The Unconformity

Unsettling, Unconventional, Unexpected… The Unconformity

Queenstown’s mining activities have long come to a halt, giving way to a renewal of the peoples’ dreams and spirit through expression and creativity. A highlight of this expression is The Unconformity, a contemporary arts festival that runs over a weekend, from 15 to 17 October 2021.

Courtesy of The Unconformity.

This festival brings together the landscapes of Tasmania’s west coast region with the stories of the people who have carved out their lives and imprinted their own character on this culturally rich and historic part of lutruwita/Tasmania.

The Unconformity is a confluence of art, industry and community. There are exhibitions with sculptures and immersive visual art, performing arts (with an immersive performance in the ‘Good Silence’), video installation, virtual reality, music, even a guided walk and talk in the footsteps of Charles Gould, Tasmania’s first government geologist.

If you have yet to visit the rugged landscape of Tasmania’s West Coast, perhaps it is time.

Ticketed events plus free ones. Visit the website for more information and program.

 Email enquiries to info@theunconformity.com.au.

BOFA Film Festival 2021

The stunning Sun Children from Iran is one of the festival hits. Courtesy BOFA.

May 2021, Tasmania. This year saw the 11th BOFA (Breath of Fresh Air) Film Festival open to real live cinema-goers in Launceston, Tasmania, on Friday 30 April, running through to Sunday 2 May.

Last year’s BOFA Festival was hit hard by the pandemic, and saw the organisers go online with an innovative lineup of virtual titles in place of the usual bums on seats. But the new format went down a storm with film fans.

Festival director Owen Tilbury is bullish about the online aspect of this year’s BOFA. Courtesy BOFA

"The feedback we had from the (2020) online festival was that people loved being able to watch movies in the comfort of their own home although they missed the personal interaction with people," said festival director Owen Tilbury.

“This year they have the choice of our online festival once again, but they can also opt to see films live here in Launceston and in Hobart as well,” he said. “This will effectively mean three festivals - one in Launceston from April 30-May 2, one in Hobart from May 28-30, and a free festival online from May 3-30.”

This means, says Tilbury, that film buffs who want to spend one night in their pyjamas at home and the next night at the cinema with friends will still be able to see everything the festival has to offer. "It effectively means we have two different curated film festivals going on at the same time," said Tilbury.

Star attractions this year are the world premiere of the stunning Queensland documentary ‘Meet the Wallers’ by Jim Stevens. Based on two decades tracing a single family history, this is what reality TV should really be like. For adventure buffs, the epic Ocean to Sky traces the ground-breaking expedition by Everest hero Sir Edmund Hillary as he jet-boats up the Ganges then goes on to climb Akask Parbat in the Himalayas immediately after.

Local Hero Rosemary Kariuki will attend the Hobart screening of the film Rosemary’s Way. Courtesy BOFA.

The festival is also bringing in stars and film-makers to talk about many of the screeners. Personalities like Vincent Sheehan, producer of the acclaimed Willem Defoe title The Hunter; Ocean to Sky director Michael Dillon, and Rosemary’s Way director Ros Horin.

Best of all, the star of Horin’s Rosemary’s Way, the amazing Rosemary Kariuki (who was voted Australian Local Hero of 2021) will attend the Hobart screening in person after being awarded a gong by Scott Morrison. A must see.

“After last year's move to online due to the pandemic we had overwhelming positive feedback on survey forms, so we decided to do it again” explained Tilbury. “We think people will enjoy a breath of fresh air from down here in Tasmania – be it online or in the flesh.”

BOFA festival is online, and at the Village Cinema Hobart, 181 Collins Street, Hobart. And BOFA Online is free. You can watch the online films any day, any time until the end of May within Australia. Subscribe to the BOFA newsletter to get your free code to access the film's from as far afield as Cuba or as close to home as Flinders Island, Tasmania.

All films are MA15+

A Different Kind of Jazz

Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 celebrated 25 years of concerts with sounds from the old and new. Mallika Naguran, with fine Tasmanian pinot in hand, grooved through the summer event to bring you this review.

Hobart, 1 March 2021. If you thought this year’s festival looked and sounded quite different from the last 24 years, you could probably be right.

