A part of history - and ain’t it grand

September 29, 2006

By Helen Musa

Arts Editor

If you owned a one-of-a-kind German-crafted, 125 year old Rönisch Concert Grand Piano, you would naturally want to have it tested out by the finest pianists you could find.

MUSIC TO HIS EARS: Professor Larry Sitsky put the Rönisch grand piano through its paces at its new home at the ANU School of Music yesterday. 

Picture: GRAHAM TIDY

That was no problem for the ANU School of Music Keyboard Institute - it has quite a few to choose from.

In fact, the school’s master fortepianist and Canberran of the Year, Associate Professor Geoffrey Lancaster, was seen on ABC TV recently trying out the fine instrument, bought for the school with the help of the Department of Environment and Heritage’s National Cultural Heritage Account, and a contribution from Pioneer Electronics Australia.

But yesterday it was the turn of Professor Larry Sitsky, who put the Rönisch through its paces by performing demanding works by Anton Rubinstein, composed during the era in which the piano was made and exported to Australia.

In 1845, Carl Rönisch established a piano-making company in Dresden. By the time he died in 1892, Rönisch’s company was known as the Official Purveyor to the Courts of the King of Saxony, as well as the Courts of Spain and Russia.

The School of Music bought the instrument from a private citizen in Melbourne who feared that it would be sold to an overseas buyer. It was commissioned in the 1970s or early 1880s by Australia’s Nicholson and Co and was for a time the centrepiece of the display in the company’s Melbourne showroom.

The head of the School of Music, Associate Professor John Luxton, described the instrument as important part of Australia’s musical heritage.

He said the unique piano would continue to make history by being part of the education of the next generation of talented Australian pianists.

Tomorrow at 7.30pm in Llewellyn Hall, a talk by Professor Lancaster will proceed a performance of works my Rubinstein on the Rönisch by Larry Sitsky.

Bookings on 6275 2700 or www.canberraticketing.com.au

First published in The Canberra Times, September 29, 2006 

Album Review: SUBURBAN SONGBOOK - BOB EVANS, EMI 0946 3 69330 2 3, Reviewed by Tony Magee

This very aptly named album from Bob Evans captures the listener instantly with songs that are extremely well written, wonderfully varied in style and brilliantly performed.

It follows a pleasing current trend with some Australian singer-songwriters do deliver meaningful lyrics and say something relevant about society and relationships in a simple uncluttered musical style, well arranged and thoughtfully produced, not unlike the good old days of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, where a decent and meaningful country ballad stood proudly alongside a driving rock piece.

Bob Evans likes this eclectic mix of styles, combining a country feel with the rock and pop idiom. His voice is light and flexible, with good diction and range, all of which means you get to understand his lyrics and feel the emotion that he writes and sings about. He favours a slight 1960’s feel to his songs. Some tracks, for example – Nowhere Without You and Don’t Walk Alone - are reminiscent of the Beatles. At other times, Bob Dylan influences pop up. But there is the ever present and welcome 21^st century drive and lightness combined with a swinging ease of delivery. 

His instrumentations are varied as well. There is certainly an acoustic feel to the album which includes guitars, mandolins, double bass and harmonium, combined with a traditional rhythm section, however some tracks add brass, sometimes strings, country fiddle, slide guitar, sometimes rich vocal harmonies, at other times just the simple solo voice of Bob. In fact, the eight musicians on this album play thirty-four instruments between them! Bob Evans alone is responsible for lead vocals, guitar, harmonica, bells, claps, piano and mandolin.

I’d very much like to see and hear this band in concert sometime, so hopefully a tour is coming up. This is my first introduction to this artist, so I’ll certainly be looking forward to hearing more from the very talented and listenable Mr Bob Evans.

Tony’s rating: 4.5 stars

First published in Eat Drink Magazine, August 2006 and Our Hotel Magazine August 2006

Album Review: BIC RUNGA - Birds

SONY/BMG 82876811792

Review copy supplied by Abels Music, Canberra

Reviewed by Tony Magee

New Zealand singer songwriter Bic Runga has released her third album – Birds. Most interesting stuff.

