Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) continues its stunning program of performances this year, from the likes of Matthias Schack-Arnott, Dan Sultan, Ziggy and Miles, Monash Academy Orchestra, and award-winning Indigenous writer, director, actor Glenn Shea.
Matthias Schack-Arnott
On 22 September, Australian artist, composer and percussionist, Matthias Schack-Arnott collaborates with Amelia Lever-Davidson and Nick Roux to create a brand new work, Given Volume, featuring percussion, light sources and immersive electronic sound, developed as part of the Monash University Performing Arts Centres commissioning program.
In this extraordinary performance, Schack-Arnott utilises the 63-channel system of the David Li Sound Gallery to its full potential. The work creates pulsating rhythmic waves of sound that shift in synchronicity with Lever-Davidson’s expansive lighting design. The work is based on a new approach to percussion that Schack-Arnott has developed in which electronic sound is triggered by the layered rhythmic patterns of his playing.
Schack-Arnott’s works span live performance, public art and installation. Over the last decade he has been building unique kinetic systems to create visceral and visually compelling sound worlds.
This recital is part of the 2024 Sundays in the Sound Gallery series, showcasing exceptional artists in the intimate and acoustically superb David Li Sound Gallery.
Dan Sultan
Seven-time ARIA award-winning singer-songwriter Dan Sultan will take to the Alexander Theatre stage on 20 September for an unforgettable night of live music.
Sultan has toured extensively, playing headline shows to sold-out crowds, as well as supporting the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Midnight Oil and Vance Joy. He has played some of Australia’s biggest festivals, including Splendour in the Grass, Blues Festival and Falls Festival, to name a few. Dan Sultan’s 2023’s self-titled album won the ARIA for ‘Best Adult Contemporary Album’ and was also nominated for ‘Best Solo Artist’ and ‘Best Independent Release’.
For this very special performance in the stunning Alexander Theatre, Dan will be supported by a performance from the runner up and winner of the Songwriting Prize 2024 for the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance, Monash University.
Ziggy and Miles
Two of Australia’s finest young musicians currently forging an international career, Ziggy and Miles, take to the David Li Sound Gallery stage on 28 July for the penultimate recital in the Sundays in the Sound Gallery series.
Currently based in New York City, Ziggy and Miles completed their studies at The Juilliard School this year under multiple Grammy winner Sharon Isbin. As Artist Diploma candidates, Ziggy and Miles became the first Australians of any instrument and first guitar duo in the program’s 20-year history to be accepted.
Their performances are known for their transfixing synchronicity and subtlety, exploiting the full range of colours and techniques of the guitar. Multi-movement works have historically been at the core of classical music since its rise to the concert stage. Here, brothers Ziggy and Miles present a unique program of suites and sonatas, all arranged and adapted for guitar duo.
Beginning with their own arrangement of Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, the brothers will demonstrate the expressive strengths of the guitar duo while keeping true to Debussy’s vision.
Three Magpies Perched in a Tree
Award-winning Indigenous writer, director, actor Glenn Shea presents Three Magpies Perched in a Tree on 11 – 12 September, narrated by the late Uncle Jack Charles, legendary actor and activist.
The performance tells the story of an Aboriginal man from the stolen generation, working in his Aboriginal community as a front-line juvenile justice worker, he meets many Aboriginal adolescent young people who come into contact with the criminal justice system. This story is about how the issues impact not only the young person but their friends, family, community, the society they live in and ultimately the Aboriginal worker who is trying to support them.
Glenn Shea won the 2023 Green Room Award for Best New Writing for this play and the script received the State Library of Victoria R.E Ross Trust Development Award 2010. It was presented as a reading at the World Theatre Festival 2011 and was Highly Commended for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2023.
Audiences can expect a beautiful, heartbreaking play of the Indigenous Gothic genre that provides spiritual reprieve through Creation Stories, in MPAC’s stunning David Li Sound Gallery.
“Gothic archetypes twist their way through this affecting and confronting theatre trilogy…from the collision of ancient and modern, juxtaposing Dreaming myths with grim testimony from the coalface of our Aboriginal justice and child protection systems” – Cameron Woodhead, The Age
Monash Academy Orchestra
On 25 August, Monash Academy Orchestra is delighted to welcome distinguished soloist Angela Li to perform Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, as well as iconic and evocative masterpieces of the twentieth century paired with exhilarating new orchestral works in the Robert Blackwood Hall. Featuring:
Benjamin Northey conductor, Angela Li piano, Anna Meredith Nautilus, Aaron Wyatt Voiceless*, Manuel de Falla Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings, Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No.9
Manuel de Falla and Dmitri Shostakovich both wear their national identity on their sleeves. Nights in the Gardens of Spain is one of the most beloved works for piano and orchestra with its rich atmosphere and evocations of Spain’s Moorish history, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No.9 is filled with a tragic exaltation for Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany the year before its premiere.
MPAC welcomes principal conductor in residence of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey, to conduct these much-loved works along with two much newer compositions; Anna Meredith’s electric Nautilus and the world premiere of a new work by Noongar composer/conductor/violist Aaron Wyatt, the Monash University Ed Byrne Commission for 2024. These will be performed alongside Samuel Barber’s heart wrenching Adagio for Strings.
Bookings and more info at monash.edu/mpac
