Okay,it’s taken me a week to post a Zelman rave. So sue me! The work that went into last Sunday’s event was enough to fell a stout horse,let alone a tiny team of volunteers. From Friday morning until Tuesday morning it was eat,sleep and breathe Zelman …and not a whole lot of the sleeping,either. Our core team of Leanne Pleash,Louise Fillmore and Adam Dennis had planned the day for months and while that made many processes run more smoothly,we upped the ante over last year’s arrangements. I must give credit to the extra volunteers who made the day happen,being Gary Male (guerilla carpentry),Leanne Wegryzn (lunch catering),Tristan (staging,lunches,helping out in all quarters),and most of all Christine Wild,who flew in from the Hunter Valley especially to create gourmet foods for the event …voluntarily! To be honest,my primary memories of the Zelman will be that we had some great volunteers who worked hard and yet made it fun.

The Zelman arrived as a 50-piece orchestra on the day. Their renderings of Mozart,Beethoven and Schumann were satisfying;the audience were riveted by the sound filling the Yea Shire Hall. A highlight was the performance of Katherine Rawlings’piece Snow Rising;the composer was playing with the orchestra,and conductor Mark Shiels (who is also the orchestra’s creative director) explained that the Zelman is embarking on a program of new works. The Rawlings collaboration is the first;henceforth they’ll be working with one student composer each year. As Shiels noted,“We’re going to play music by composers who aren’t dead.”

When all was said and done however,the special part of the concert,the element that had everyone buzzing,was the featured soloists Damien Eckersley and Phoebe Russell. Their amazing performances had the audience absolutely spellbound;words do not suffice to describe how impressive their playing was. Damien is an established performer with the MSO but Phoebe,his 16 year old protege,is still in the early years of her career. We suggest you keep a sharp eye out for her future performances. Phoebe later confided that she and Damien were slightly disconcerted by the absolute silence of the audience during their performance. No coughs or squeaking chairs interrupted the full concentration on the intensity of the playing –it was as if the audience was cast in stone for the duration. Afterwards,more than one audience member exited the auditorium with glazed eyes from sitting squarely in front of the duelling double basses;apparently the vibration was overwhelming –in a pleasurable way.

I must give special mention to Mark Shiels’work conducting the orchestra for a mainly local audience. Aside from the achievement of getting fifty people playing together so sweetly –which is always astonishing when you really think about it –Mark was able to connect to the audience in a way that most conductors don’t seem to attempt. He told me later that he grew up in the country,and this allows him to transcend some of the formality usually associated with his role. For me,his chats to the audience made an already special performance into something far more accessible and enjoyable.

Now that the hall is cleaned,the truck returned and all the hired equipment back with its rightful owners,we now have to consider whether we can make the orchestra an annual event. It’s a big ask,given that we’ve lost money each year and much of the shortfall leaves a hole in my personal bank account. The question we’ll be addressing is whether there’s a way to cut costs and boost funding without affecting the integrity of the event. There are a few options that we’re exploring,and we’ll keep you in touch with those as they develop.

NB:I’ll post photos of the orchestra when they become available.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Gallery 34 was to open on 30 July. And it did indeed open,packing so many humans into its space that I thought I’d turned up to a Guinness record attempt by accident. That was a great joke right there but unfortunately I couldn’t share it because on the night I had no voice to speak with. Only a voice to squeak with,as my unsympathetic compadres noted with chortling good humour. I’d played a brave acoustic set at the Alexandra Library for their “Acoustica”series of fourth-Friday lunchtime concerts. It was the audience who was brave,not me:I’d woken with the scratchiest of voices but decided to press on regardless. Actually I enjoyed the session nothwithstanding the dodgy pipes,because I got to tell some stories behind the songs and generally relax into a slower pace of playing.

Ivan,Leone and Olivia at the launch

Notwithstanding my going easy on the singing,by about an hour after the session I found I’d completely lost my voice. So when I elbowed my way into the packed Gallery 34 and realised what a sterling networking opportunity it was,I ended up playing a sad Harpo Marx for the evening. The gallery’s owner,Olivia Lawson,looked like a deer in the headlights. I was thrilled for her –there’s nothing better than having a lot of people turn up to your opening! Even though bodies were packed in like sardines,it was easy to see that the space is fresh and airy with good lighting –an excellent backdrop for Leone Gabrielle’s dreamlike naive paintings. Leone’s work has deepened in recent years with her personal explorations set against scenes gleaned from her northerly travels both within Australia and to Indonesia.

The gathering was upbeat,the champagne was plentiful,Ivan Durrant’s opening speech was succinct and entirely suited to the moment. Although I was feeling poorly,the mood of the evening lifted my spirits and refreshed my confidence that Yea is destined to become a destination for interesting art.