Catching Up After A Busy Season

It's a while since I made a post to my Blog, which partly reflects my ageing but the wide range of experiences one can have even for someone aged 78. This particular post reflects on 5 experiences I had during the first half of September. The first concerns a farewell party to a former bridge partner of mine - Manfred Junge. The second looks at an early surge in Spring flowers around our garden. Thirdly let's look at Armidale's transition to an elecrtic scooter hub!! After that, I'll report on my invitation to attend a National Summit in Canberra!! And, immediately after returning from that I attended a brilliant performance of our local orchestra playing a range of music.

Let's start with our sad gathering to remeber Manfred.

It was at the Bowling Club and was attended by heaps of friends and relatives who gathered to discuss their memories of him. Of course, given his name, you would be correct in guessing his birthplace - Germany

Secondly, Spring arrived early because of an extremely mild late winter when temperatures even reached 20 C.

 

About the 10th September, Armidale awoke to a big surprise. Something like 300 + electric scooters appeared out of nowhere and were deposited all over town including the entrance to our street. Our local council acquired them from a company called REAM and slowly they're attracting a lot of attention and use by our younger residents. I'm going to have a go at riding one shortly! Apparently they can travel quite fast.

Next comes the national summit I attended in Canberra. The entry fee was A$1,000, but the Regional Australia Institute with which I have been associated for over 20 years allowed me in for nothing, though I did have to apy to fly to Canberra and back. Fortunately, Rebecca put me up at her home and I was driven to and from the event in town by her over the two days.

Maybe 70 or 80 people from all over the country and working for all 3 tiers of government - national, state and local, or for business interests, or people engaged in research like me, attended this excellent meeting.

Here's the leader of ther oppsoition, Peter Dutton organising a session.

And another politician is here leading another discussed theme.

Here's some of the audience listening to the proceedings attentively.

Most of the time however, the audience was seated aroung circular tables in the posh hotel near Parliament House.

We were served great food for 2 days! All up, I was very pleased to attend.

And the fifth theme I mentioned previously was my attendance at a marvellous musical performance of, surprisingly dance music by some of the great composers of the last 3 centuries. The excellent orchestra performed in our old town hall to an enthusiastic local audience. The two pictures show the performers on stage and a selfie of yours truly and the rivetted audience.

So, I am having  a great retirement with lots of interesting things to. That's the way things should be.

AS

Yet another classical music event

Only  short while ago, I acknowledgef some wonderful musical events here in Armidale. Well, just two days ago I attended yet another brilliant orchestral event. This time, it was out local symphony orchestra delivering a wonderful experience, albeit with the aid of two young extra-regional guests. One was Robert van Gend who conducted the event and the other was his brother Johnny who was the marvellous violin soloist,

The program was itself very interesting. First on the list was was Mozart's Overture from La clemenza di Tito dated 1791. Secondly, there was Henryk Wieniawshi's brilliant Violin Concerto #2 in D minor dated 1862. And thirdly we were entertained by Ralph Vaughan Williams Serenade for Small Orchestra in A Minor dated 1898.

Not only were these works great choices, but they came across beuatifully aided by a wonderful conductor and an excellent local orchestra - with participants from many different countries.

I took a couple of pictures of this lovely event on my phone and here they are:

The second picture here shows the standing violinist standing close to his relative conductor

Endless Classical Music events

I haven't made many posts to my Blog recently, but that in part reflects a very busy lifestyle. However, I'd like to report on the amazing number of classical music events delivered here in Armidale. This is what is happening in August alone.

On Thursday 3 August, I attended one of the most impressive piano recitals I've ever heard at Armidale's Conservatorium of Music. How many towns across the world with a population of only 25,000 have such a facility?

A young Australian bloke, Konstantin Shamray, performed 5 separate works as follows:

Bach's Italian Concerto in F Major

Liszt's Sonetti del Petrarca

Liszt's Paraphrase de concert sur Verdi's Rigaletto

Ravel's La Valse and

Prokofiev's Piano Sonata #8 in B-flat major.

His performance was brilliant and we discovered that, although he's based in Adelaide, he's performed with major orchestras across Europe. 

Then, last Saturday, I went to another amazing musical event delivered to a rapturous audience. There were only two brilliant musicians standing on the stage! One - Robert Jackson - was a Cellist and the other - Keith Power - a Pianist, this time both local! Once again, their performance was perfect adn rapturously recevied. The 3 works performed were:

Menedlssohn's Sonata for Cello # 1 in B Flat (1838)

Gyorgy Ligeti's Sonata for solo Cello (1948) and 

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello in G Major (1901)

And this coming weekend, the Armidale Symphony Orchestra is perfoming at our University of New England's Lazenby Hall. The works wil be Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito Overture, the stunning Wieniawski Violin Concerto no. 2 in D minor and the enchanting Vaughan Williams Serenade for Orchestra in A minor. 

That's 3 major concerts in 17 days!!

Sorry, I have no pictures of the performances! Taking them is dificult seated in the front row!

AS

Big Chill Festival

On the same day as the concert just presented, there was another major event in Armidale - the Big Chill Festival. This celebrates the on-coming winter with two interesting dimensions. On the one hand, there are various bands playing popular music and some of the young people in front of the music stand were dancing to it. The other celebration is the presentation of interesting foodstuffs and drinks mostly sourced locally. The BCF started on the day before -  Saturday and I bought an expensive ticket (A$75) covering both days. I enjoyed listening to the music performed by high-class bands / soloists and also walking around the food and drink contributors and sampling their often very good wears. As usual, my phone was busy collecting pictures of what was going on, some of which are attached below.

AS

Peter and the Wolf!!

Armidale has a huge number of orcgestral concerts each year and 2023 is no exception. A week ago on Mothers Day I had the privlege of attending a wonderful concert presented by the Armidale Symphony Orchestra. Their contribution was brilliant. I often wonder how a small town of just 25,000 people can deliver such high class classical music performances.

On this occasion, the last piece played was Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Apart from the music, the peformance had a narrator who explained to all the young children attending what the music was explaining about the story.

The second majpr work also blew me away. Beleive it or not, it was the world premier of a Piccolo Concerto called "The Wanderer". Moreover, the  composer, Matthew Pinter, was actually the orchestra's conductor! So our little town niw has a major composer. The Piccolo player, Lamoma Nightingale, is also a champion of new Australian music and plays with our country's leading orchestras. "The Wanderer" explores the New England countryside around and was warmly received by an enthusiastic audience.

An the first work on the agenda was no less than "Overture to Egmont" written by someone called Ludwig van Beethaoven. This work was written 213 years ago, but commemorates a sad event 455 years ago when the Spansih executed a Dutch nobelman Count lamoral van egmont.

Here are some views of the proceedings.

AS

Becoming Australian Citizens

I had a fortunate experience a few days ago when I went downtown to collect the audited accounts of Dot and my Superannuation Fund. Nearby I saw crownds congreating in our Mall and Iwent over to see what was happening. There I met a good friend who explained to me that a ceremony was about to take place in which immigrants were granted Australian citizenship. Nothnig like this happened when I became an Australian citizen. I simply got a letter in the mail in around 1974! - almost 50 years ago.

More surprisingly still for me was seeing our locel mayor arrive along with with our local members of parliament - both state and federal. Also joining in the proceedings and, indeed, opening the ceremony were two school captains and an Aborignal leader! We sang the national anthem and then the crown was informed baout how the ceremony would proceed.

Heaps of people were invited to come forward in turn, whether individuals, couples or even whole families - each greated with applause. I was standing adjacent to a friend of mine whom a play against in numerous bridge games. I've known David Bonsey for years and was stunned to see him accept Australian citizenship!

As is the case with Australian immigration, recipients of citizenship came from all over the planet, whether Europe, east and west Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They generated applause whatever their cutural origins. Armidale is heavily multicultural and I for one enjoy shopping for food at a Middle East store! Last week I was nibbling Turkish food and today I've consumed some Iranian dates as I'm writing thos blog message. Here are some images of proceedings, staring with Barnaby Joyce - previously a deputy Prime Minister-  addressing us with the Mayor and our state MP sitting to the left.

Here's an Aboriginal leader also adressing us and below is a school captain doing the same.

And here's one of the new citizens thanking us. The school kids sitting in front of her started singeing the national anthem.

All up the proceedings were very enjoyable. 

AS

Tour de Rocks?

 One annual event in Armidale is a cycling event called the "Tour de Rocks". It's a long up-hill and down-hill bike ride to the coast near Kempsey.  It's a distnace of perhaps 250 km and the overall drop in altitude is c. 1000 m.

This year I was out on an early morning walk at about 7.30 am on the day the tour was due to start downtown at perhaps 10 am. I was stunned to see about 7 pods of bike riders pass me going north on Rockvale Road near where I live. One pod was headed by a truck with lights flashing and two others were led by a police car. 

I managed to work out that the pods were probably community supporters of the event and not participants. That's because many of the riders looked elderly, while others were quite young. Nor do all the riders wear the customary uniforms of competitive riders.

Here's a few pictures of what I saw near home. I guess that some of these groups - if not all - were supporters of the event  and preparing to say good-bye to the competitors.

In 2023, the event couldn't use the usual route to the coast because of extensive road-works on the main Armidale - Kempsey road. So instead the route was re-directed for a similar distiance around the northern tablelands.

Armidale is certainly an interesting place with a constant stream of interesting cultural and recreational events.

AS

Roaming the New England Countryside

 Last week we had the privilege of hoasting Rebecca and Rob for a few days here in Armidale and they love exploring the Australian countryside. Late one afternoon we headed off to the wooded countryside alongside Tilbuster Creek for a rapid walk as the sun set. This is what we saw, but I apologise for the low light

On another day Bec and I went to the Blue Hole and the Gara gorge for a much longer walk. Just one year ago poor Bec suffered a major knee injury by she's recovered marvellously. Indeed, today, she just celebrated her a-knee-versary. The countryside around Gorge on the Gara River is 'gorge'ous - as these pictures show.

I hope you're enervated by these photos and want to come and stay with us to explore our extensive and massively beautiful countryside.

AS