murraybramwell.com

June 27, 2021

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Thank you, Alan, it was a good time

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Cabaret,Music

Alan Cumming is Not Acting His Age
Adelaide Festival Theatre.

June 26. Duration : 1 hr 20 mins.

It is the final night of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Alan Cumming bounds on to the stage in a slim-fitting grey suit jacket and black tie, matching grey shorts and black and white Converse sneakers. “I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic”, he sings, “Calm and collected and choking with panic /But alive, but alive, but alive.”

The song is from …

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June 26, 2021

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Mostly Marlene – Kim David Smith

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Cabaret,Music

This accomplished set may be mostly Marlene Dietrich – with mashings of Kylie and Madonna – but it is all Kim David Smith at his mercurial best.

Written by Murray Bramwell

Kim David Smith has been performing at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival for more than ten years. Back when he was still Kim Smith, he brought shows such as Misfit and Morphium Kabarett featuring his shape-shifting gremlin mix of nova pop, reptilian camp and – when he switched into persona …

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June 12, 2021

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: The Variety Gala

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Cabaret,Music

The opening night Variety Gala is a good chance to scratch and sniff the Cabaret Festival program. Raucously hosted by Hans, Adelaide’s own wunderkind, this year’s event is more off the leash than usual.

Written by Murray Bramwell

It’s that time again, the wintry middle of June and the Festival Centre opens up its venues (plus The Famous Spiegeltent) for fifteen nights of music, comedy and dysfunctional frolic. The Variety Gala, an institution since the festival began, not only lines …

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February 23, 2021

The Barefoot Review

WOMADelaide 2021: Re-inventing for the Pandemic

Murray Bramwell talks with Artistic Director, Ian Scobie about the challenges of planning a music festival during COVID.

The last time I interviewed Ian Scobie about WOMADelaide it was late January last year and Kangaroo Island was burning down. The bushfires -which engulfed huge sections of the country, sending serious smoke haze into the cities – were on everyone’s mind. Scobie’s company APA was running a national tour for the Italian composer, Ludovico Einaudi, …

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March 18, 2020

Adelaide Fringe – Truckload of Sky – The Lost Songs of David McComb

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Fringe,Music

Truckload of Sky – The Lost Songs of David McComb
The Friends of David McComb
Level 5, Union House,
The University of Adelaide.
RCC . March 12.

Formed in Perth in 1978, after morphing from a band called Dalsy and (name-for-a-day) Logic, The Triffids produced five studio albums, six EPs, six live recordings/ compilations and nine legendary cassettes including Dungeon and Son. Singles such as Wide Open Road and Bury Me Deep in Love became etched in the Australian …

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March 05, 2020

Adelaide Festival – Eight

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Festival,Music

Eight
by Michael van der Aa.
Featuring Kate Miller-Heidke, Livia van den Bercken,
Vakil Eelman
Hetzel Lecture Theatre, Institute Building
State Library of South Australia.
February 27. Until March 15.

When we talk about immersive experience increasingly we mean Virtual Reality. VR is not only the newest frontier, it the most mind-bending kingdom of them all. Netherlands composer and director, Michael van der Aa has gained prominence for his progress in merging music and visual experience to create art works …

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March 04, 2020

Adelaide Festival – 150 Psalms

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Festival,Music

150 Psalms
Leadership (Concert 9)
Pilgrim Church, Flinders St.
March 2.

150 Psalms, a choral presentation of twelve themed concerts performed over four days, is one of the centrepieces of the 2020 Adelaide Festival as it celebrates its 60th year. It is an extensive project, conceived by Tido Visser, managing director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, and was first performed in 2017 at the Utrecht Festival Oude Muziek.

The Adelaide event is its fourth version, featuring The Netherlands …

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March 03, 2020

Daily Review – WOMADelaide 2020 Returns to Botanic Park

Director Ian Scobie talks with Murray Bramwell about Adelaide’s most enduring international music event.

This coming Friday, March 6, marks the opening of the four day WOMADelaide music festival. With its odd portmanteau name (WOMAD is an acronym for World of Music and Dance) the South Australian version of the UK festival, originally founded and promoted by Peter Gabriel, began as part of Rob Brookman’s Adelaide Festival in 1992.

There have been 23 festivals since then – it became an …

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February 25, 2020

Daily Review – The Necks

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Fringe,Music

The Necks
RCC Level 5
Union House, University of Adelaide

February 21.

In the house of the Adelaide Fringe there are many mansions. Venues spring up all over the CBD each with distinctive programs and loyal audiences. In the East End, The Garden of Unearthly Delights at Rundle Park and Gluttony at the adjacent Rymill Park attract huge crowds for the four weeks of Fringe activity. The Holden Street Theatres at Hindmarsh have a first-rate program, curated by director Martha …

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October 20, 2019

Beyond Skin – Revisited, OzAsia Festival 2019

Filed under: 2019,Archive,Festival,Music

Beyond Skin – Revisited
Nitin Sawhney
Festival Theatre.
October 18.

Nitin Sawhney is surely some kind of Renaissance musician. His career as producer, composer, DJ, and multi-instrumentalist has produced 20 albums, and 60 film scores, including the recent Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. He has collaborated with Paul

McCartney, Sting, Anoushka Shankar, Jeff Beck, Annie Lennox, Andy Serkis, Akram Khan and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has curated festivals and lectured in universities. He has performed regularly in Australia- at …

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