There is currently much activity across the Faculty as students prepare for their end of year performances, screenings, exhibitions and concerts. Our Spring season of events promises to provide an exciting glimpse of the year’s work of students from across the six disciplines of the Faculty. Also in this issue we celebrate the success of the recipients of two tremendously generous scholarships, the Dorcas McClean and the Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowships. These successful students and alumni are now planning their itineraries to further their artistic practice overseas.

Please join us for the Spring season of events. I look forward to welcoming you to the Faculty of the VCA and Music.
 

Professor Sharman Pretty

Invisible Stains is a new work conceived and directed by Tanya Gerstle, created by Theatre Company 09 and fully produced by Production students. The work takes the audience on a roving trip through a palimpsest of memories from the 20th Century and tackles the notion of intergenerational memory and its impact upon contemporary youth caught in a culture of hedonism. This promises to be a gritty and enthralling production.
Watch a glimpse >>

Win one of five double passes to Invisible Stains on Thurs 22 October at 7.30pm, email vcam-enews to win!

21 - 30 October
Full details and booking info >>

Some of Australia's most exciting early music instrumentalists are performing at the Spring Early Music Festival this month. The ten day festival features performances by local and visiting professional musicians, recent graduates and current early music students. Under the direction of Professor John Griffiths at the School of Music, a highlight of the festival is the student production of Purcell’s 1689 opera Dido and Aeneas , marking the 350th anniversary Purcell's birth. One of the world’s leading flamenco guitarists, Oscar Herrero, will perform in the one non-early music concert of the festival.

Until 11 October
Full program details >>

In association with the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Margaret Lawrence Gallery presents Susan Jacobs: Security. Illusion. and Elvis Richardson: Housed. Nuturing the importance of home, the MIAF 09 visual arts program is based around dwellings, interiors and spaces we occupy. These two contemporary artists will create a new body of work on a large scale specifically designed for the Margaret Lawrence Gallery. Read more >>

Exhibition runs 16 Oct - 14 Nov
Margaret Lawrence Gallery
Open Tues to Sat 12pm - 5pm
40 Dodds Street, Southbank
 

On Monday 19 October, the School of Music Parkville Symphony Orchestra will perform at the Melbourne Recital Centre under the baton of Roy Theaker, the newly appointed MSO Associate Concertmaster. The program, featuring soprano Siobhan Stagg and bass baritone Nicholas Dinopoulos, includes a selection of Mozart's arias and duets, Stravinsky's 'Pulcinella' Suite and Mendelssohn's 'Italian' Symphony. Come along and enjoy a sublime evening of orchestral works.

Monday 19 October, 7.30pm
Full details >>
 

In early Spring, the School of Performing Arts announced the winners of over $60,000 of scholarships for Theatre students and graduates. This included the biennial $20,000 Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship, awarded this year to James Brennan, a theatre director who became a parole officer to conduct research for works based on violence and the justice system. The fellowship will fund a busy travel itinerary for James in 2010, during which he will join Companhia Livre director Cibele Forjaz in Brazil during the development of a new work. Read more >>

In early September three talented young Australian violinists battled it out for the University of Melbourne's biennial Dorcas McClean Travelling Scholarships. Two finalists from the Faculty of the VCA and Music: Ji Won Kim, a graduate of the Master of Music program, and Tessa Ho, currently undertaking a Bachelor of Music specialising in Music Performance, won $20,000 and $10,000 respectively. First prize of $30,000 went to Sujin Park form the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Read more>>
 

This month Dr Elizabeth Presa - sculptor, installation artist and Head of The Centre for Ideas - will be speaking on August Rodin as part of 'Key Thinkers', a series of public lectures where Academics from The University of Melbourne give talks on well-known thinkers whose works have inspired their own. Dr Presa will focus on the writings of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who worked as Rodin’s secretary and offered unique insights into how the sculptor ‘thinks’ with his hands. More info >> and watch recordings of the 'Key Thinker' series on SlowTV.
 

The Wilin Centre's Spring Intensive culminated in a spine-tingling concert on Friday 18 September. Those who were lucky enough to get a seat in the packed recital room were treated to the soaring talents of Deborah Cheetham alongside fifteen new Indigenous voices and guest professionals performing Wagner, Mozart, Gershwin, Verdi and a special glimpse of four scenes from Pecan Summer , Australia’s first Indigenous opera, written and composed by Deborah Cheetham. The 2009 Spring Intensive Course is part of the Wilin Centre's ongoing Indigenous Talent Identification Programme. Read more >>

The magical world of Puppetry comes alive this Spring with two seasons and two very different works by Masters of Puppetry students, Beth McMahon and Hamish Fletcher.The Seewell Family Cabaret, devised and directed by Beth McMahon was presented in late September to full houses as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. If you missed this surreal world, then be sure to witness Love Monster, 'an odyssey into the hormone storm of inarticulate passion that inseminates the ordinary', devised and performed by Hamish Fletcher. 7 - 10 October Full details and booking info >>

'Hunger is a strange silence'

Be in the run to win one of ten 2 for 1 season passes, courtesy of Madman Entertainment, email vcam-enews to win!
 

Directed by Film & TV graduate Jonathan Auf Der Heide, this terrifying but beautiful film features many alumni amongst the cast and crew, including producer Maggie Miles and leading actor/co-writer Oscar Redding. Based on the confronting and horrific confessions of convict Alexander Pearce. The film tells the story of eight convicts who escaped from a remote prison camp in 1822, into the brutal Tasmanian wilderness.
 

www.vandiemensland-themovie.com/

by Lally Katz

 
Win one of five double passes to Apocalypse Bear Trilogy on Monday 12 October at 7.30pm, email vcam-enews to win!
 

New lands are being created. Memory, now and the future are pouring onto the internet. Reality is splintering into shards of mirror and a casual, congenial bear is showing up at people’s houses. MTC also invites all VCAM students and staff to see Apocalypse Bear Trilogy for just $20, simply quote the password UNIMELB to redeem this offer. Tickets can be booked online, by phone on 8688 0800 or in person at the MTC Box Office.

8 - 24 October
MTC Theatre, Lawler Studio
www.mtc.com.au

Melbourne Festival invites vcam-enews readers to purchase 2 tickets to Seven Words for the price of 1!

A joint presentation by MIAF, ANAM and Victorian Opera, Seven Words involves musical meditations by Joseph Haydn, Sofia Gubaidulina and James Macmillan brought together over three evenings.

12, 14 & 16 Oct at 9pm
St Patrick’s Cathedral
 

To purchase 2 tickets for the price of 1, select your tickets online at ticketmaster.com.au and enter the password SACRED. (Discount is subject to ticket availability and applies to full price tickets only.)

www.melbournefestival.com.au

Melbourne Festival invites vcam-enews readers to purchase 2 tickets to Tyranny of Distance for the price of 1!

Two of Melbourne’s greatest composers come together with the MSO for a one off special performance of Julian Yu’s version of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ plus the world premiere of Brenton Broadstock’s latest work ‘Tyranny of Distance’.

Sat 17 Oct at 8pm
Arts Centre, Hamer Hall

To purchase 2 tickets for the price of 1, select your tickets online at ticketmaster.com.au and enter the password BRENTON. (Discount is subject to ticket availability and applies to full price A reserve tickets only.)
www.melbournefestival.com.au