Acoustic Voice Morning Concert
"Singing the Sacred"
Celebrate the deeper meaning of Christmas! Enjoy hearing familiar biblical texts set as solo songs. Composers include Mozart, Dvorak, Humphreys, and Ellington in a program performed in this great, acoustic hall. The singers will be accompanied by the magnificent grand piano. Come along and experience something moving, thrilling, and genuinely human!
Morning tea and a Chrissy present included!
Major sponsor: Barry Plant Northcote.
Tuesday, 17 December, $16 10am␣11.10am
Main Hall, Northcote Town Hall 189 High Street, Tram Route 86, Stop 31
Tickets: www.northcotetownhall.com.au or 03 9481 9500 (booking fee may apply)
A blurb from the Artistic Director of Acoustic Voice, Dr Graham Clarke.
Press Release
‘Morning Melodies’ – A Christmas Concert for the community.
Northcote Town Hall December 17th 2013 – 10am.
We live in an age where music is all around us—available from an amazing array of devices! From our car, with headphones on in a train, on a bus, in a lift, at the movies, on television, shopping in a store, we are hearing a lot of music. Or are we?
What we are hearing is, in every instance, a recording. Not an authentic, original sounding, but a second generation of an original. In much the same way as a stunning photograph of a coastal scene may evoke the feelings of the actual place, so too does recorded music represent an original experience. Both the photograph and a recording are only two dimensional.
The MSO recently ran a promotion to come to their concerts and hear music in 3D. This year, they’re asking us to come and feel the music!
Recorded music has become such a (complete) substitute for the original that, at least two generations of listeners have never experienced three dimensional sounding. For them, a played-back track is normal music. This has become so dominant that, now, even in our theatres using live performers, the sound is so highly engineered before the audience gets to hear it that a whole new set of problems arise.
Not that the technical expertise is in any way lacking; far from it! But, one of the chief problems now occurring is, as an audience member, we have no connection with the performer on stage. Have you ever had to scan from left to right of the full stage to try and see who is singing at any given moment? Have you seen a full orchestra assembled in the theatre pit and yet not heard them play because the sound is coming so strongly from several sets of speakers? Have you ever wondered if the singing we are hearing is from the artist on stage, or is s/he miming?
We now know that someone as famous a singer as Pavarotti used to lip-sync most of his arena performances! This practice was shamefully admitted too by his musical director after Pavarotti’s passing. Why was the music of someone like Benny Goodman so great? Because it was not only musically satisfying, but because it was experienced live—in 3D—and felt by the audience.
Dr. Graham Clarke is one of Darebin’s unsung musical treasures.
After graduating from Melbourne University with a double degree in voice and piano, Graham was invited by the late Betty Pounder to teach at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne during the run of Irene. He worked alongside the GTV9 vocal coach and studied classical piano with Muriel Shepherd. For over 44 years, Graham has been voice and singing coach to performers including Kylie Minogue, David Hobson, Terry Donovan, Evelyn Krape, Daniel MacPherson, and Jesse Spencer. His research on the mechanics of singing led to his doctorate on “The principles and teaching of Bel Canto: the grammar of the human cry”. He’s the musical director for the December 17 concert.
For this Morning Melodies concert, we are offering the opportunity to experience singing directly in the great acoustic space of the Northcote Town Hall. No, there won’t be a full band this time, but there will be a pianist who is threatening to make as much noise! The generosity of the local Barry Plant office, as the main sponsor for this concert, means that the magnificent grand piano can take pride of place and it will be specially tuned as well. This concert follows on from the series presented in the historic space of Melbourne Conference Centre in Swanston Street earlier this year, in the newly refurbished Mechanics Institute for the Seniors Festival in Ballarat, and the recent 2013 Darebin Music Feast. If the song has words from a Bible text, then it qualifies for our program, Singing the Sacred. Just the thing to prompt a deeper thought about Christmas! Come and experience something that’s moving, thrilling, and genuinely human.