Canberra International Music Festival
For the 2018 Canberra International Music Festival I was a guest artist where I had the following events:
April 27th, Fitters Workshop
Improvised duet contrabass flute and digeridoo, with William Barton
Improvised solo “Winter” for contrabass flute and electronics
Goldfish Through Summer Rain, Anne Boyd, for contrabass flute and piano
Flute/contrabass flute in Gambambarawaraga Suite, Brenda Gifford
May 2nd,
Pietra String Quartet performed Hymn, Arboretum
Improvised flute solo in Bonsai Garden, Arboretum
Susanna Borsch performed Workshop, Glass Works
Duo concert on contrabass flute with Claire Edwardes, percussion
The Singing Wall
Riccochet
Wurgelguik
May 3rd, Talk of the Town Q and A with Roland Peelman
May 4th, Canberra Grammar School
Back to Basics presentation of the iPad Concerto
May 6th, Fitter’s Workshop
Performance in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf
Performance in Holly Harrison’s The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party
Performance in Mary Finsterer’s In Praise of Darkness
Performance of S. Sciarrino’s Come Vengono Prodotti Gli Incantesimi?
“It opened with a short improvisation between didgeridoo master William Barton, a favourite presence at recent festivals, and a new-comer, Ned McGowan, playing that rare piece of plumbing, the contrabass flute. Already, a meeting of cultures and eras, a return to a distinctive CIMF theme.
…
Hearing McGowan play Anne Boyd’s familiar flute piece Goldfish Through Summer Rain three octaves lower than usual was a refreshing surprise.”
- Limelightmagazine.com.au, Vincent Plush, April 30, 2018
“The hum of machinery mingled with the electronic track to Ned McGowan’s Workshop, performed, fittingly, in the Hot Shop of Canberra’s historic – and still running – glassworks. The sound of Susanna Borsch’s amplified alto recorder skittered off the heaving industrial soundtrack, her fiendish technique machine-like in itself.
…
A flautist and composer, McGowan (also a performer at this year’s Canberra International Music Festival) wrote Workshop for Borsch in 2004, but this performance in the Glassworks felt made to order. The piece is episodic – spanning lyrical passages to grinding, lurching machine rhythms – and unfolded with Borsch playing under a neon Hot Shop sign, glassworkers wandering through the space (sometimes with glowing molten glass) as she duetted energetically with the electronic track. “This is not a doctor’s waiting room,” as festival AD Roland Peelman put it in his introduction to the concert. A large industrial fan that whirred to life behind me felt like it was part of an ambitiously choreographed site-specific performance.
…the hit was the McGowan – Borsch’s white-hot performance of Workshop was made for the Hot Shop.”
– Limelightmagazine.com.au, Angus McPherson, May 3, 2018
“Multi-talented flute-player and composer Ned McGowan”
- Limelightmagazine.com.au, Vincent Plush on May 7, 2018
“…intriguing show of music created with apps…”
– citynews.com.au, Helen Musa, May 5, 2018
