Murray Bramwell

From September 10 -26 Adelaide and environs will be alive with the sound of fiesta. The Honda Adelaide Music Fiesta will be getting into gear on a number of fronts- jazz, country, popular, rock, dance, choral and a broad classical program. There will be a variety of international and interstate performers but the focus for Fiesta is also in showcasing and promoting local talent.

The Music Fiesta originated in 1991 with a festival of more than 140 events in a three week span. It attracted about 100,000 people back then. This time the organisers expect to more than double that number. It is a biennial event timed to alternate with the Adelaide Festival and this year, to avoid clashing with Womadelaide, it has been organised as a Spring event- a decision that fits well with a strong pitch from Tourism SA.

Many believe that Fiesta’s time is overdue -including Executive Director, Libby Ellis :
“South Australia has had four specialist music schools for over twenty five years and we have some of the country’s finest musicians right across the spectrum. The Festival of Arts is wonderful, it brings in the talent of the world for three weeks. I see Fiesta as the complement, bringing the other side. For three weeks we show the talent of South Australia to the world. They are very complementary aims. We have the talent here but not the showcase – so performers have to go away.

“Fiesta is a South Australian music festival picking up the strengths of our lifestyle, our specialist music schools, our multicultural community, our vineyards, beaches and beautiful facilities. We are picking up all these things and placing the showcase on them.”

The program includes a day of free activities in Elder Park, an international busking competition in Rundle Mall, a street party in North Adelaide and events at the Bay. There will also be lunchtime concerts in shopping centres. While many events are still being finalised, some highlights of the Kenwood Classical Fiesta have already been announced. The season will begin in the Adelaide Town Hall with a performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra with guest soloist Barry Tuckwell. They will present Dvorak’s Serenade for strings, horn concertos by Mozart and Roseeti and Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge. Other recitals in the Town Hall include the University of Adelaide Wind and Brass ensembles with guest soloist Geoffrey Payne (principal trumpet for the MSO) offering a baroque program and selections from Grainger. Payne also appears with the Adelaide Youth Chamber Orchestra under conductor Piero Gamba.

In the Elder Hall the Australian String Quartet perform a program of Schubert, Beethoven and Peter Sculthorpe and in the Adelaide Town Hall Roger Woodward will present an evening of Chopin works – an event that is likely to prove a hot ticket.

St Peters Cathedral is to be the venue for Cathedral in Concert, a program ranging from Bach and Beethoven to Andrew Lloyd Webber. It will feature soloists David Shepherd, Jo Dudley and Leslie Lewis as well as some impressive choirpower from Pembroke School, St Peters Cathedral, St Peters Glenelg, St Cuthberts Prospect and St Andrews Walkerville.

Consistent with a high level of both quality and interest in choral music in Adelaide the Choral Fiesta is likely to attract strong interest. A combined choir from the Adelaide Chorus, Cantabile, the Mt Lofty Singers and Chandos Choral – 180 voices in all- will present Haydn’s Creation with soloists Thomas Edmonds, Felicity Baldock and Alan McKie. It will be conducted in the Town Hall under Piero Gamba. Elsewhere Cathy Weber’s Cantabile will present a variety of works in concert in the Norwood Town Hall and, again in the Cathedral, the Corinthian Singers and Melbourne’s Faye Dumont Singers will join forces for the first time.

Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld will get a whirl from the students of the Elder Conservatorium and, in similarly lively mood, Co-Opera will give a contemporary tweak to an English translation version of Cavallo’s I Pagliacci in the Norwood Concert Hall.

A good example of the Fiesta showcasing local performers is the concert of the 1993 Adelaide Eistedfodd Award winners to be held in a Sunday afternoon program in the Adelaide Town Hall. Special guest soloist will be the 1992 winner, soprano Alison Farr.

Libby Ellis is especially keen on this event-” I’d be inclined to think that there wouldn’t be one percent of Adelaide who has heard Alison Farr, a singer at present studying in Germany. This will give Adelaide a chance to hear her now, to say `we heard her when…, we saw her at Fiesta'”

It is providing a bridge- and an appreciative audience- for musicians of promise that interests the Fiesta organisers. There are hopes for Fiesta awards and scholarships to foster development and there has been good response from Adelaide’s music community many of whom are planning events for what is hoped to be a future Fiesta as soon as 1994.

In the Dance Fiesta performers from the Australian Ballet will be presenting new works from young choreographers. This will include a tribute marking the centenary of the death of Tchaikovsky.

Jazz enthusiasts will also be well served with appearances from Don Burrows and George Golla performing with young local musos and a full Sunday of jazz at the University of Adelaide. Using four different stages everything from trad to acid jazz will get a go from musicians including Errol Buddle and Friends and Andrew Firth who stirred a lot of dust at Montsalvat this year. Also performing will be the very classy Dale Barlow and Carl Orr and the University Big Band.

In the Town Hall, the Australian Jazz Quintet will gather from various Australian, European and Australian destinations for a reunion performance. It will be a nostalgic moment for many when Errol Buddle, Bryce Rohde, Jack Brokensha, Ed Gaston and others take the stage.

The Honda Adelaide Music Fiesta has gathered a large range of offerings. The organisers emphasise the accessibility of the fare and- with many tickets at eight and ten dollars and what they hope to be a top ticket of around twenty five dollars- that recession buzzword, affordable, gets honourable mention.

For Libby Ellis the Fiesta has two main aims – to provide enjoyment to a large community of music enthusiasts and to give encouragement to performers themselves. “We are breaking the blinkers,” she explains, “We deal with all kinds of music and within genres there are always divisions. People are starting to get together who would not usually do so. They are starting to talk to each other, and even better, to listen.”

The Adelaide Review, No. 116, July, 1993, p.33 -4.

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