Little hints of The Whitlams and even Al Stewart are evident in terms of vocal line style and melodic progressions. Even so, this is definitely a new sound and Bic presents here a mostly ethereal and reflective collection, all written by her. The structure of the songs is simple but there is an elegance of shape and form and nothing cluttered or over arranged. Mostly what one would call rock or pop ballads with one piece of old style blues thrown in, where you are suddenly sitting on someone’s front porch in 1930’s Mississippi. That track is called No Crying No More.

The album opens with a fairly bouncy number called Winning Arrow. Medium tempo pop. From then on it’s slow but thoughtful. One of the most appealing pieces for me is the title track, Birds. It is in a minor key and has a chord structure mostly centring around tonic and dominant. There is a distinct Middle Eastern feel to it in places. The middle section is beautifully orchestrated by Neil Finn and Tom Rainey giving a lush sweeping sound over which Bic soars with haunting vocals swoops and curves, rather like an eagle. I suppose that’s partly the point of it.

Neil Finn also appears on other tracks playing keyboards and backup vocals. It’s great to see and hear a modern album using real instruments, particularly when it would be oh-so-easy to just bring in a synth string sound – but no – all those lush violins and other strings are real instruments and all the players are credited. There is also harp and French horn as well as the usual rock and pop lineup. The arrangements throughout the album are all superb and really make it something quite special.

The recording quality is very good too, particularly the backup vocals, which are crisp and full, and superbly pitched by the singers. Bic herself has a voice which wafts sweetly and surely.

The booklet contains some superb photographic reproductions of birds by Fiona Pardington from her series “Future Beings” and also a reproduction of Kasimir Malevich’s 1913 oil on canvas, “Black Square”, for anyone interested in modern art.

This album represents excellent value for money, because you also get a second CD with five tracks recorded live at a Bic concert at the Civic Theatre, Auckland in Nov 2005 (although the album actually states Nov 2006 – but that’s yet to happen!!). This album grows on you. I think you will like it.

First published in Eat Drink Magazine, May 2006 and Our Hotel Magazine, May 2006

Album review: ELENA KATS-CHERNIN - Wild Swans

ABC Classics 476 7639

Review copy supplied by Abels Music, Canberra

Reviewed by Tony Magee

Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin composed the music for the ballet Wild Swans, which was choreographed by Meryl Tankard for the Australian Ballet, in 2003. Here, it is presented on this excellent CD, along with her Piano Concerto No. 2 and a single movement piece called Mythic.

The score for Wild Swans – a suite in 12 movements -  is wonderful, magical, a whirlwind of haunting drama, mysticism, witchcraft and sorcery. Based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen, the young girl Eliza is driven from her home by her wicked step-mother, who turns her eleven brothers into wild swans.

Kats-Chernin’s score captures perfectly the fairytale world of the story. The power of music to evoke images has always been one of the great wonders of the arts and when it’s well written, like this piece is, the images can be very striking and vivid. Perhaps the most beautiful part is the representation of Eliza, bereft of words, by a single wordless soprano voice set amongst the instruments of the Tasmanian Symphony, ably delivered by Jane Sheldon.

The Piano Concerto No. 2 is played by Australian pianist and composer Ian Munro. It is a lyrical and melodic work, with a particularly atmospheric and reflective opening. The second movement uses fragments from Chopin’s waltzes to create a blues-like interlude. The third is powerful and discordant. The fourth uses a repeating phrase format to build musical surges. It is a glowing work and full of so many musical ideas, twists and turns, that it is amazing to think that all this is packed into one work.

Finally, Mythic is a rather more sombre piece, but with plenty of drama along the way, and makes full use of the excellent musicians of this fine orchestra.

First published in Eat Drink Magazine and Our Hotel Magazine, March 2006

Obituary: Gery Scott - Lives in Brief - The Times

Edition 1WCMON, 13 FEB 2006, Page 55

Gery Scott;Lives in brief;Obituary;The Register

FEATURES

Gery Scott, jazz and cabaret singer, was born on October 5, 1923. She died on December 14, 2005, aged 82.