Tasmania’s premier jazz extravaganza—the Clarence Jazz Festival—drummed up notions of jazz to the nth degree.

More than 1,600 festival goers were treated to jazz vibes and grooves at Tasmania’s Eastern Shore as they knew it, and didn’t.

Classical Arabic singer Mira Rizk performs live for the first time in Australia at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021.

Over five day from 17 to 21 February, there were jazz standards, swing, quartets, New Orleans jazz and blues, and big bands to please traditional jazz fans. These had audiences breezing through the waterfront park with Tasmanian food and drinks, tucking into their food on rugs or sitting on portable camp chairs. Dogs included.

There were also bands that reached out to listening ears with sounds not usually heard at Clarence Jazz Festival. Like Arabic tunes for a start.

Arabia, Afro…

Egyptian-born Mira Rizk sang to a sold-out late night Jazz Lounge concert on Friday at the iconic sandstone Rosny Barn. She delivered four traditional classical Arabic songs backed by a ten-piece ensemble orchestrated by Stephen McEntee.

Stephen McEntee (left) directs the Arabic-jazz ensemble at Clarence Jazz Festival with vocalist Mira Rizk

A chance meeting at last year’s Hot August Jazz in North Hobart brought Rizk and McEntee together. The Egyptian newcomer to Australian public performance used to sing classical Arabic songs at the Cairo Opera House. But not in Australia since she moved here in March 2020 for studies. In fact, Rizk didn’t think that there was an audience for her music. “I was worried that the songs, which are highly lyrical, would be lost on the audience,” said Rizk.

Stephen McEntee, the composer that never sleeps

McEntee thought otherwise and persuaded her to sing publicly. “We were delighted when our application to perform at Clarence Jazz Festival was accepted. Festival director Tim Kling said he wanted to support new and experimental sounds and he was excited at what we had proposed,” said McEntee.

Middle eastern cultural influences were thus rendered jazzy. “We didn’t get into the quarter tone and timing that went with Arabic tunes backed by instruments like the oud,” said McEntee, who put together, unusually, a western jazz setup. “Instead, I listened to the driving factors and translated them to western terms.”

This involved listening intently to the original music’s baseline, taking the basic concepts, then “stripping back the grooves” and replacing those with classical western baselines.

Adelaide-born McEntee clearly knew what it took to make a new and exciting sound. As a kid, the musician had listened to world music—from raga to Latino—as well as western classical. McEntee played Afro music with a big band while studying in Adelaide and lived in north India for three years playing fusion and punk, even with Indian classical singers.

McEntee moved to Hobart in 2016, straight into a world (pun unintended) of musical opportunities.

Afrobeat Baba Bruja takes one on a stomping journey at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021.

With Mira, it was pretty much a collaborative effort as they picked tunes together. Mira chose songs from Lebanon and Egypt that could be adapted easier for western instruments. She sang Salma ya salama composed by Sayed Darwish; Alby w Moftaho composed and sung by Faried Al-atrash; Kiefak enta composed by Zyad Al-rahbany; Ya habibi taala composed by Antonio Machín.

Arabic “Ya Ana Ya Ana”, based on Mozart Symphony No.40 in G Minor, came as a pleasant surprise! Made it a most a memorable performance too.

The rich blend of sounds from this ensemble could be attributed to McEntee’s attempt at structuring the composition (which he wrote “obsessively” in just one week!) as well as putting the different cultural sounds together and taking them apart. “Take the Arabic strings for instance; we first follow the Arabic (grooves), then snap into traditional jazz. There’s also the layering (of the eastern and western tunes), then demarcating them,” said McEntee, who also delivered an impressive trombone performance and solo strains as part of the ensemble.

Kelly Ottaway on the keys in Baba Bruja’s Afrobeat band at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021.

McEntee’s other band, Baba Bruja, got people shaking their arms and legs uncontrollably to Afrobeat on Saturday’s Big Day at Kangaroo Bay. As its founder, composer and director, McEntee amplified the energy of the 12-member band with earth-moving rhythmic sounds of mostly wind instruments… and percussion of course.

Konrad Park aka StickRad taps new ideas

Baba Bruja typically depicts journeys. “There are transitions from high to low, taking the energy down with it.”

