WS NE JUNE 2013 • ISSUE 43 A LIFE IN THE ARTS UTAS arts administrators OUR GEOLOGISTS UNIVERSITY OF Tasmania UTAS sets the paceALUMNI in mining NEWS | JUNE worldwide 2013 • ISSUE 43 | A A bright future, defined by a rich past. The University of Tasmania was founded over 123 years ago, making it one of Australia’s oldest universities. Today we’re recognised as an international leader, ranked in the top 3% of universities in the world.* It’s that merging of rich heritage with strength of character that guarantees our greatest achievements are still to come. utas.edu.au | 13UTAS CRICOS Provider Code: 00586BCRICOS Provider *Academic Ranking of World Universities 2012 USRM9728rj CONTENTS Alumni News is the regular magazine for Contents graduates and friends of the University of Tasmania. UTAS alumni include graduates and diplomates of UTAS, TCAE/TSIT and AMC, and staff of three years’ service. Alumni News is prepared by the Communications and Media Office for the Advancement Office. Edited by Sharon Webb Writers Phoebe Bobbi, Peter Cochrane, Cherie Cooper, Aaron Smith, Ralph Spaulding, 9 12 Sharon Webb Photographers Lana Best, Peter Cochrane, Peter Mathew, Tom Roschi Design Clemenger Tasmania Advertising enquiries Melanie Roome Acting Director, Advancement Phone +61 3 6226 2842 15 Let us know your story at [email protected] 3 Geoffrey Tyler’s gift to 19 Vanessa Lickfold, head Phone +61 3 6324 3052 UTAS of business development, Fax +61 3 6324 3402 Kumba Iron Ore UTAS Advancement Office 4 2013 UTAS Locked Bag 1350 Foundation awards 20 Adrian Penney, principal Launceston Tasmania 7250 geotechnical engineer, 5–8 A life in the arts AMC Consultants 5 Tim Walker, London Todd McGilvray, principal Philharmonic Orchestra exploration geologist, NEWS JUNE 2013 • ISSUE 43 6 Bryony Nairn, Tasmanian MMG Museum & Art Gallery 21–26 Keeping in touch 7 Brian Parkes, JamFactory 21 Philip Smith celebrates 8 Sarah McCormack, Stompin its centenary 9–11 Alumni News Big Read 22 Glebe Theatre Players reassemble after 60 years Kate Warner 23 Scholarship celebrates 12–13 UTAS in medical Hobart College centenary research Ag Science reunion coming up 13 Menzies Research Institute Tasmania A LIFE IN THE ARTS 24 Gallery tribute to Vincent UTAS arts administrators McGrath OUR GEOLOGISTS 14 Sustainability at UTAS UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA UTAS sets the paceALUMNI in mining NEWS | JUNE worldwide 2013 • ISSUE 43 | A Ena Waite reunion in Launceston Cover: All creative people, musicians, 15–21 UTAS sets the pace in dancers, sculptors and painters, need the mining worldwide 25–26 Six Degrees work of arts administrators to present their work to the public with flair. Sharon 15 Neil Martin, managing 27–29 Alumni events Webb speaks to UTAS alumni who work director, Zenith Minerals with artists in Australia and overseas: Sarah McCormack, Stompin; Timothy 18 Tracey Kerr, group head 30–31 Books Walker, London Philharmonic Orchestra; of exploration, Anglo Profiles of books written Brian Parkes, JamFactory; Bryony Nainby, American by UTAS alumni Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Jamie Rogers, chief geologist, IAMGOLD 32 Alumni and friends A special thanks to those 19 Darryl Clark, vice-president exploration, Cameco who supported the 2012 Alumni Appeal ALUMNI NEWS | JUNE 2013 • ISSUE 43 | 1 Welcome Message from the Vice-Chancellor WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONE chief executive and artistic director of the I of the University of Tasmania’s new London Philharmonic, or, closer to home, infrastructure projects in particular Brian Parkes, head of the JamFactory would get a big tick of approval from craft and design centre in Adelaide, the arts administrators featured on this another institution with global ambitions. issue’s cover, as well as the late Vincent But it’s not just our creative minds that McGrath, whose significant contribution are making an impact internationally. to the creative arts and the Tasmanian This issue also profiles seven alumni who community is celebrated inside. are now prominent mining executives This project is the $75 million Academy scattered around the world, for which of Creative Industries and Performing our ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Arts (ACIPA), which will connect UTAS Deposits (CODES) can take a bow. and Tasmania with creative industries Based here but engaged in research of and cultures internationally and boost the global significance are the researchers of State’s dynamic arts sector at a local level. the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania. The project will deliver a signature 21st- Their ground-breaking work in the areas century building on what is currently a of prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and the effect of small car park next to the Theatre Royal parental smoking on children are also in Hobart – Australia’s oldest working explored within these pages. theatre, dating back to 1834. Finally, to begin where we started, in Associated infrastructure enabling creative the creative space, there is the story of industries programs and courses, including the remarkable