanted to have all
Australian works in his concert. To that end, he was prepared to
book the Colombian National Symphony Orchestra and invite an
Australian conductor and soloist.
It was a characteristically bold Latin American move. In all
probability, none of the players would ever have heard a note of
Australian music still less performed any. Certainly, all the
music would be completely new to the audience.
On that basis the Foundation approached Benjamin Northey to
conduct and asked him to propose a program. It seemed logical to
choose works which would, at first hearing, be accessible; that
in varying degrees would be distinctive without being
jindyworobak and offered a sense of national achievement over the
second half of the 20th century, and that featured major names of
the period. They were not easy choices.
Together we also wanted to ensure that the works chosen would
speak to a Latin American audience in particular ways. Like
Australia, the countries of that region have been challenged over
time by questions of national identity in which European heritage
and indigenous culture have co-existed often uneasily in art,
politics and life. Composers like Chavez, Revueltas in Mexico,
Villa Lobos in Brazil and Orbόn in Cuba had grappled with that as
have their Australian counterparts. Accordingly, John
Antill's pioneering
Corroboree followed by
Peter Sculthorpe's
Earth Cry seemed like appropriate starting points to
suggest those similarities. Didjeridu virtuoso, Mark Atkins, was
invited to be soloist in the second of these. The program was
completed by two more 'international' works: Paul
Stanhope's
Fantasy on a theme of Vaughan Williams and Richard
Meale's late work
Three Miró Pieces.
That program would have been a high-wire act at home, though
sadly it's hard to imagine any Australian management presenting
such a concert. Indeed, one struggles to recall when any ever
has. Perhaps it takes a foreign arts centre and its enlightened
leader to show where we ourselves are lacking in this respect. As
it turned out, even securing the parts and shipping them to
Bogotá was not without its headaches and many favours were called
upon in the process.
On the night, sponsored by a major Colombian energy corporation,
the 1300-seat auditorium was crowded. Despite its being the
longest established orchestra in Colombia, these days the
National Symphony is overwhelmingly young, and with youthful
vigour and immense enthusiasm the musicians rose magnificently to
the challenge of these unfamiliar pieces and the opportunities to
explore which they offered. The audience which had been
attentive, even respectful, throughout responded with exuberance
and sustained applause at the end, calling both conductor and
soloist repeatedly back to the podium and eliciting, as was only
appropriate, an encore of Percy
Grainger's
Shepherd's Hey, thereby adding another
great Australian name to the list.
Benjamin Northey comments, 'In terms of broadening international
perceptions of Australian music, this concert was one of the most
meaningful cultural experiences I've had. It was a wonderful
opportunity to highlight four works of important Australian
composers and, in doing so, chart a course through the evolution
of our original orchestral music of the past fifty years.'
Wandering in the foyer at interval, one could not miss the buzz
heightened no doubt by Mark Atkins's dazzling mastery on his
variously tuned instruments. Most, if not all, of the audience
were hearing it for the first time - perhaps other than in a
tourism commercial or on Discovery channel.
Since promoting Australia's contemporary cultural experience was
the goal of this entire season, the organisers also took
advantage of Atkins's presence by inviting him to bring his
jazz/world trio to perform in sold-out recital two nights later
in the 300-seat Studio Theatre in a program of entirely original
works on keyboards, drums and of course didjeridu That offered
the opportunity to feature this ancient instrument in two
sophisticated and contrasting settings - the large-scale
symphonic and the intimate ensemble, thereby demonstrating both
its versatility and its role as very much part of music making in
Australia today across the spectrum.
Both concerts were media-streamed through the Library, which
forms part of this cultural complex to educational institutions,
thereby reaching a wider public than actually attended and
making, one hopes, many converts to the idea of Australian music
and its composers.
Ramiro Osorio said: 'To create a panorama of any nation's music
in another country is a special privilege. We dreamt of doing
this two years ago and worked hard to achieve it. Teatro Mayor is
proud to have been the platform for such a ground breaking
Australian event'.
As a coda: amid all this splendid music there was also the chance
for Colombians to gain a little insight into wider Australian
life. The Foundation had also programmed a photographic
exhibition dedicated to "'the Australian family'. This collection
of 58 photos by 26 Australian photographers was the brainchild of
Dawne Fahey (who has recently undertaken a similar documentary
project for the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Youth Orchestra).
The showing in Bogotá offered Colombians a glimpse into ideas of
'family' in the Australian context: across the country, families
big and small, complex and simple, traditional as well as
culturally diverse. It was a great 'frame' for the music, dance,
and theatre. Wouldn't it be nice if next time an Australian PM
goes somewhere she or he took some artists along with the
business people? It might open up a few more doors than those
formal talkfests.
© Australian Music Centre (2013) — Permission must be obtained from the AMC if you wish to reproduce this article either online or in print.
Justin Macdonnell is an arts manager and producer who has been involved in over 50 tours of Australian artists to Latin America in the last 30 years. The Australia Latin America Foundation is a not for profit agency which promotes cultural exchange between Australia and Latin America.
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