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rage 25 years silver jubilee abc tv overnite saturdays

a person of mature age said recently how she 'thinks' younger now, than when she was young,  and its true of me too, regardless of how this blog usually sounds. 
Men at work -  it takes me back to hearing Land Down Under in a village pub in the Netherlands...vegemite sandwich was making its presence felt over the tulips and farms.....Vale.

Wedding decor.  This month two figures on the music scene in Newcastle, Bernadette Lannen and Philip Matthias, will be wed at St Joseph's East Maitland in what will be a fine celebratory musical setting due, to a large extent, to their role in Newcastle University Chamber Choir. Surely a ghostwritten Bach Cantata is a distinct possibility for the happy occasion!

Follow the red arrow!

Whimiscal Grimethorpe Colliery Band musicians at lunch during the Brassed Off! Tour 2011 with a concert tonight in Newcastle City Hall. From South Yorkshire, the band formed about hundred years ago. This time they are fuelled by Maccas. How will tonight's concert turn out!

No struggles about pit closures exist in the Hunter valley, far from it.  A struggle such as that featured the band in the film Brassed Off with fine music and a much younger Ewan McGregor.  

Beethoven's Ninth, Fourth Movement. Choral.    Gotterfunken

Oh friends, not these tones!
Rather, let us raise our voices in more pleasing
and more joyful sounds
Joy
Joy
Joy beautiful spark of divinity
Daughter of Elysium
We enter, drink with fire,
into your sanctuary, heavenly daughter!

Your magic reunites
What custom strictly divided
All men become brothers,
Where your gentle wing rests.

Who ever has had the great fortune to be friend's friend,
Who ever has won a devoted wife, join in jubilation! ...
Joy all creatures drink
At the breasts of nature,
All good, all bad
Follow her trail of roses, Kisses she gave us, and wine, ...

Be embraced, you millions! This kiss for the whole world!
Brothers, beyond the star-canopy
Must a loving Father dwell
Be embraced,
This kiss for the whole world!
Joy, beautiful spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium
Joy, beautiful spark of divinity,
Divinity.


prompted by program on ABC TV1. 
Mother's Day

Still in Retroville. What era do we have here?
The Marching Koalas based in Newcastle, take music far and wide. Back from China, then way ahead is a tour to the east coast of the USA Easter 2012. New York, Washington, Orlando and Harry Potter World are among the destinations.
Their style was very new to us when they formed and began performing some time ago and they are a great act. They remain unusual.

Baptismal Font.
Das music. We may sing about living waters but with  J S Bach it was a different story. He was familiar with church surroundings such as this, and week after week he created a wealth of  music for liturgies. Were the congregations left stunned by his magic? Just imagine if the music had been discouraged by fundamentalists.
For us, it is just too good to be true, to be able to experience, at will, the unconditional gift of his music. And not only church music.
This week, Bach's Saint Matthew Passion came to us in a performance from Europe, very stylish, perfect and original German language for that special edge from the soloists all from ABC Classic FM and their search for Australia's most popular musical work.

This 'post card' is from Tamworth, several hundred clicks north-north-west of Newcastle, in the heart of country and western music and the hugh associated annual festival late January.
From at least fifty years ago, the yodelling hill billy, soloist, plus acustic guitar, recorded on a scratchy 78 filled the air waves of station 2TM, Tamworth.
The music has developed into a vast diverse and popular class (of which I know very little).  ABC radio (and on the WWW) specialises in the music on Saturday nights round midnight and currently features the Gympie Muster. The Gympie (Queensland ) Muster is another must-see event on the country music calendar.
At least one academic from Oklahoma has been researching the music and was spending another couple of weeks of his summer busy in the archives in wintry Tamworth.  Distincitve characteristics are found in the Australian music he said.

White Christmas: Bing Crosby. Came across some old seventy-eights.
Decca record in a Brunswick 'sleeve' and the Road to Morocco photo

High achievement pays off. The University of Newcastle Chamber Choir conducted by Philip Matthias is simply the best and was heard in their first Christmas recital last night. Every song was notable and perhaps the earlier numbers were most worthy of comment but Christus est stella matutina, Alleluia was outstandingly beautifully done.
Over the decade the ambitious choir has won popular contests and awards and has toured overseas and the hubris must have spurred them on. The conductor is at the heart of their success I would think.

The best in any establishment has to come from the top, I've decided, be it group, institution or whatever. Not hierarchial yet still have influence from the top. Managers need to have some involvement in day to day core activities and lead the way in a practical manner. It means more than a mission statement. Staff are professionals often times, yet can still be led to aspire to be competent, yea, even to excel.

VI. continued: the master, the artists, the muse and Montsalvat.

Great Hall dinners where celebs met round the refectory tables had Jorgensen pontificating over philosophy and matters of interest. A regular who's-who of artists and thinkers rolled up to exchange ideas and to socialise.
For one, as a child, the eminent classical guitarist, John Williams, strummed away for the assembled groups and spent time there as a friend of the younger generation.