Females come to the fore too: Maggie Abraham on the congas; Georgie Smith on baritone sax and Sasha Gavalek on the bass guitar.

Tim Kling told Gaia Discovery that this year’s festival was framed to be different to ensure there was a “diversity of culture, sounds, people and gender” while catering to different musical tastes and age groups of audiences.

… and all that Jazz

The last act of Big Day— Zenny Teller—brought the house down with the revival of hip hop jazz classics from the 1990s to the 2000s. Drummer Sam Dowson’s arrangement of the bobbing tunes, including those with programmed instrumentation and rap vocalists, was nothing short of electric. The young and the young-at-heart were shaking to the vibes, never mind the cold mist wafting in from the Derwent River.

If these do not take you by surprise, how about this: at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021, there was also experimental ska, swamp and punk. Unusually the banjo was featured too in Black Swans of Trespass and The Mentolists.

Masterclass and concert all in one, Konrad Park’s jazz ensemble featured the Chapman Stick

A new instrument—the ‘stick’—muscled into the jazz scene. The Chapman Stick, invented by American Emmett Chapman in 1969, debuted in one of the masterclass series. Tasmanian composer, drum and ‘stick’ teacher Konrad Park demonstrated how the electric ten-string instrument could be played by anyone, not just guitarists, keyboardists or percussionists, using the tapping method. He performed his original tunes that I’d describe as eclectically mystical, backed by James Anderson on the cello, Derek Grice on the bass clarinet, Tas Compton on the bassoon and Sam Dowson on the drums.

Keys raging and roving at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 led by Kelly Ottaway (far left).

Kelly Ottaway, the festival ambassador, put together his keys “supergroup”, where they dabbled with improvised tunes (with some laughs) and gave tribute to the late Chick Chorea. The four-keyboard gig was a departure from the mundane line-up in a typical jazz festival.

In the crowd, Pradyumna Kiran, a budding astrophysicist, spoke about his listening experience. "I headed to the festival on Saturday night to kick back after a long day at the cricket. The genius of Kelly Ottaway and his keys group did not disappoint. Loved how the night ended with Zenny Teller. Had a great jig with fellow friends to hip hop jazz. I'm just kicking myself I could not make it to the rest of the festival."

Speaking about originality, many of the bands at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 performed their own compositions, a number of which have been recorded into albums. Take Spike Mason for example, who with his quartet (Steve Brien—guitar, Hamish Houston—bass, Konrad Park— drums), enthralled the audience with originals such as River Jordan and Footprints.

The diverse programming of the festival simply revealed that jazz (and its myriad forms) has taken off in a big way in Australia’s southern island state in the Roaring Forties.

It is never just plain old jazz in Tasmania.

Photographs by Craig Opie. Do contact him should you like to use his pictures.

What's On at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021

Put on your jazzy hat and head far south, far east of Tasmania to celebrate 25 years of jazz in Clarence. Festival buzzes from Wednesday 17 February 2021 for five days. By Mallika Naguran

The Clarence Jazz Festival is one of Tasmania’s most awaited musical events, held at Hobart’s Eastern Shore during summer.

Kartanya Maynard kicks off Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 at piyura kitina with a quartet

This year and for the first time, mostly Tasmanian artistes come before the bright stage lights, due to pandemic-related travel restrictions on international, even inter-state travel (although Tasmania has been COVID-19 free for some months).

Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 amps up diversity vibes (opening ceremony on the evening of Wednesday 17 February at sacred land piyura kitina or Risdon Cove; Kartanya Maynard Quartet (Wednesday 17 February evening); Arabic fusion McEntee & Mira (Friday 19 February 2215h at the Jazz Lounge); afrobeat and very danceable, bobbable Baba Bruja (Saturday 20 February, 1900h);

It promises “boundary-pushing” jazz too with a line-up of new material and composition: Jason Whatley Quartet from Launceston (Friday 19 February 1700h at the Jazz Lounge); festival ambassador Kelly Ottoway’s Keys Supergroup (Saturday 20 February, 2030h); Konrad Park’s masterclass/showcase of the Chapman Stick—a ten-string instrument… just to mention a few.

Masterclass with StickRad (Konrad Park) at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 features new sounds with the ‘stick’

There’s Twilight Series involving winery visit (Thursday 18 February) and seaside park (Sunday 21 February); and a Big Day at Kangaroo Bay for all day and night musical experience on Saturday 20 February. Drink and dance to your heart’s delight!

