FROM THE
PRESIDENT
The 2014 Festival was my first
as President. I was delighted
by its critical acclaim, its
varied program and its far
reach.
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This festival, Josephine Ridge’s second as
Artistic Director, saw some programming
from 2013 extended and developed. Haydn
for Everyone, for example, was performed
as the middle of a three year program,
allowing audiences to delve deeper into the
prolific and beautiful work of this prominent
composer.
The Festival saw some specific 2014 features
as well. In particular, the circus offering
was astounding in its quality and breadth. It
held audiences spellbound, whether via the
slick and chic mixture of circus, theatre and
dance in Cirque Éloize’s Cirkopolis, the avant
garde theatrical style of Dislocate in If These
Walls Could Talk, or the sheer elegance
and beauty of skill, movement and classical
music brought to us by Circa and Debussy
String Quartet in Opus.
I took special delight in watching the variety
of works and the variety of audiences.
I cannot resist naming some personal
favourites.
At TANDERRUM, the traditional Indigenous
ceremony in Federation Square, the leaders
of the five Kulin nations gathered again,
amidst story, song and dance performed
by scores of Indigenous youngsters, refined
and learned after months of productive
workshops. Pleasingly, it was observed by
thousands of Melburnians and visitors who
crowded into vantage spots around the
Square, a wonderful community response
to the generosity of the City of Melbourne’s
funding that enabled TANDERRUM to be so
beautifully presented to us, followed by an
uplifting free concert.
Hamer Hall rocked to the maestro of sonic
innovation, Jeff Mills, who performed with
the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It was a
wonderful melange of musical virtuosity that
had the crowd on its feet, in a way not often
seen in that venue.
For a feel-good experience there was
nothing to quite equal watching the pure joy
of the children at shows tailored especially
for them. They sat in PRIMO mesmerised in
the dark, hands and faces pressed against
the sides of a specially installed pool as
Alfredo Zinola and Felipe Gonzalez danced
and swirled in the water, creating ripples
and shapes that had adults as well as the
children completely enthralled in the aquatic
dreamscape.
For a different rhythm, the contemporary
music program had young people (that is,
young people of all ages) clamouring for
tickets to Snarky Puppy and loving Tuba
Skinny, as well as enjoying a drink, debrief