Melbourne Recital Centre welcomes 2018 Artist and Writers in Residence
In 2017, Melbourne Recital Centre established a Residency programme to give outstanding creative Australians an extended opportunity to engage with the Centre, and for our audiences to engage with them as they unearth and amplify the marvellous events presented each year. The inaugural Artist and Writer in Residence were celebrated pianist/composer Paul Grabowsky AO and award-winning novelist Chloe Hooper. Each of these artists produced a body of work in response to the Centre’s programme: Grabowsky gave a series of concerts exploring themes important to him, and Hooper wrote about a diverse range of performer, exploring their art and worlds. Hooper’s work can be found at the Centre’s blog, soundescapes.melbournerecital.com.au and Grabowsky’s performances can be experienced at our digital content portal, live.melbournerecital.com.au
In 2018, the Centre is delighted to welcome recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey as Artist in Residence and, in a unique collaboration with Melbourne’s Emerging Writers Festival, Writers in Residence.
Genevieve Lacey
Genevieve Lacey has reinvented the way we think about the recorder and has emerged as a cultural and creative leader in Australia through her deep engagement with Indigenous musicians, with improvisation and site-specific works, as a commissioner of new music and as a dynamic festival director. Genevieve communicates her passion with a quiet authority, drawing us deeply into her passionate soul.
Lacey will curate a series of talks called Lucid Dreaming where distinguished speakers articulate their vision for the arts in Australia. They share music that has shaped their imaginations and discuss ideas of radical and compassionate dreaming. She will also devise and perform in a three-concert series called Nest as part of the Centre’s Metropolis New Music Festival in April. A podcast series is also projected.
Melbourne Recital Centre’s Director of Programming Marshall McGuire says, “Genevieve is one of Australia’s great performers, and has created a career unlike any other musician we know. Her repertoire ranges from the Renaissance to today, and she is a fearless collaborator across musical boundaries. Genevieve is a great advocate for contemporary music – music of our time and place – and we look forward to being entertained, challenged, and provoked by her year-long residency.”
The Writer in Residence programme sees three writers from the Emerging Writers Festival creating new pieces in response to works at the Centre. Playful, provocative, poetic – the writers will strive not simply to critique but to take the music as a leaping-off point to give us a new interpretation or another layer of meaning.
The events presented as part of the Artist and Writers in Residence will be made public via the Centre’s online presence, and in live performances and talks. Click on the links below to learn more:
Melbourne Recital Centre is one of Australia’s premier music venues. The Centre, located in Melbourne’s Southbank neighbourhood, comprises the 1000-seat Elisabeth Murdoch Hall and the flexible 130-seat Salon. The architecturally-striking venue was designed to create the ideal spaces to hear a diverse range of music from early music to contemporary pop, a live music venue of and for the 21st century.