Highlights from DISCOVERING ANCIENT EGYPT - Artefacts from the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities

At the National Museum of Australia until September 8, 2024

Visit by Tony Magee, Audrey Magee and Bill Magee, April 24, 2024

Audrey Magee at the Museum entrance.

Left: Bowl with crocodiles, Naqada people I, about 3750 - 3650 BCE, Egypt - painted pottery

Right: Jar with boats, Naqada people I, about 3500 - 3300 BCE, Egypt - painted pottery

AN ANCIENT BREW - Beer was a popular beverage in ancient Egypt.

Left: Drinking cup with lotus motif, New Kingdom about 1539 - 1077 BCE, Egypt - faience

Centre: Glass flask with handles, 18th Dynasty about 1390 - 1336 BCE, Egypt - glass

Right: Glass flask, Late period 722 - 332 BCE, Egypt - glass

Family stela of Huy, New Kingdom, about 1539 - 1077 BCE, possible Saqqara, Egypt - limestone

Statue of Isis, Graeco-Roman period, Roman Empire, about 304 BCE - 307 CE, Egypt - granodiorite

Book of the Dead of Nesnakht, Ptolemaic Period, about 304 - 30 BCE, Egypt - papyrus

Book of the Dead of Nesnakht, Ptolemaic Period, about 304 - 30 BCE, Egypt - papyrus

Book of the Dead of Padikhonsu, about 1076–944 BCE - papyrus

Coffin of Haytemhat, Late Period, about 722 - 332 BCE, possibly Saqqara or El-Hibeh, Egypt - wood

Outer Coffin of Hor, 25th Dynasty, about 722 - 655 BCE, Thebes, Egypt - wood

Left: Canopic Jar of Neferamun, New Kingdom, about 1539 - 1292 BCE, Egypt - pottery

Centre: Canonic Jar of Iteru, Late Period, about 722 - 332 BCE, Egypt - calcite (alabaster)

Right: Canonic Jar of Wahibre, Late Period, about 722 - 332 BCE, Egypt - calcite (alabaster)

Left: Naos-stela of Nebnetjeru, ?? Dynasty, about 1390 - 1283 BCE Saqqara, Egypt - quartzite

Right: Stela of Pakharu, 18th Dynasty, Tutankharnun-Ay, about 1332 - 1320 BCE, Saqqara, Egypt - limestone

Tomb statue of Hormin, 19th Dynasty, Seti I - Ramses II, about 1290 - 1213 BCE, Saqqara, Egypt - limestone

Audrey Magee and Bill Magee with the Tomb statue of Hormin

Offering stela of Khu and his family, Amenemhat II, about 1878–1843 BCE, Abydos, Egypt - limestone, AP 71. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden

Shirley MacLaine Is 'Feeling Good' as She Turns 90, and Announces New Book About Her 'Wonderful Life'

The legendary Oscar winner tells PEOPLE how she plans to celebrate her 90th birthday

by Mia McNiece

Updated April 24, 2024

Shirley MacLaine. PHOTO: 

STEVEN SIMIONE/GETTY

Shirley MacLaine is marking her 90th birthday by announcing the release of a surprising new book.

The Oscar-winning actress will share photos and stories from her life, with over 150 images from her personal archives, in her new book The Wall of Life, out October 22.

"I have lived a wonderful life and I wanted to share it," MacLaine tells PEOPLE. "All of the photos brought back such wonderful memories.”

The legendary star plans to celebrate her milestone birthday on April 24 with an intimate dinner with friends.

"We're getting together and I hope to eat something good,” she says.

MacLaine, who won an Oscar for 1983's Terms of Endearment and has starred in classic films such as The Apartment, Postcards from the Edge and Steel Magnolias, is still doing what she loves and will soon begin filming a new movie in Atlantic City titled People Not Places.

"It's a wonderful script and we are getting ready to start and will see what happens," she says of the film.

Shirley MacLaine. PHOTO: CHRIS DELMAS / AFP

MacLaine attributes her longevity to her years of dancing.

"I started my dance training at age three and stopped at about 67. It taught me discipline, loving music, working with people and dealing with pain," she says.

She says the idea to put together a book came about because of a wall of photos she had up in her Malibu home.

“About 45 years ago, I put ten or so framed photographs of friends and family and people I’ve worked with all grouped together on a living room wall," says MacLaine, who is also the author of the 1986 New York Times bestselling memoir Out On a Limb. "Everyone who came over loved to look at this montage, and so The Wall of Life was born. I’m pleased to share a selection of these photos — and some of the stories behind them — in this book.”

