Perspectives Concert 2:
We Carry the Song
Saturday 11 May 2024
Adelaide Town Hall
6.00 – 6.45pm
Pre Concert Talk
Meet the composers Jodie O’Regan, Nathan May and Julian Ferraretto.
7.30pm Concert
We Carry the Song
Featuring new works by composers Jodie O’Regan and Nathan May with Julian Ferraretto.
South Australia resonates with both the ancient songs of this land and new melodies carried across the seas. In this concert, a baroque string quartet is transformed when it becomes the medium for Arabana song writer Nathan May’s exploration of his connection to Country. Jodie O’Regan’s evocative Night Whales: Cana Cludhmor draws on Irish heritage as she tells the story of whaling in the Fleurieu. In presenting these new works alongside chamber music of Germany, Italy and the British Isles, this concert celebrates our ancient land, our migrant history, and new perspectives for South Australian chamber music.
Program
Britten
Selections from Moore’s Irish Melodies
Performed by Penelope Cashman and Desiree Frahn
Jodie O’Regan
Cana Cludhmor - world premiere
Performed by Penelope Cashman and Desiree Frahn
INTERVAL
J.S. Bach
Die Kunst der Fuge Contrapuntus 1 - 3
Vivaldi
Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op. 3 No. 11
Performed by Adelaide Baroque
Nathan May and Julian Ferraretto
New Work - world premiere
Performed by Adelaide Baroque with Nathan May
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Jodie O’Regan is an Australian composer and librettist who lives and composes in a 150 year old church on the edge of the South Australian desert.
She writes primarily for singers and has created sacred works, chamber operas, scores for theatre and worked with numerous singers to develop art songs. Jodie is deeply interested in how singers tell stories and the vocal, theatrical and textual aspects of composing for singers. Her music draws on the melodies and stories of Celtic folksongs and has been described as lyrical, expressive and “beautifully supporting the texts”.
Jodie’s instincts have been honed over a lifetime working with singers. Alongside extensive experience singing, directing and composing for vocal ensembles, Jodie has collaborated with her husband, baritone Emlyn O’Regan, to arrange a number of Celtic and roots folk songs for two voices, performing in folk venues and festivals around Australia. She is a poet and playwright and has studied acting for a number of years to inform her vocal composing.
Jodie has published a broad collection of compositions and arrangements for community choirs, and numerous pedagogical pieces for children and adults. Her work was recognised with a grant from the Australian Kodaly Scholarship to develop and publish material she had created for adults. She currently works as a teaching artist for Lullaby Project Australia, working with a range of families to co-create individual and community lullabies.
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Fictional Irish poet Cana Cludhmor and husband Macuel appear in a single paragraph in Leabhar Mhic Cárthaigh Riabhaigh or The Book Of Lismore, a fifteenth century Irish manuscript, now held in the University College, Cork County. Within the tale, Cana’s story is relayed by a bard to explain how Ireland’s first harp was invented.
In my piece, we meet Cana many years after the events in the original story, where she is now performing as a poetess and singer of renown. At a concert, she retells the story in her own words, addressing her audience as A stór (my treasure). Through the work the piano plays the roles of musical narrator, harp, loom, ocean, whale and audience.
My libretto draws on a 19th century English translation of the original manuscript, incorporating some of the words, phrases and feeling of this text. The only detail I have added is that Macuel is a weaver. It felt like a good fit for a harp creator. Although the original story says Cana initially “entertained a hatred” for her husband, it doesn’t say how she felt after he invented a harp for her. Now that was an impressive move! Surely Cana would have forgiven him. Interestingly, Cana Cludhmor has in very recent years become somewhat deified online, being referred to as a Cetlic goddess of poetry, to the bewilderment of people who know her as a minor if intriguing character from a mediaeval fiction.
I have blended opera forms with Irish storytelling to move between narration, characters and accompanied and unaccompanied singing. I’ve also added several extended piano techniques, creating different colours to evoke the different scenes and characters.
