Bundanon 3

Greetings from Composition land.
We have spent most of today trying out the first draft of a new quartet by the composer Kevin March. It is entitled Water Dreamers and has a lot of lovely new sounds.
We won't tell you all about it because we want to save some surprises for the premier which will probably be in melbourne as Kevin lives in Victoria.
Needless to say we had a lot of fun and talked about various articulation choices, and how to make fancy fruit desserts. Kevin treated us to some of his favourites from his home town Michigan
Julia and Danny did a bushwalk in the afternoon down to Steamers beach in the Booderee National park and came across a strange wooden shelter and a ball that looked an awful lot like wilson.....
Nicole and Lisa were lucky enough to have the whole of Nowra pool to themselves and swam several thousand kilometers.

Bundanon Adventures 2

Hi Everyone, Nicole & Julia here, posting from a MUCH cooler Bundanon. The temperature has dropped about 10 degrees this afternoon, making sleeping a much more pleasant prospect.

Last night didn't get much below 30 degrees, so the residents of the Musicians Cottage (see photo?) decided to sleep al fresco, on the verandah, much as our grandparents would have done in country Australia in the early twentieth century. Danny, Adrian (our visiting choreographer & Pilates instructor), and Nicole braved the mozzies, the enormous flies and the wombats to achieve a much improved night's sleep. We awoke to the sound of the bulls in the lower paddock, Elton & Bruce, bellowing good morning at their girlfriends' in the paddock opposite. They certainly weren't a patch on Elton John and Bruce Springsteen;)

Adrian, who now works for the Sydney Dance Company, has been here chatting about improvisation, in both music and dance, and taking Pilates and stretch classes for us. Very important for musicians bodies (and highly beneficial for all, no matter what profession!). We had a fabulous class last night in the somewhat cooler evening air on the front lawn of Bundanon - a bit like 'Bikram' pilates/yoga, where everything stretched further in the heat!

We farewelled Daniel on Saturday, who explained his PhD research project to us, which involves writing journals and video diaries on our rehearsal and performance process, and have welcomed Kevin today, one of the composers writing for us along the songlines of water. We are very excited about exploring the first draft of this new quartet with him tommorrow.

In between, we thought we might leave you with some fantastic photos Lisa took this afternoon at Bouderee National Park, images of water which seem to be becoming a bit of a theme of our residency

Peninsula Summer Music Festival retrospective

Bundanon Day 1

Try and guess what this is management speak for:

Meaningful interaction with the environment and dialogue with the local/indigenous surroundings in order to facilitate enhanced artistic expression.....

We will give you a hint...see above!!


We didn't spend all day at the beach however, we have practiced, Lisa has been doing some work on her picture book, and Daniel is going to explain his research project to us.

We went to Riversdale today to meet the other artists in residence, who are multimedia artists working as a group called the 'Thinking through the body lab'. They have an interesting blog.

Bundanon Residency 2009

G'day everyone. Ironwood is off on their (almost) annual excursion to Bundanon, artist Arthur Boyd's magic gift to all Australians, and artists of all stripes (and spots;)

We will be in residence there from February 3 - 22, working on lots of different things. We plan on a couple of sessions a day including rehearsing programs for the rest of 09, trying out some exciting new works with composers Kevin March and Damian Barbeler, reading our way through lots of chamber music, and planning lots more concerts, workshops and adventures in between.

You can find out more about Bundanon at www.bundanon.com (follow the link down the side of this blog). Bundanon was one of the homes of the Boyd family,and is where Arthur Boyd painted many of his most famous works - things like Pulpit Rock, and the flametrees, and the rocks by the riverside are all things you can see as you walk around Bundanon.As well as being an artist-in-residence complex, Bundanon is also a working beef cattle farm, with a prizewinning herd of Brangus cattle..that's a cross of Brahman and Black Angus cattle breeds, for all those city dwellers out there;)

For anyone interested in reading more about Arthur Boyd and the amazing Boyd family, Darleen Bungey's new biography about Arthur Boyd is great reading, and Brenda Niall's comprehensive family biography 'The Boyds' is fabulous to get an overview of the Boyd family and how they influenced each other artistically.

We'll try to update our blog regularly during the residency so you can read and see more of what we get up to....Hope you can visit our blog often!
Until next week,
Best summer residency wishes from Nicole & Ironwood(with their Akubra hats and RM Williams boots on!)

Peninsula Summer Music Festival

It is almost that time of the year again, and the 2009 Peninsula Summer Music festival is going to be even bigger and better!
Ironwood features in a big way this year, with two concerts of very different repertoire.
Ironwoods first festival concert, called Viennese Soirée at 5pm on the 31st of December at Main Ridge Estate celebrates the new year with a fun filled program of works ranging from Mozart to Strauss Jnr to welcome the new year Viennese style. This is an interesting program for Ironwood, along side regular repertoire such as works by Mozart and Haydn, we will be exploring the vast amount of Viennese repertoire written in the early to mid 19th Century including works by Johann Strauss Jnr and Senior, Joseph Lanner, and Johann Schrammel.

Here is an excerpt from the program notes explaining these Viennese gems:
The early nineteenth century saw Viennese dance music gaining enormous popularity. Despite what we are used to hearing today, the first compositions were intended for small chamber groups in intimate settings. Joseph Lanner, along with Johann Strauss Sr were known as the original ‘Waltz Kings’ of Vienna. They began their careers as violinists in a string quartet playing in cafés, restaurants and parties. Lanner found much success as a composer, as did Strauss, and their friendship unfortunately transformed into rivalry. Lanner was equally as popular as Strauss in Vienna, and his Steyrische Tänze of 1841, based on folk melodies from the Austrian province of Steyermark (Styria), are amongst his best loved compositions.
Strauss Sr’s Bajaderen waltzes were composed in the peak of his popularity in 1832 and were dedicated to the crown prince of Spain. The melodies are based on Auber’s opera The God Brahma and the Bayaderes.
Johann Schrammel and Johann Strauss Jr represented the next generation of Viennese composer/performers. The former founded the famous Schrammel Quartet with his brother Josef. Their music, based on the folk melodies of old Vienna, became known as ‘Schrammelmusik’ and became famous throughout Europe. Johannes Brahms held Schrammel’s music in the highest regard and was often found in the audience at their public concerts. Kunst und Natur is based on ‘Wien bliebt Wien’ (Vienna is always Vienna) and was one of his most famous marches.
Johann Strauss Jr. was of course the most successful and celebrated composer of mid 18th Century Vienna. He started his career like his father as a chamber musician and before he had reached the peak of his fame, in 1852 when the Annen Polka was composed, he was writing for a relatively small group of instrumentalists. It was first performed in a bandstand in the Prater in Vienna during the festival of St Anne on the 26th of July 1852.

It has been fun putting a quirky program like this together and we know we are going to have a ball playing it!
If you would like a sneak preview, we will be playing some of these works during the ABC live broadcast this Sunday afternoon the 28th of December at 3pm in the Iwaki Auditorium, Melbourne. Please feel free to join us as entry is free, and or tune in your radio to 105.9 ABC Classic FM.

More soon about the other exciting concert Ironwood is playing in the Festival!

Ironwood Live and Unplugged!

Sunday 28 December 2008
3.00pm Sunday Live
With Colin Fox




LIVE BROADCAST
Direct broadcast from the Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Southbank Centre, Melbourne
Ironwood Chamber Ensemble
Rachael Beesley, violin
Julia Fredersdorff, violin
Nicole Forsyth, viola
Deirdre Dowling, viola
Nils Wieboldt, cello
Program includes:
Mozart String Quintet in C minor and a selection of shorter pieces anticipating celebration of the New Year!
Concert-goers in Melbourne are welcome. Please be seated by 2.50pm as the performance begins promptly at 3pm. Entry is free.
Producer: Haig Burnell