Check out a few highlights below. Detailed shows could be found within the downloadable programme. 

Ticketed Concerts

Inside the Jazz Lounge, an intimate cabaret venue within Rosny Barn, there will be a series of premium ticketed concerts for the Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 featuring a stellar line-up of Tasmanian musicians. Jazz Lounge at Rosny Barn

~ Friday Session 1:  Jason Whatley Quintet + Susannah Coleman Brown Quartet  ~ Friday Session 2: Spike Mason Quartet + McEntee & Mira ~ The Gus Leighton Quartet ~ Liam & CO ~ Jamie Pregnell Quartet

Master Classes ($25 per session)

Learn from the jazz masters. Master classes are open to musicians of any level for an intensive 90 minutes of music within the beautiful sandstone walls of Rosny Barn.

~Billy Whitton - jazz guitar styles and blues fingerpicking

~Konrad Park ‘Stickrad’ – learn more about the unique Chapman Stick, how it is played and listen to a few original compositions

~Dan Sulzberger - Focusing on rhythm, harmony and melodic concepts

~Spike Mason on jazz improvisation. Yep, bring your instrument for this.

Pick up tips at Spike Mason’s jazz improvisation masterclass.

Book tickets at Clarence Jazz Festival.

 Feel the excitement - connect to their FB to know what’s happening daily!

It’s Live! Hot August Jazz Festival 2020

 The 2020 Hot August Jazz Festival will be held on Sunday, 30 August—the first live music festival in Tasmania after state restrictions on COVID-19 have been put in place since March this year! By Mallika Naguran

Hobart, 26 August 2020. Itching for some jazz? You’re probably wondering if there will be any live jazz music anytime soon, if the coronavirus pandemic social gathering restrictions permit.

You’re in luck! Word has it that this year, the show will go on. Yes, there will be a 2020 edition of Hot August Jazz Festival. For weeks and to date, Tasmania recorded no new coronavirus cases, a contrast from continuing infections being reported in the state of Victoria and New South Wales.

The organisers this year have brought together 45 bands that include the Big Small Band, Bruny Island New Orleans Jazz Band, Les Femme Rouge, Narida and Friends, Simon Patterson Trio, Spike Mason 4tet, D7, The Sasha Gavlet Quartet and more. Which is more your type?

Groove to the rhythm of the Big Small Band at the Hot August Jazz Festival 2020 in north Hobart

Get hold of the rather comprehensive Hot August Jazz Festival 2020 programme here.

All in one day, they’ll perform at seven venues along the North Hobart leisure and pleasure strip: Queens Head, Republic Bar, The Crescent, Rain Check Lounge, Willing Bros Wine Merchants, Marigold, and Room for a Pony. Bookings may be required, so check in advance so as not to be left waiting outside.

So support live music, especially during this challenging time. The artists, restaurants, cafes and pubs need you (and your wallet)!

Bring a good listening ear, happy spirit, use the hand sanitiser provided on site before entering the premises and maintain a 1.5m distance from the next group/table. Let’s stick with the guidelines to ensure that the show will go on! 

Bright and beautiful sounds with Nadira & Friends at the 2020 Hot August Jazz Festival organised by the Hobart Jazz Club—Tasmania’s own jazz festival.

About Hot August Jazz

Hot August Jazz is always on the Last Sunday in August in the North Hobart CBD. Hot August Jazz is a showcase of Tasmanian talent. Brought to you by the Hobart Jazz Club that has been around for over 70 years.

First started back in the 1940’s by a group of jazz lovers as a social event and a way of bringing artists to Tasmania, it has grown to be a very progressive and supportive club.

The club has had different locations over the years; it currently meets for a monthly concert on the second Tuesday of the month (excluding January) at the Claremont RSL at 9 Bilton St Claremont.

The general public is welcome to all events, however being a member of the club has its advantages. Members are entitled to half price entry at the monthly concerts and substantial discounts at other Jazz Club events. Musicians who are members may receive free accommodation at out of town festivals organised by the Jazz Club; so check out their membership. Check out the festivals and jam sessions in “It’s Showtime”