General
Music of Meta Overman, The - Queen of Colour and Fantasy
By Jeanell Carrigan
Regular price
$50.00
Respected by fellow composers and performers, Dutch/Australian composer Meta Overman was one of the foremost contributors to musical cultural life in Australia in the middle of the twentieth century.
The music of Meta Overman is innovative, individual, sometimes humorous, expressing amazing creativity and powered by an urge to present strong visual imagery. Of particular interest to performers is the way that Overman suggests images in her music which are so tangible that they have an almost visual quality. Overman was also a composer who was very influenced by the work of others, and she adopted different styles throughout the many compositional periods in her life, colouring these with her own individual musical language. It is impossible to separate the person Meta Overman, with her strong spirituality and beliefs, and the composer Meta Overman: one was the result of the other. her output covers all genres including opera, ballet, and orchestral works. There are seventeen works or sets of works for piano solo, five for orchestra, six sets of songs, five choral works, eleven operas including one three-act opera, four ballets and twenty-four chamber
works, some of which are for two pianos.
Each chapter discusses Overman’s works composed during a particular period of her
life. Most will be discussed in terms of musical language, motific development and inspirational aspects and the important points for a performer. To compensate for any sparsity of verbal description will be the inclusion of QR codes which link to sound files – musical examples – of many works which have been recorded or filmed. These will give a performer’s interpretation of the works and enable the reader to ‘get the full picture’ for themselves.
Poet's Composer, A
By Brennan Keats
Regular price
$45.00
The biography of Horace Keats 1895-1945 and the connection with some of his associate artists, such as, Peter Dawson, Barbara Russell and the poets, Kenneth Mackenzie, Hugh McCrae, Christopher Brennan and many others.
The book is illustrated with drawings by Hugh McCrae and includes many photographs of personalities of the period.
Includes double disc of songs by Horace Keats performed by: Jane Parkin (soprano), Gaven Lockley (baritone), Alexa Still (flute), Clemens Leske (piano).
http://youtu.be/LcuGKG4WdgE
ISBN: 978 1 8768292023
$35.00 for instant download book only (275 pages)
$1.00 - Supplement to A Poet's Composer (includes letters and additional personal information).
The biography is also available from:
Thinking Allowed
By Phillip Wilcher
Regular price
$50.00
A life in conversation with itself
Within the learnedness of this most discerning and singularly profound truth dwells a humanness so vast in liberty and limitation, that it denies us any false face we might choose to show to the world in order to shun our truth, favouring more the integrity of our most integrated selves, the common presence present that is of a oneness inherent to all.
Only through the realization of our finest virtues, can we divine a way to endure with courage and compassion, the fullness of our humanity and all its frailties.
Through writing music I composed who I was becoming;
through composing words I now write of who I am.
If I am the sum total of my contradictions,
this is my truth.
ISBN 9781876829452
Upbeats and Downbeats
By Patrick Thomas
Regular price
$40.00
A Conductor's Life. An autobiography. A story about a career in music from flautist in the ABC's Queensland Symphony Orchestra to a world of Australian and International orchestral conducting.
Patrick Thomas was not the product of a Conservatorium (there was none in Brisbane at the time) nor did he join the various young hopefuls who sought advanced training or conducting apprenticeships in famous overseas centres. When he jettisoned a burgeoning career as a flautist in the ABC’s Queensland Symphony Orchestra, this could have been the kiss of death in terms of achieving his ultimate ambition but, miraculously, eight years later, he was catapulted overnight into the world he'd always sought. To maintain favour in one’s country with its comparatively small music community can be more difficult than roaming the world where orchestras are plentiful and offer itinerant conductors an immense range of opportunities and alternatives. Sustaining a successful career in music for over 60 years takes more than luck but, in the end, it will be for others to judge the extent of his contribution and the conditions under which it was made.
ISBN: 978 1 87682920 9
$30.00 for PDF instant download:
Wirripang - from the beginnning
By Brennan Keats
Regular price
$25.00
The dedications below encapsulate the contents of this book about the origins and formation of the publishing house Wirripang that can now claim to be the largest publisher of Australian sheet music in the world.
To my darling wife Anne (Annie), the driving force behind the not inconsiderable achievements of Wirripang.
To Wirripang, born of blood, tears and sweat; you rise, soar and glide on the rich winds of dedication, passion and love of all things cultural, high in a rarified atmosphere above an abused, tired and war-torn planet.
Both Anne and Brennan Keats were raised with a strong sense of the value of Australian culture. Anne, the product of country parents who later embraced the richness of city living yet retained a strong sense of country values, that included a great pride of Australia and all things Australian.
Brennan whose parents were both professional musicians had instilled in him from an early age the value of music from a deeply cultural viewpoint, yet at the same time it was made clear to him that music would not be his profession.
Both parents left their respective children a legacy; in the case of Anne a strong work ethic and as stated love of country; in the case of Brennan a considerable collection of music, some being unpublished because the publishers of the day looked not to its cultural value but rather to the money it would generate them.
Over the years both offspring, albeit unconsciously, gradually worked to combining their respective legacies to form an enterprise that would publish music of cultural value with a view to bringing it before a discerning public, as well as ensuring that it would not be lost to future generations. This is their story. There were tears spilt by them; there were many late nights and early mornings; there were ghosts; there are examples of dedication to their art by some who have become the strongest of friends and remain with Wirripang to the present day, and above all and in us all a passion for Australian culture.
ISBN 9781876829568
Woman Who Stands Alone, A
By Brennan Keats
Regular price
$50.00
The biography of Janet Keats 1900-1985. A lifetime dedicated to the furtherance of the contribution made to Australian musical culture by her husband Horace Keats, despite the parlous circumstances that befell her upon his early death.Born to a privileged country life and raised in the best of Victorian tradition by three maiden aunts, her early education instilled a love of matters intellectual, cultural and an attraction to those who pursue it. Her experience of war and its horror was both indirect and direct. Towards the end of WWI she performed as a volunteer singer and pianist in the ‘rest rooms’ provided for the soldiers, and saw the impact upon their young lives. During WWII her contact with war was devastated by the loss of her eldest son. Her choices of husbands were men of exceptional artistic ability. Her first longest and happiest marriage was to a gifted musician and composer, her second to a man of words, both men leaving a lasting cultural legacy that exists to the present day. Her third marriage was to a man whose cultural and intellectual abilities were inhibited by his Norfolk Island upbringing and WWII.
Through her strength and strong belief she raised her youngest son passing on her beliefs so setting the course for the evolution of the Australian music publishing house, Wirripang.
ISBN: 9781876829384
$40.00 for PDF instant download: