Australian Chamber Orchestra Collective

Last night, Dot and I attended yet another magnificent orchestral concert in Armidale's Town Hall delivered to a large and enthusiastic audience. The orchestra had 17 performers ... if I can count correctly, but the interesting thing about the group is that the principal violinist, Helena Rathbone has starred in that role for 25 years. Apart from a small number of mentors, all the remaining performers are very young, say early 20s, and the ACO collective is a means of introducing them to a musical career. Let's just say that they've got great future prospects. Their precision and tone was perfect and the works were challenging.



The works included were:
Felix Mendelssohn's Sinfonia No 7 in D Minor, written when he was about 13 years old (!)
Paul Stanthope's Dancing on Clouds, written a year or so ago
Ludwig van Beethoven's Romance for Violin and Orchestra in G minor, Op 40
Edward Elgar's Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op 20, and
Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet in F minor, Op 95 'Serioso' re-arranged for string orchestra.
This program had the audience in raptures with thunderous applause at the end of each work ... and the Encore. Beethoven's 'Serioso' quartet was, in a way, a gloomy work brought about by the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte had invaded Vienna the year before and life was grim.

One great think about going to concerts in Armidale is that one knows many of the audience and the intermission is useful for catching up with them. Maybe I should have taken along some packs of cards and a card table or two since many in the audience were members of the Armidale Bridge Club!
Just joking!

AS

Armidale's Driverless Bus

For most of 2019, the University of New England in Armidale hosted the trial of a driverless bus around our campus. And while I was able to take photos of the event, some of which were shown in an earlier post, I never hitched a ride. Now, the same bus is roaming around Armidale's CBD and a couple of days ago I decided to go for ride around town.

I headed down town and parked outside our police station, which is located c. 20 m from the main bus-stop, expecting I'd have to wait about 15 minutes for the bus to arrive. I got lucky. It had halted at a pedestrian crossing just a few meters away and I rushed across another road to take the first picture of the driverless bus arriving at the stop.

I got on board quickly to find that it had two occupants. One was the 'curator' of the bus who was the back-up should something go wrong with the system. On our trip, the only thing he did was to press a button to close the door. Oh well! To be fair, I should point out he insisted I buckle my seat-belt in case we had a collision! The other passenger was someone I assumed was a Chinese UNE student, though my assumption may have been wrong. We just smiled at each other and got on with the trip.

Here we are facing the driverless front of the vehicle about to go north along Faulkner street before taking a sharp right turn at the police station.

The trip went smoothly and a little bit faster than I was anticipating. And there were no fearful moments. Pedestrians and vehicles alike were given their respective rights of way and it was great fun. I took several movies with my smart phone, one of which is attached below. Apologies if it chews up too much of your internet download limits!

 All up it was a great experience and a cute introduction to our likely motoring future. How many towns of c. 25,000 people around the world have an opportunity like this? Please let me know if you cannot see the video and tell me how to correct my error

AS

A Wander Around Saint Paul

I left Burlington in Vermont fairly early on 21st July en route to Saint Paul, via Chicago. This location was the starting point for my second conference starting the following day. Saint Paul is (a) the capital of Minnesota and (b) the twin city of Minneapolis which lies adjacent. Both are located on northern plains of the USA and are roughly half way between east and west coasts. The wider region is one of the world's great bread-baskets and a good spot to examine developments in US agriculture. Our conference trip would take us around both the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. I spent 3 months in Madison, capital of Wisconsin back about 20 years ago having a lovely time exploring that state. But on one occasion then I managed to cross the border into Saint Paul.

The dominant feature of Saint Paul is, of course, the famous Mississippi River and on the afternoon of my arrival I immediately took a walk down to and along the river. From my vantage point I could see the river flowing busily and I soon found out that the mid-west had been having some heavy rainfall - lucky them! And, from the same spot, I could turn my back see down-town Saint Paul.

The river is spanned by numerous bridges of various kinds like those show below. I've crossed to a green island sitting mid-stream and given over to kids play areas among other things.

Turning up-stream on the western side of the rive I came across several historic vessels of the kind people romanticize about - especially the paddle steamers.

Walking NW I came across this huge bridge spanning the river, and then noticed nearby a boat park for luxury vessels owned by wealthy locals.

I spent some time wandering around parkland on the river bank made possible by the dude on this plinth. I've noticed on my visits to the USA that many community and environmental amenities owe their existence to charitable benefactors.

On the following Sunday morning I, and my colleague Roy Jones from Curtin University in WA, decided to wander around Saint Paul and this, in turn, proved interesting. By the way, Roy and I went to the same university in Britain (Newcastle upon Tyne) only about a year apart!

Well, here's the impressive state parliament building and a key dude in the state's history ... but I'm not sure who.


As one would expect, such a location would have a lot of statues and commemorative plaques. This one has a message from no less than the famous Charles Lindbergh. He, you may recall, made the first non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927.

 This central area is also home to the State's history museum and the impressive cathedral on the right.



And, from the history center one has a panorama across to the congress building. The district is naturally home to lots of bureaucratic offices of varying architectural merit. and vistas like the one on the left.





















And, here, finally is a view of the city centre from the administrative quarter. Note the lovely parkland effect!

