Buried treasure ............................................................................. The colonial woman composer Performers Thursday 4 August 2016, 1pm La Trobe Reading Room State Library Victoria Merlyn Quaife is an Jacinta Dennett is a leading Johanna Selleck is internationally-renowned figure in harp performance a composer, flautist, soprano of great versatility, and teaching in Australia, and musicologist. She performing regularly in and her work is recognised completed a PhD in opera, oratorio, chamber for its rare fusion of poetry composition at the music, lieder and and physicality. Her wide University of Melbourne contemporary music. She is range of performance in 2006. She currently a champion of new music experience includes teaches composition at the and has had many works concerto soloist, recitalist, university, where she is an composed for her. Quaife orchestral and chamber honorary fellow. Selleck is appears on CD with Naxos, musician. Dennett holds published by Cambridge ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, a Master of Fine Arts Scholars Press and has won and Move Records. She in Interdisciplinary Arts numerous awards including is currently Associate Practice and is currently the Percy Grainger Prize Professor and Coordinator undertaking a PhD at the for Composition. Her music of Voice at Sir Zelman University of Melbourne. is recorded on the Move Cowen School of Music, Records and Tall Poppies Monash University. labels. ................................................. Creative Fellow acknowledgments Johanna Selleck would like to express her deep appreciation to State Library Victoria for the opportunity to undertake a Creative Fellowship in the inspiring ..................... surrounds of the Library. 328 Swanston Street Selleck’s thanks are extended to Suzie Gasper, Melbourne Gail Schmidt, Rebecca Anthony, and Dermot McCaul from State Library Victoria, and to performers Merlyn Open 10am–5pm daily Quaife and Jacinta Dennett for their dedication and And until 9pm Thursdays. support for the project and their insightful and creative slv.vic.gov.au input into the performance. Front cover image I. Bacon, Miss Florrie Forde, c. 1880–1930, State Library Victoria Pictures Collection H8355 ............................................................................. Program notes ............................ Concert 1 Folk song Emily Patton Folk song is a truly remarkable art form. Without upsetting the conventional views Folk music and Classically-trained composers have on acceptable behaviour during the 19th popular song recognised this for centuries past, valuing century, women, including Emily Patton, it in its own right and paying tribute by found ingenious ways to develop their incorporating it into their music. musical skills. Patton’s book Harmony Merlyn Quaife, soprano Folk song is also an exceptionally good simplified for popular use (1880) has been Jacinta Dennett, harp vehicle for the art of interpretation (or re- described by musicologist John Whiteoak composing). It responds to different times, in his book Playing ad lib as ‘possibly the Johanna Selleck, flute ............................................. places, and people by undergoing continual first colonial publication to deal specifically change as the new is grafted onto the old. with improvisation. It may well represent a Repertoire has been researched, Program One of the earliest examples in Australia’s modest watershed in colonial thinking’. compiled, and arranged by colonial history comes from a group of In her role as a teacher, with her creative women convicts in Hobart in 1842, who abilities hidden under the veil of ‘interpreter Johanna Selleck as part of a Folk song: Creative Fellowship at State taunted their captors with spontaneous, and arranger’ rather than ‘originator Library Victoria. Female transport bawdy songs. Their songs did not survive, and composer’, Patton fitted with social but others have, such as the song ‘Female expectations regarding female etiquette, The red barn; She dressed in a man’s array transport’, which tells the story of the convict, the moral role of music, and women’s role A sister’s love Sarah Collins. as nurturers. Her book instructs students on Sally Sloane (1894–1982) is one of the most harmony and how to accompany ‘by ear’ The female rambling sailor documented singers in the history of Australian with elegant arrangements that bridge the traditional music. From recordings and gap between folk, popular, and art song. The research by eminent Australian scholars such two chosen for today are ‘The last rose of Emily Patton (1831–1912): as John Meredith and Jennifer Gall, we know summer’ and ‘The departure’. The last rose of summer that Sloane’s repertoire of songs was passed down to her across