The Wall of Life. PHOTO: CROWN

In The Wall of Life, MacLaine reveals memories from her childhood with brother Warren Beatty, her early years on Broadway, becoming a mother and other special moments from her seven-decades in Hollywood. She also shares the backstory behind meeting notable figures such as Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis and the Dalai Lama.

As she celebrates her 90th birthday she says she is most grateful "that I can keep working."

"I have my friends and I am really healthy.”

First published at People, April 24, 2024

Lost Johnny Cash album Songwriter to be released in June with contributions from Dan Auerbach and more

Double J / by Dan Condon

Posted Tue 23 Apr 2024

A lost album that Johnny Cash recorded in 1993 has been unearthed and will be released next month.
Photo: Alan Messer

Early in 1993, Johnny Cash was at something of a career lull.

The late country legend, who died in 2003, aged 71, was in between recording contracts when he decamped to LSI Studios, a Nashville recording studio owned by his stepdaughter, Rosey Adams, and son-in-law, Mike Daniel, to record some songs he'd been writing.

Mere months later, Cash would meet producer Rick Rubin, who helped the country legend completely revitalise his career with the American series of albums. The sessions he recorded earlier that year were shelved and have never seen the light of day – until now.

This June, fans will get the chance to experience these songs for the first time with the release of Songwriter, an 11-track album of originals recorded in that early 1993 session.

But there is a twist.

When Cash's son John Carter Cash discovered the tapes, he discovered that, while the sound quality of Cash's performance was brilliant, the same couldn't be said for his accompanying band.

So, he stripped the recording back to just his dad's voice and guitar and assembled a new group of musicians to provide accompaniment to ensure the album sounded relevant to Johnny Cash fans in 2024.

Those musicians include guitarist Marty Stuart and the late bassist Dave Roe, who were both big parts of Johnny Cash's band in the 80s and 90s.

The Black Keys' guitarist Dan Auerbach and country legend Vince Gill both make guest appearances on Songwriter, alongside the late Waylon Jennings who recorded guest vocals on the original recording.

You can hear the musicians' reverence for Cash's early work in the album's first single Well Alright, which was released on Tuesday.

It truly sounds like vintage Cash, as he delivers his deep, wry croon against the backdrop of that skeletal shuffle typical of so many of his classic songs.

"We just went rudimentary," John Carter said in a statement released on Tuesday.

"We went straight to the roots, as far as the sound, and tried not to overly enhance it. We built as if dad was in the room. That's what we tried to do."

John Carter was assisted by engineer David "Fergie" Ferguson who is best known for his extensive work with Johnny Cash in the 90s and 00s.

"Between the both of us, Fergie and I have spent thousands of hours with dad in the recording studio, so we just tried to act like he was there: WWJCD, right?" he said.

The ultimate objective of the project is to give people another dose of the Johnny Cash that has been such a key part of pop culture and of his many fans' lives for the best part of 70 years.

"It's not about selling Johnny Cash, he would be doing that himself," John Carter said.

"I'm grateful that this record is here, even if it was only for me, because it reminds me of who my father was, and I do believe there are people out there that knew him on somewhat of a level that I did, that will be just as touched."

Songwriter is out Friday June 28.

First published at ABC News, April 23, 2024

Album launch and art draw Omar home

April 22, 2024

Omar Musa with his artwork… “I wanted to lean into dissonance, these spaces lacking coherence;
find comfort in contradiction.” Photo: Boyz Bieber

By Len Power

Omar Musa, Bornean-Australian author, visual artist and poet from Queanbeyan, will be back in Canberra next month to launch his third album of music and poetry, The Fullness, and an arts exhibition, All My Memories Are Mistranslations.

The Fullness is Omar Musa’s third full-length album of music and poetry, an expansive opus of sounds and styles. With long-term collaborator Papertoy at the helm, Omar explores themes such as environmental destruction, addiction, grief, searching for a homeland and – ultimately – rejuvenation.

In one moment, Omar rages about logging corruption over traditional Bornean war horns in Fire On The Hills, the next he’s wistfully examining his complicated relationship with Islam in a post 9/11 world on Too Hard to Say, or poetically paying homage to his beloved Queanbeyan River on Love So Deep.

Omar, who now divides his time between Brooklyn and Borneo, tells me from Borneo that The Fullness was “made in joy, polished with grief”.

“I recorded these songs just for fun, to express a new-found joy, but I never properly finished them,” says Omar. 

“But when my best friend died last year, I decided to finish them and dedicate something beautiful to him, to honour our friendship and the fullness of his life. 

“The album then grew into something much more ambitious, made in studios from New York to Kota Kinabalu to Sydney.”

Whereas his last album, 2017’s Since Ali Died (and the acclaimed one-man play that grew out of it) was sonically and thematically dark, The Fullness is brighter and more melodic, with rich, live instrumented textures that veer into the experimental.

