ANCA WA Choral Festival Concert Photos

ANCA is the Australian National Choral Association – an organisation which aims to encourage and promote choral music and choirs in Australia.   The WA chapter has just been reformed and they had Choral Festival Day to mark this occasion.

No, this was not a “concert” – it was a festival where for a few hours, everyone first did a warm-up, then different choirs sang for each other and it all finished with a big “sing” – where everyone learnt a song together.

It was a fantastic session – the age range of participants ranged from Primary School to people in their 70’s-80’s!  So many choirs and people were interested attending that there weren’t enough seats in the venue!

I was there to take some snaps to document the day.  The hardest part was choosing the right time to click the shutter button as many of the items were quiet – so I had to time my shots with louder parts of songs, or right at the end just before or with the applause.  Maybe I need to investigate a mirror less camera body one day or some noise dampening for the Nikon D700 🙂

Here are some shots from the day!

Tim Minchin vs WASO at Kings Park

Ahhh..  this is one of the great things about Perth life.

A beautiful Summer (no wait, warm Autumn) evening, picnic, great food and drink, great company (my Wifey!) and watching a concert in the outdoors!  

Last weekend, Perth people had the pick of either Michael Buble at the Sandalford or Tim Minchin with WASO in Kings Park.  We opted for the Tim Minchin and weren’t disappointed! 

The lyrics were sometimes bitter and offensive but overall great story telling and social commentary on what our lives and culture has become.  Some of his songs are really clever and combined with his piano playing remind me of Ben Folds (ahh..  someone else I need to see live).  As the sole main man on stage all night, Tim definitely held his own with a confident stage presence. 

And it was awesome to see Shaun Tan’s “The Lost Thing” being shown on the screen during interval.  At first I didn’t know why, but Wifey informs me it’s because Tim did the narration for it – unfortunately, something that couldn’t be heard at interval – will definitely have to seek this out later.

But the whole concert going experience just reminded me of what a nanny state WA, or Australia has become.

Check out this sign on the way in – warning you of foul language ahead!!!  I wonder if any of those older richer VIPs or people who were there as WASO only fans got offended at all 🙂  I didn’t see anyone walk out though, which is a good sign!

And this sign made me LOL – do we really need to be told how to arrange our picnic rug?

More here:  http://www.timminchin.com/

Trip to the State Library of Western Australia

On the weekend, I dragged the kids to the State Library.   Initially the kids were complaining “Do we HAVE to go with you? Do we HAVE to go to the library?”.

Tough luck – I’ve got the keys to the car 🙂

I had to look up some music and when I got there to the second floor, I forgot just how much sheet music they do have there.   There’s literally STACKS! 

Seriously, before you go to Zenith’s or Theo’s or Clef or Musgrove’s, visit the State Library first.  There’s shelves and shelves of music scores for all sorts of instruments and ensembles.  And not just classical sheet music, but a whole lot of pop and rock and musical theatre stuff too. 

I took one look at the violin section and thought that it would take years to go through and play all the repertoire they have there.  I’m flipped through some of the fiddling and jazz books – stuff I’ve wanted to try out but just haven’t wanted to fork out real money yet.  They also have a practice room there to hire if you want to try out books before going home.

And the cost?  FREE!  Yep, just sign up on the ground floor, show some ID and you can borrow any of these books to play in the comfort of your own home!

On the way out, we found a free display on the ground floor called “The Library of Nearly Lost Moments” – an exhibition dedicated to all the “stuff” in your lives. 

Little Miss 9 liked the snow globe collection and I was excited to see some old Apple computers there.

There was an activity there where you can add some bit of stuff to the wall and describe what it is, where you got it, why you don’t want it.  

This was my favourite!

Eventually, I had to pull Little Miss 9 away from the old typewriter they had there.  To think that I learnt typing on a typewriter, but now it’s such a novelty 🙂  I think I’ll have to dig up my parents’ old one for the kids to play with again.

 

 The exhibition continues onto the 6th February but the Music section of the library is there all the time 🙂

More info here:   http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au/whats_on/exhibitions

And they’ve even got a blog here!  http://slwa.wordpress.com/ and posted about their Music section here:  http://slwa.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/attention-music-students/

And tip for the day – you can search their entire catalogue from the comfort of your home here:  http://henrietta.slwa.wa.gov.au/search~S2

Labour + Liberal coalition?

I have to give full credit to two close work friends for this.

They were discussing what was the best way to resolve the current stalemate in WA’s state election.  One way to stop Brendon Grylls of the National Party from having to decide whether to side with Labour or Liberal, is for Labour and Liberal to form their own coalition!  Stalemate resolved!

We would need to somehow create a new leader to lead this party –  a combination of Colin Barnett and Alan Carpenter…  Col’n Carpenter!

Col'n Carpenter