Madame Carandini’s Travelling Musical Curiosity Show/ Thu 11 July 2013

ABOUT   Madame Carandini’s Travelling
Madame Carindini’s Travelling Musical Curiosity Show is a gothic new music theatre work. The pretext is the story of Christie Palmerston, the first European to traverse the rainforests of Far North Queensland, but its guts is the gross effects of colonialism on the immediate environment and the psyche and souls of human beings – it’s a story of cultural and personal dispossession

A four-hander supported by a small chamber music ensemble with diverse instrumentation which currently includes a combination of strings, a glass harmonica, didgeridoo complemented by other musical curiosities.

The composition underpins the work. Reaching back into the cultural traditions of indigenous, western and eastern cultures incorporating instruments such as the digeridoo, morin khuur and bowed psaltry, he has developed a score which borrows from a range of musical forms such as Irish/English folk ballads, Opera, American hillbilly, and light opera musical canon. John has worked closely with one of Australia’s finest didgeridoo players, Mark Atkins, a descendant of Western Australia’s Yamitji people, to imbed the didgeridoo in the foundation of the composition. He has then woven through each song a range of stringed instruments including the nyckelharpa and bowed psaltery, in collaboration with Sallie Campbell, along with the somewhat disorienting ethereal sound of the glass harmonica, which is said to cause musicians and their listeners to go mad. He is hoping to finish his musical collaboration working with Mongolian throat singer and morin khuur virtuoso Bukhchuluun Ganburged.

Season: Thu 11 - Thu 11 July 2013

When: Thu: 7:30pm

Where: Sue Benner Theatre QLD

Tickets: Adults $20