Recent and upcoming

Goodness, more than 2 months since I posted any news here.

The Australian tour by the Resurgence band was very succesful as was the 2007 Brisbane Jazz Festival which I curated. I hope to record the Resurgence band's repertoire in 2008 and give some more performances with this great bunch of musicians. The last concert on the tour was at Arthur Boyd's property Bundanon and I managed a 3-day break staying there with Jewel in the Writers' Cottage. After that I gave a concert at Temple Emanuel in Sydney with trio and singer Elana Stone. It was dedicated to my grandfather as it was the first anniversary of his passing. It was great to play with Elana again and Jono Brown and James Hauptmann made the trio warm and clean like crystal.

Right now I am focussed on composing a major piece for the 2008 Aurora Festival in Sydney. It will be for jazz piano trio (I'll play with Jono and James) with classical chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet and the Greenway string quartet). It will be a long work of about 40 minutes and a challenge to integrate the classical and jazz configurations into a coherent whole. It is also planned that the concert will feature the premiere of my Third String Quartet originally commissioned by Tankstream Quartet.

Other compositions on the agenda to be written during 2008 are a flute and piano piece for the UK-based Australian-expatriate Doecke Callanan Duo and a piece for recordist Genevieve Lacey, strings and myself on improvising piano which I will write as a result of my being awarded the 2007 Albert H. Maggs Composition Award by the University of Melbourne.