“I’ve toured with my friend Kae Tempest a number of times, and I took inspiration from the way they use poetry in their music and blur the lines between different styles. I wanted to do my own Queanbeyan/Borneo take on this borderless poetic approach to genre, and mix rap, poetry, pop and soul – and then get really, really weird with it.”

This musical and thematic diversity sees Omar collaborate on tracks with New York cellist Mariel Roberts, Peruvian composer and Phillip Glass mentee Pauchi Sasaki, Thom Crawford, Lucy Sugerman, acclaimed poets and writers Sara Saleh, Nam Le and Jazz Money, and Thundamentals’ producer DJ Morgs. 

Talking about his upcoming exhibition, All My Memories Are Mistranslations, Omar says: “It amazes me how often I get it wrong. How often I’ve sat down with my grandparents, and a story I’m told solidifies into a personal mythology, only to find out years later that I’d misheard (or mislistened?) and crucial things were lost in translation.

“In All My Memories Are Mistranslations I wanted to lean into dissonance, these spaces lacking coherence; find comfort in contradiction.

 

I made an unlikely mash-up of the two very different places I live between – Malaysian Borneo and Brooklyn, New York City – to make a playful, unsettling world inhabited by ghosts.

“Here, there is a clash of rose-tinted romanticism against latter day capitalism and ecological collapse; the discarded and the sacred, grief and rejuvenation, the joy and pain of homecoming. The ghost of a famous anti-colonial rebel stands in an abandoned building. Bornean boys sail across a coin-operated washing machine in Brooklyn. Aquatic creatures flow across the sky into a fish trap as a figure takes a selfie in the mirror. A boat, a symbol of my ancestral Suluk seafaring, sinks in an ocean of plastic trash”, he says.

The Fullness album launch with Lucy Sugerman, Sideway Bar, Civic, May 3. 

All My Memories Are Mistranslations, Humble House Gallery, Fyshwick, May 4-June 2.

First published at Canberra City News, April 22, 2024

Sir Andrew Davis, much-loved British conductor, has died aged 80

21 April 2024

Sir Andrew Davis, much-loved British conductor, has died aged 80. Picture: Alamy

by Maddy Shaw Roberts

Farewell to Sir Andrew Davis, a giant of classical music who led several of the world’s great orchestras and opera companies.

English conductor Sir Andrew Davis has died aged 80, after being diagnosed with leukaemia last year. He died yesterday in Chicago, where he lived with his wife.

Born in 1944 in Hertfordshire, the eldest of four children, Davis learned to play the organ as a teenager. He studied at the Royal College of Music and King’s College, Cambridge where he was an organ scholar.

Among his many achievements, Davis was conductor laureate of the Toronto and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, music director of the Chicago Lyric Opera from 2000 to 2021, and music director of Glyndebourne opera festival from 1988 to 2000.

In 2015, Sir Andrew was appointed Conductor Emeritus at Classic FM’s partner orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

“I have always considered the beginning of my career to be my participation in the Seminar for Young British Conductors with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969,” said Sir Andrew at the time.

“I am deeply touched and honoured by this gift and relish the prospect of making music regularly in and for this wonderfully vibrant city, of which the Orchestra is the finest jewel.”

English conductor Andrew Davis during a concert, 21 July 1978. Picture: Getty Images

Classical musicians and arts institutions have been paying tribute to the great conductor.

The Royal Opera House shared a statement saying: “We are saddened to hear of the death of conductor Sir Andrew Davis.

“In a career spanning over five decades, he was the artistic leader of several of the world’s most distinguished opera and symphonic institutions.”

Julian Lloyd Webber, conductor, musician and broadcaster, wrote: “Sad to learn of the death of Sir Andrew Davis. A great musician who was wonderful with his soloists.

“I treasure the memory of a lovely Delius Concerto in 2012 with Philharmonia Orchestra. RIP.”

Conductor Michael Seal said: “RIP Sir Andrew Davis – I never had the fortune to meet him in person but did spend a lovely couple of hours interviewing him for my podcast.

“A lovelier person you couldn’t wish to meet, humble & warm. He’ll be sorely missed – a great conductor & musician as well as a lovely human.”

Angela Hewitt, pianist and festival director, said: “Oh, Sir Andrew Davis has died. How sad. A wonderful musician, long-time music director… did so much for music in Canada & everywhere.

“We last played together in February ‘23 in Manchester. He was not well, but when he conducted it was full of life & precision.

“I said we must perform together again soon. His reply: ‘Sooner rather than later’.

Davis moved to Chicago in the year 2000 with his wife Gianna Rolandi. Their son, Edward Davis, is a composer.

First published at Classic FM (UK), April 21, 2024