Although Gery Scott became well-known to British audiences during the latter part of the Second World War, when she sang regularly at the BBC with Harry Gold’s Pieces of Eight, and the band led by guitarist Vic Lewis, she achieved most of her fame outside the UK.

Born Dianne Geraldine Whitburn in Bombay, she first recorded in Calcutta for the Indian branch of Columbia before coming to England in 1943. After the war she made headlines in the former Eastern bloc. Signed to the Supraphon label in Czechoslovakia, she sold several million records in the communist world throughout the 1950s, with bands led by local arranger Gustav Brom, and by her second husband, Igo Fischer. She toured the Soviet Union and was invited to sing the jazz anthem, How High the Moon, at the Kiev Opera House to celebrate the launch of Sputnik 1.

Scott moved to London in the early 1960s, where George Martin signed her to Parlophone. In 1980 she decided to settle in Australia, where she remained after the murder of her third husband, the oil magnate Tony Diamond. Her final appearances were in Canberra in October last year.

First published in The Times, February 13, 2006

Album Review: WHAT WAS LEFT - CLARE BOWDITCH AND THE FEEDING SET, EMI 094634071826, Reviewed by Tony Magee

Clare Bowditch possesses a wistful, wandering voice, full of interesting textures and colour. All the material on this album is original, composed by Clare herself. She searches very deeply indeed amongst subjects so varied, but all within the great framework of life’s ups and downs, difficulties, sadnesses and joys, loves and losses and so much more.

The lyrics, which are also reproduced in the booklet, are written more as rambling stories without metre or rhyme. The fascination is then listening to how Clare has written the music to capture the words, which as I say are often in a very unordered fashion. It’s different to most traditional forms of song-writing and in that regard reminds me of the Beatles in their later years. Very, very creative, unusual, non-conformist and gripping to listen to.

The musical arrangements and backings are excellent. Clare’s band is full of energy and drive when required. At other times it’s just the gentleness of acoustic guitar. Drummer Marty Brown has a great sound – broad, expansive and full of depth, without bashing. He also doubles on piano, pump organ, violin-zither, electric guitar, saron and something called “phantom Vietnamese instrument” – whatever that is.

The band plays together with such a relaxed feel - they obviously all know each other musically very well and can fit things together seamlessly. Backing vocals and harmonies are also beautifully done.

In summary, I think this is one of the best Australian albums to come out in years. Clare and all the musicians are major talents. Her talents as a songwriter are captivating. Most importantly, this is a new sound. I’m on my fourth listen now and I can’t turn it off. Go get it.

Tony’s rating: 4 stars

First published in Eat Drink Magazine, Feb 2006 and Australian Hotels Association Magazine Feb 2006

Article: GERY SCOTT WAS A JOY TO LISTEN!

by Ondřej Suchý

I STAYED in surprise to stand on the pavement in front of the Supraphon shop, from where amplion sounded twice in a row: "Day O"! The woman's voice, to which the orchestra joined. The year 1957 was written, I was twelve, wearing a three-quarter jacket, to which my mummy was wearing a yellow olive-button and a scarf on the sides. Someone in this fashion said he was strapped, and I longed for it to look a bit like a tape. Well, now suddenly do it: Day O! And genuine English! Amazing!

Gery with Gustav Brom

And so I first heard a singer named Gery Scott and Calypso, one of whom was initially singer Harry Bellafonte, but on Supraphon records she was presented as a traditional Banana Boat Song in brackets: The Banana Boat Song. But that was all outside of me - we have always said it just "Banana Kalypso".

At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, Gerry Scott's songs broke up. She probably sang most of it with the orchestra Gustav Brom, but then her recordings with the orchestras of Karel Vlach and Dalibor Bráz were released on the recordings, with boys wearing "Volarééé, oh-ho ..." and Gerry Scott was "our".

How and when it was gone from Czechoslovakia we did not notice it; we were already in captivity a little different - rock and roll, twist, Beatles and actor. I learned about her later fates only a few years ago from my friend living in Australia, the musicologist John Pear (Czech writer Václav Hruška).