Cana Cludhmor will become the third movement in a larger work Night Whales, inspired by whaling in Encounter Bay, which will be premiered in South Australia in 2025.
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Nathan May is an Arabana , Yawuru and Marridjabin man living on Kaurna country with his young family.
He has been developing his talent since the age of three, when he began playing drums at church in Darwin. Nathan has gone on to play drums with Marlon x Rulla 2020-22 including Womadelaide 2021 and Emily Wurramara 2022-present including Bluesfest Byron 2022.
Nathan says:
“As a kid I loved music, fishing and playing AFL footy, but I didn’t do well at school until my teachers recommended a community studies course. I did that through the Clontarf Foundation, which helps indigenous kids finish school and gain employment. I caught up quickly thanks to my mentors, AFL footballer Michael Mclean and my teacher Judith O’Hearn, who was a Paralympic gold medalist. They would stay back with me until 8 or 9pm finishing off all my work”
A pivotal moment in Nathan’s life was meeting Barack Obama in 2011.
“We went to see Barack in Darwin and my teacher Judith pushed us right up to the front. I snuck into a gap and started singing out ‘Barack, Barack’ and he came over to us. He asked me what I wanted to do when I finished school and I said, ‘I don’t know’. Then he said, “You can do and be whatever you want to”.
Those few words changed my whole life. “
Following this meeting Nathan decided to leave Darwin and pursue music.
He was accepted at the Adelaide Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music which has an entry program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders at the Elder Conservatorium in 2012.
Nathan completed a three-year course at CASM to attain an advanced Diploma in Aboriginal Music, and he is in the final year of a bachelor’s degree in popular music at the Elder Conservatorium.
One of Adelaide’s hardest working live performers, in 2019, Nathan performed 80 live performances locally, including a showcase at the Adelaide Fringe “Garden Sessions” that has led to his own solo show, Lost in The Dream, at the 2020 Adelaide Fringe.
In early 2020 Nathan started working with Producer James Gillard.
This led to a co-writing session with seasoned wordsmith Colin Buchanan on the Bluegrass flavored “FIX IT UP” single and "Home" Single released in September 2022 and August 2023.
The song was included on the Prestigious Grass Roots Playlist.
Further co-writing with Multi Golden Guitar Winner Luke O’Shea yielded his newest release “IT’S GOTTA START SOMEWHERE”.
Both songs were recorded at Music Cellar Studios on the NSW Central Coast using a band that includes stellar, multi-Instrumentalist Rod McCormack, Drummer Scott Hills, and James Gillard on bass.
He is inspired to regularly give back to his community.
In recognition of the support he has received from mentors in his own life and career, he designs and delivers mentorship programs to young Aboriginal children through the Culture is Life suicide prevention program, Generation of Change program through Reconciliation SA, and school holiday music programs in Marree, Coober Pedy and Oodnadatta.
Just returned from a European tour with thePierce Brothers in Feb - March 2024. Nathan has been traveling intensively in 2024 internationally and nationally.
Nathan May brings his own experiences and his story of hope through music to Aboriginal children who have experienced trauma and violence.
Nathan will release his new single Love From Me on 31st of May 2024.
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Australian born jazz violinist Julian Ferraretto moved to London in 2002 and has since become known for his virtuosic and melodically charged improvisational style. He has performed with many of the UK’s most important contemporary jazz and world music bands including the Neil Cowley Trio, Natacha Atlas’s Mazeeka Ensemble, Eska Mtungwazi, Robert Mitchell’s Panacea and Wigmore Hall Learning’s Ignite Ensemble. As a bandleader, side-man and strings M.D., Julian has played at all the major Jazz Festivals around Europe including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreux and The London Jazz Festival.
As a composer, Julian writes for film, television, radio and theatre and has had his works premiered at the Sydney Opera House, The Adelaide Festival and Wigmore Hall’s Time at the Bar series. He recorded his debut album “Near” in 2010, with the piece “Basel” being used in a film by the Royal Society. “Basel” has also been recorded at Wigmore Hall by the Ignite ensemble.