bequest by Frances Tyler performing arts, new media, events and her late husband Geoffrey – a vast management and digital technologies, will collection of artworks amassed over utilise NBN technology to broaden delivery more than four decades which formerly and scope across Tasmania. covered the walls of the Tylers’ four-storey It would be very satisfying to think that Washington DC townhouse but now has ACIPA, once realised, might not just found a new home at UTAS. produce many artists of national and Warm regards, international renown but also the next Professor Peter Rathjen Tim Walker, an alumnus who is currently Vice-Chancellor, University of Tasmania Proud of the past, part of the future N LATE 2012 WE farEWELLED with the important work of the UTAS Ilongstanding committee members Foundation, I see an active and relevant Wayne Goninon, Caryl McQuestin, John way ahead for UTAS Alumni. Williamson and Derris Wood from the Also, in sight of 2015 marking the 125th Alumni Committee, who collectively anniversary of the establishment of the contributed over 35 years of volunteer University of Tasmania, exciting Alumni events service to UTAS Alumni. We wish them and activities are being considered to mark well and thank them for this outstanding the milestone, so please keep that year and the contribution. New committee members anniversary at the forefront of your minds. welcomed are Peter Frappell, Di Nicol, You will hear more about all of these Merran Ramsay, Ben Schramm and programs in future communications from Jemina Stuart-Smith. us, and I hope that you will be motivated There has been a new approach to your and able to play your part as an active Alumni Committee’s thinking and energies UTAS alumnus. over the summer months, as we focus on Finally, my congratulations to our our strategic planning, ably facilitated Distinguished Alumni awardees for 2013, by Ben Schramm. A new tag line for Dr Nicholas Hope and Donald Challen, UTAS Alumni was drafted – ‘Proud of and our Foundation Graduate Award the past, part of the future’ – which we recipient, Professor Marnie Hughes- hope you like. The establishment of a Warrington. We have much to be proud UTAS Volunteer Program and the better of in the outstanding achievements of identification and empowerment of UTAS these UTAS graduates. Alumni Champions across the globe are plans being considered further. When Best wishes, coupled with our existing and strong Dr Ashley Townsend program of events across genres and Chair, University of Tasmania Alumni geographies, and our close association 2 | ALUMNI NEWS | JUNE 2013 • ISSUE 43 News Geoffrey Tyler’s gift to UTAS By Peter Cochrane OT SO LONG agO, WHEREVER NFrances Tyler looked in her four-storey downtown Washington DC townhouse she would see dots – hundreds of green dots interspersed with the odd red dot. The green dots were affixed to artworks destined for the University of Tasmania, the handful of red dots were on works that would remain on her walls. A consignment of about 600 items – ranging from works on paper to oil paintings to sculptures to ceramics to wooden and glass icons – has since arrived in Hobart, the latest and largest in a series of bequests to UTAS by Frances and her late husband Geoffrey, an alumnus and lifelong collector of art. Many of the paintings are by the Romanian artist Corneliu Petrescu. It means that Frances can now at last open the curtains in her house, which Mr Tyler during their time together would not allow for fear of sunlight spilling into the rooms, causing damage to the artworks. “He was absolutely right about that of course,” she Bequests to UTAS by Frances Tyler and her late husband Geoffrey, a UTAS alumnus: Frances Tyler acknowledges. with one of the donated works, The Sisters, by Arthur Boyd. Now that the majority of the collection is in letters in a cardboard envelope identified by in Romania at the time, and other Hobart she can better appreciate the few the year of receipt,” she recalled. “It would Romanian artists he befriended. personal favourites she retained. “And I can include not only the letter and its envelope appreciate the house!” she jokes. “I think “His style is a little bit dry,” advised but also the artwork. Written on the that repainting the interior of the house Frances, a former long-time publications envelope would be a count of the number could be one of my summer projects.” editor of the National Portrait Gallery in of works by Petrescu contained within.” Washington. “But it is very factual.” The consignment was preceded in early Such is the size of the collection amassed That tome too is now with Rachael Rose, 2011 by a $1 million donation and a small by Mr Tyler over more than five decades Curator of the UTAS Fine Arts Collection, shipment of significant works including an that it took a consultant and her assistant who, as she sifts through the latest early Arthur Boyd (The Sisters), a Leonard two months to appraise what was hanging consignment in the Studio Theatre at the French (Three Towers No 1), a set of 22 on the walls of the spacious Washington Sandy Bay campus, must feel as if she engravings by William Blake and a rare townhouse.