What is it about the Russian landscape?
From there Putin takes us on exploits and he rode bare chested on horseback.
Apparently, the composer and pianist, Rachmanioff encamped in the countryside for the summer holidays where the traditional culture forever influenced his romantic music making. He never forgot his homeland and tried to recreate aspects of it during his life of bourgeois exile. His summer residence with ornamental timber work has a garden setting and has been nicely rebuilt (recorded in the movie by Tony Palmer).

Another hospital scene at The Royal Newcastle Centre. Music sooths. Volunteer musicians take turns at the piano.
Cafes and shops are among the services in this space which offers some relief from the medical milieu.
The Centre is attached to the John Hunter Hospital, New Lambton, and has orthopaedic type services and more. The Centre replaces the original 'Royal' by the seaside in Newcastle East, which has been demolished and the land sold for high rise apartments.

The Great Hall at the University of Newcastle was open for business at the weekend. Academic and cultural events are seen in this centre opened in 1973 and built as a result of a public appeal. A tapestry adorns the wall and a pipe organ is both ornamental and is a fitting instrument for symbolic rituals.
I entered the hall. What was blazoned across the stage? Keep Watching the Ministry.....that you fulfill it.
Very apt but this line is from the Scriptures.
Had Art, Science and Religion been transformed into a meta-trinity? Packaged into an educational commodity of great potential. The names of subjects crossed my mind. Towards Nirvana and Capital Raising; The Tao of Management, Gender studies and the Papacy; Symbolic Order and Opus Dei; Extatic Levitation and Civil Engineering. I had vaguely heard of the end of history or was it.... the end of knowledge?
I realized the hall was full of chatty folk and children who were eating their packed lunches. No, this was really a church conference using the hall and taking their lunch break.

Coolamore Horse Stud. Upper photo.
While I was cruising along, in the early afternoon, on a sunny day, on a country road, past the horse studs, out of Scone, in the Upper Hunter, I noticed a green field where the horses were frisky and a fox was seen running across the field and I watch until it disappeared into the vegetation. What was fox up to? For a citysider it was a rare sighting.
But, I believe the fox is a nuisance and is an unwelcome introduced species. Similar to the troublesome possum in NZ.
My grandmother knew a song:

Oh! the fox he went out one shiny night and prayed for the moon to give him light,
for he had a long way to travel that night, before he returned to his den o,den o, den en o
for he had a long way to travel that night before he returned to his den o....

After a long time the words of a song, Dance me to the end of Love, were found on ABC radio.
Leonard Cohen, recently in Australia, wrote the song and has explained how its meaning goes beyond the wedding song I though it was and Wikipedia explains this. He has a touch of genius.
The song rings with timelessness and renewal and, for a young couple, makes for a very emotive interlude in a Wedding celebration (if it accords with their taste and even more so if the wedding day is in fact the beginning of the marriage, as it seems to be in some societies).

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin....
Dance me to the end of love....
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone....
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love....
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains...
Raise a tent of shelter now, thought every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love..

Dance me to the end of love Leonard Cohen
www. azlyrics.com reveal more
Flowers for a local church wedding

Slovakian Dance. I believe this dance group were visiting performers who knew the traditional regional lively dance forms while the cimbalom (type of dulcimer) player (on the left) could be a local performer as he has been seen before in a folk group. The violinists were the stars.
In Newcastle, the cimbalom artist compered the show, (was he the main English speaker?) and, what's more, a member of the audience (not me) succeeded in identifying the cimbalom!
Pardon my ignorance, after several months I am fairly sure it was Slovakia and not Slovenia.

South Koreans in Australian. As well as mask dances Korean folk dances include drum dances (sungmu) full of action and skill. In this version the drummers marched to the stage to form a rank of drummers to entertain the crowd.

This is where The Jets (Newcastle United Jets Football Club) are training and preparing for a rumble.
Soon they will compete in the Asian football championships. Good luck!

Three jet-fighter planes are on their logo. What about the other Jets from West Side Story? Bernstein's music is wild and musicals are never the same again.
The Ray Watt Pavilion (see The Forum) is verdant after the recent rains. Overnight the lawns change from brown to green and the mosquitoes arrive in droves.

St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, where a dynamic recital on the pipe organ was given by student Jessica Lim who was Highly Commended, Junior and Intermediate Sections, Sydney Organ Competition 2008.

Today, the liturgy in Newcastle was highlighted by a setting composed by Greg Smith who is a musician and organist at the Sacred Heart Cathedral.
A professional organist is indeed a treasure. Their music takes away the potential stress that is inherent when congregation and music join forces although positive experiences are come upon.

William Hill and Son built the original 1866 organ for St Andrew's, with later additions and alterations by several other makers. Orgues Letorneau Ltee, Ste Hyacinthe, Quebec completed the most recent work in 1998. The organ was restored to display Blacket's (colonial architect) original highly coloured decorations, including an unusual wrought iron framework. The instrument has been moved from the opposite side of the building. Full compliment of playing aids including 8 general, adjustable crescendo pedal & 64 channel sequencer. Electric Action to drawstops. Mechanical Action to manuals. Manual IV and pedal: electropneumatic. Electrical coupling. Compass 58/30.