three generations of her Florrie Forde The departure maternal predecessors dating back to 1838. Her songs extended from folk to music hall The iconic star of music hall, Florrie Forde, to art song and were made more convincing provides a resounding note to conclude Florrie Forde (1875–1940): by her ability to adopt different stage voices. today’s concert. From humble beginnings ‘The red barn’ belongs to a genre known in Fitzroy, she made her first appearance on O Georgie, why don’t you try to as murder ballads. In this case, the murder the Sydney stage at age 16, and five years behave (by Jack Foley) of a young woman by her lover. A short later travelled to London, where she became improvisation links this to a bushranger ballad, an overnight sensation. She made over 700 ‘She dressed in a man’s array’. recordings on wax cylinders and some of the The ‘Buried treasure’ concert series challenges and The next song, ‘A sister’s love’, expresses earliest gramophone recordings. broadens contemporary understandings of the Kate Kelly’s grief over the death of her brother According to Paul St Claire in A portrait of notion of a composer. Dan in the siege at Glenrowan. The poem the artist as Australian, her legacy can be This series celebrates the creativity of women appeared in the Gundagai Times in 1881. For traced through to contemporary artists such musicians as performers, composers, and educators. the purposes of today’s performance (and on as Barry Humphries, whose roots lie in the Drawing on music from colonial Australia to the early- the expert advice of folklorist Mark Gregory), it distinctive brand of Australian music hall. 20th century, the first concert focuses on folk song, has been set to the tune of ‘Farewell to Greta’. ‘Oh Georgie’ allows considerable scope the second on art song, and the third on children’s The final song, ‘The female rambling for dramatisation drawing on the influence songs and Australiana. sailor’, is a street ballad dating from the of both art song and popular song. Singers The music highlights some of the ways women 1830s belonging to a genre known as female such as Florrie Forde and Sally Sloane show, were able to avoid social restrictions and find outlets warrior ballads. Research by Dianne Dugaw through their imaginative and personalised for their creativity. Through composing original music has shown how these songs depict women as approaches, an ability to grasp the essence of a particular style and expound on it highly and re-composing through creative interpretation, conquering heroes, often masquerading as original ways. This ability to bring together they created a rich and powerful legacy for those men and defying convention by becoming soldiers and sailors. The song narrates the diverse influences and meld them into who came after. real-life tale of the sailor Rebecca Young, who something uniquely personal is in itself a highly died after falling from her ship’s rigging. creative (compositional) act. Buried treasure ............................................................................. The colonial woman composer Performers Thursday 11 August 2016, 1pm Cowen Gallery Merlyn Quaife is an Jacinta Dennett is a leading Johanna Selleck is State Library Victoria internationally-renowned figure in harp performance a composer, flautist, soprano of great versatility, and teaching in Australia, and musicologist. She performing regularly in and her work is recognised completed a PhD in opera, oratorio, chamber for its rare fusion of poetry composition at the music, lieder and and physicality. Her wide University of Melbourne contemporary music. She is range of performance in 2006. She currently a champion of new music experience includes teaches composition at the and has had many works concerto soloist, recitalist, university, where she is an composed for her. Quaife orchestral and chamber honorary fellow. Selleck is appears on CD with Naxos, musician. Dennett holds published by Cambridge ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, a Master of Fine Arts Scholars Press and has won and Move Records. She in Interdisciplinary Arts numerous awards including is currently Associate Practice and is currently the Percy Grainger Prize Professor and Coordinator undertaking a PhD at the for Composition. Her music of Voice at Sir Zelman University of Melbourne. is recorded on the Move Cowen School of Music, Records and Tall Poppies Monash University. labels. ................................................. Creative Fellow acknowledgments Johanna Selleck would like to express her deep appreciation to State Library Victoria for the opportunity to undertake a Creative Fellowship in the inspiring ..................... surrounds of the Library. 328 Swanston Street Selleck’s thanks are extended to Suzie Gasper,