Gery Scott, by the real name Diana Whitburn, was born in Bombay as the daughter of the British governor, and in India, as well as a nineteen-year-old, she made her first gramophone record. In 1945, she moved to England, where she began her real professional vocal career - she sang with leading UK big band and regularly recorded for the BBC. Soon she started to make a big tour of Europe. Until then, after her accidental encounter with Gustav Brom, she became one of the first Western artists to begin acting as an "Iron Curtain".

As the very first jazz singer from the West, she performed in the Soviet Union (for example, in the Kiev Opera, in honor of the first Sputnik.) In the Soviet Union, her recordings were sold to six million gramophone records! She also signed a seven-year contract with the Czechoslovak company Supraphon, for which she then sang several dozen songs.

In the 1960s, she first returned to England, where her producer and manager, Beatles George, signed a contract with Parlophone in 1962, later moved to Asia where she worked in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore, not only as a singer, but as well as the owner of the recording company and the entertainment director.

She settled in Australia for the first time in 1981 and began teaching vocal arts at the Canberian Music School at the Institute of Art, where she was appointed Head of the Jazz Singing Department in 1985 as an AMU in Prague or the JAMU in Brno. She stayed until her retirement in 2002. She was very popular as a pedagogue, and hundreds of students passed through her hands, each of whom in her personal style and singing speech took some of her footprints.

In addition to acting at the Music School, she continued to perform in Canberra at jazz festivals and shows of cabaret singers throughout the country ...

  

You surely suspect the reason that led me to write this information. Unfortunately, this is the case: Gery Scott, a fabulous jazz and cabaret singer who has enjoyed audiences in 26 countries over six decades, died on December 14, 2005 in Canberra at the age of 82.

"Gery's medical condition has worsened over the last few months, and I'm grieved to report that she has died in complications caused by lung cancer in peace and dignity at Clare Holland House," said agent Tony Magee.

In Australia, she left Christopher Lofting's son and granddaughter Kate Lofting. Besides them, her relatives also live in England, Russia and the United States.

  

I'm still keeping old Shell records with her songs, and some newer EPs that were once issued by Supraphon (especially for export). They are part of my more advanced childhood and I will never get rid of them, even though I do not play them today. I have them already burned on one of the cages, which I always reach when I want to go back to remembering the times when I was - time-to-do - carefree and, therefore, the happiest.

Gery Scott is still happy to listen!

The author thanks for the shots of G.Scott from Australia JOHN PEAR and his WORLD MUSIC ARCHIVES from Australian Manilly!

 text © Ondřej Suchý, 25.1.2006

Translated from the original Czech text using Google Translate, 8.9.2018

Article: JAZZ DIVA HAS LEFT FINE LEGACY

Gery Scott's music goes on although she is singing it no more.

by Tony Magee

       from The Canberra Times, Sunday 8th January 2006.

Seventieth celebrations

Story and photos by Lyn Mills

Play it again Tony... Tim Stephen of Jerrabomberra, joined
Tony Magee of Torrens at the piano.

HAPPY New Year to you all and a happy 70th birthday to Bill Stephens.

Today is the big day but in the season of partying hard the family chose to have the celebration for Bill a couple of days before.

Bettie Seaton of Queanbeyan and Max and Bev Stephens of Tea Gardens.

With the tinkling of ivories from Tony Magee in the background, the Hyatt was a cool oasis for a party that gathered friends, relatives and colleagues for the man who is a constant on the Canberra theatre scene and always generous with his knowledge, constructive criticism and support for a wide range of events.

It wouldn’t be an opening without the always sartorial Bill and his poised and perfect Pat. Their days with The School of Arts Cafe in Queanbeyan, gave exposure to local, interstate and international cabaret artists and an intimate environment for the audience.

It’s missed, but Bill is still influential in his own way, most recently handling a cast of hundreds for the smooth running of the Carols by Candlelight at Norwood Park.

Mark and Bronwyn Sullivan of Chapman, with Coralie Wood of Curtin and Jen and David Kilby.

First published in The Canberra Times, January 1, 2006