 In short, Saint Paul was a nice place to visit.

AS

Wow it's hot

We're now in mid-spring - the equivalent of mid-April in the northern hemisphere. I've just looked at my mobile phone and received a shock. Here we are at 1000+ m above sea level, roughly the same height as Mt Snowdon in Wales, and the temperature recorded is 32 C (about 90 F)!

We have had steadily rising temperatures in recent weeks and nearly all have been way above average for this time of year. When I awoke at 6 am this morning the temperature was already 18 C (nearly 65 F).

And another climate concern is our rainfall, which is only running at one-third of the usual amount by this time of year. Many of the plants in our garden are struggling to survive the combination of heat and drought and the fine grasses we tried to maintain in our lawn are now mostly dead also.

All this means that Armidale has had great water restrictions imposed by Council in the hope that the c. 43% of remaining water in the town's Malpas dam can keep us going until the end of 2020. We can't (or shouldn't) water lawns, take showers longer than 3 minutes, wash cars (except for windscreens), and so on. We're doing better than most rural towns, many of which have already run out of water and are having to bring in train-loads (or truck-loads) of the stuff.

What's gone wrong? Well the climate conditions over most of Australia are wildly different to usual. The high pressure systems which typically sit over the centre of the continent in winter were often displaced up to 1500 km south this year. This meant that the frontal systems in the southern ocean that usual bring us winter rain were deflected a long way south and had no impact here. So, over the last two months our rainfall only amounted to about 3 mm - i.e. next to nothing.

And this outcome seems to lie with the waters of the north-east Indian ocean, which are much colder than usual. Similar malfunctions of climate systems seem to have occurred all over the world - places hotter or colder, or alternatively drier or wetter, than usual. And some people are claiming that climate change is not occurring!? Our current drought is the worst ever recorded for our region.

And it seems to have some interesting side effects. We have 3 bird-feeders in our garden, all topped up daily. But the number and types of birds we welcome here have changed. We're getting far fewer of our feathered friends visit us and some species, particularly Galahs, have almost deserted us. They used to be the dominant species, but that's no longer the case. Are they dead? Or have they migrated to locations with much more water? Given the shortage of natural bird-seed we were expecting long queues in the trees around our garden awaiting their turn to feed! It's sad not to see so many of
them.

AS

Busking in the Armidale Mall

I had the privilege, along with heaps of other people, of being able to attend a busking entertainment morning organised by our local government - the Armidale Regional Council. It was staged from mid-morning to lunchtime on the 1st of October during school holidays, and this explains why there were so many kids in the audience, Altogether, 5 international acts were hired, of which I saw only 4 because I had to assist Dot in recovering from her occupation. All four were riveting. And the kids had other attractions to keep them occupied between the various shows.

These included an inflatable slippery dip, an excellent face painting studio, instructions on wiggling hoops around your waist, the usual play area, and a castle to explore.

While most of the special acts lasted about half an hour each, there was a curious gentleman from Chile attached somehow to a pole and perhaps suspended by balloons. I'll put this another way. He seemed to be able to wiggle his feet freely  in the air but his attachment to the pole seemed to be only slight, so perhaps helium in the balloons kept him aloft. Note that both feet are way off the ground. He attracted an eager audience.




















The first of the main acts I saw was a contortionist who could twist himself into some strange positions. Here he is bending over backwards until his head hovered just above the ground















At one point in the show he took hold of a metal frame and then juggled in the around himself for maybe 5 minutes to great applause.


It was a really classy performance and I was not surprised to learn that he's a star in the famous Cirque du Soleil, which I once had the privilege of seeing live in Canberra. The applause went on for a long time!

The next act was a cowboy from a place I've long wanted to visit buy never quite reached - Portland in Oregon. This guy could certainly crack a whip, pedal a mono-cycle, and work wonders with a lasso.

This what I saw. He could spin buckets on his fingers, work with poles, and twist lasso around himself.





















He could also spin a cushion on his fingers.









The he lassoed himself and a young volunteer from the audience.



He could certainly crack whips and tie them in knots.
















And then, finally, he showed us how to lasso objects while riding a mono-cycle. The whole exhibition brought great applause.

The next act was performed by an American from Blaine, Minnesota. Wow! About a couple of months ago, I was on a bus that drove past Blaine en route to see farming in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Alas, I didn't get the opportunity to say how much I liked his home turf.

Here's the guy in action.

He started off on another mono-cycle. At first it was a conventional ride (left), but then he showed how do it with the left foot on the right pedal and vice versa!









For another trick he rode his bike hands free and jumped over the feet of a little boy who had volunteered for the task. Fortunately, the little kid still has his feet intact.





Then he lit some torches and proceeded to juggle them, fortunately without any burns!









Not content with this, he invited several blokes hold and prevent from moving the world's highest mono-cycle. It took quite some effort to climb to the top and achieve an unaided balance.





A long pole helped him remain upright and stationary. And then, to the audience's great surprise he was handed a sharp sword, another flaming torch and metal bar, which he then proceeded to juggle from the great height of his saddle with, as you can see, a horse's head on it. This was a huge act!


It bought the show to the end, but the crowd was delighted.

let's hope it happens again next year! Great things can happen in small country towns!

AS