From the 6th to 13th of January, 2008 the Sydney International Mandolin Festival was held at the Shore School in North Sydney. More than 120 musicians from all over Australia, from New Zealand, from America, Canada, and Japan came to rehearse for a week and then perform a Gala Concert under the baton of well-known and highly respected mandolinist and member of the Sydney Mandolins, Adrian Hooper. This Festival was very well planned by an extremely energetic and dedicated subcommittee (Peter Canavan, Lynne Hughes and Cath Kench) from the Sydney Mandolin Orchestra and ran incredibly smoothly due to excellent planning.

The Shore School occupies an elevated position in North Sydney with magnificent views looking across the ever-interesting Sydney harbour to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with the Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay behind. The school grounds were immaculate and very beautiful, the accommodation spartan but adequate, the food surprisingly good for institutional food, and the schools facilities fantastic for rehearsing and for performing. The Shore School has a large, well-equipped auditorium with good acoustics and very comfortable seating for the audience. Fortunately for all the players, the rehearsal venue and the auditorium were comfortably air-conditioned as the weather was hot and humid, quite typical for Sydney during January!

The week was packed full with long, intensive rehearsals and a few section rehearsals which left little free time for sight-seeing or just plain relaxing. However, the organizing committee had planned a few recreational events including an afternoon cruise on Sydney harbour on the "Bennelong" cruise boat which proved extremely popular with all the visitors to Sydney, and an evening "barn dance". During three of the evenings, there were three in-house concerts featuring fantastic performances by various groups of Festival participants as well as some outside groups which were associated with some of the Festival participants.

Back to the music itself: early in the preparations for this Festival, the organizing committee had sought funding from FAME in order to commission several new works including "Pacifica" by Michelle Nelson, a Melbourne-based composer and guitarist (Leader of the guitar section of the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra), "Stringing" by Carolyn Szeto, "Under Sydney Skies" by John Peterson, and "Autumn Sketches" by Robert Allworth, the latter 3 composers all based in Sydney. In addition to these specially commissioned works, the huge orchestra rehearsed "Sydney Overture" by Herbert Baumann, the only non-Australian composer, "Mikri Thalassa" by Betty Beath, "2nd Suite for Plectrum Orchestra" by Eric Gross and "Dance of the Shepherds" by Colin Brumby. During the week three of the composers, Eric Gross, Carolyn Szeto and John Peterson, came to hear the orchestra perform their works; Michelle Nelson was present during the entire Festival playing in the front desk of the guitar section.

All these works were challenging and our conductor, Adrian Hooper was extremely demanding! He worked the orchestra very carefully knowing that the participants included players of widely varying skill levels. The orchestra responded to his instructions and gradually over the week, as the music became increasingly familiar to all players, Adrian started to smile more and more as he became more and more satisfied with what he was hearing.

The orchestra's leader was Paul Hooper, Adrian Hooper's younger brother, who often bore the brunt of Adrian's jokes or criticisms when there were any problems with the playing from the first mandolins section. The other section leaders, Penny Ross (second mandolins), Jan Gillingham (mandola section), Mark Davis (invited from Providence, Rhode Island, USA, to lead the Guitar Section), and Ann Palumbo (bass section) all worked hard during the week to help their section's players and they also conducted two or more section rehearsals to focus on particularly difficult sections of the music.

By the end of the week, the orchestra was READY. On Saturday the 12 of January the orchestra performed a Gala Concert open to the public and it was a sellout! The performance was memorable and it was wonderful to give the world premiere performances of the four commissioned works by Nelson, Allworth, Peterson and Szeto. In addition two solo performances were given by two very special players: Marissa Carroll, a young (not yet 16) mandolin player from Brisbane gave a stunning virtuosic performance of Prelude No 2 by Rafael Calace and Fiona Ziegler, a mandolin player with the Sydney Mandolin Orchestra who performed the world premiere public performance of "Ancient Melodies in Converging and Diverging Lines" by Michael Smetanin, an extremely complex and demanding work. (Fiona also moonlights as one of Sydney's most sought after violinists!) Visiting US professional classical guitarists, Mark and Beverly Davis performed a beautiful and moving duet, "Hymn: Page 911" by Peter Ostroushko and the well-known duet, "Mandoline Affaire" - Penny Ross (mandolin) and John Jooste (guitar) - performed "Au Fond du Temple Saint" by Georges Bizet. The solo and duet performances contributed enormously to the interest and enjoyment of the audience, many of whom had never before seen a performance by a mandolin orchestra or solo or duet classical mandolin performances.

Of course, once the tension that had built up over the week was finally released during the performance of the Gala Concert, it was time to party! Celebrations went on into the wee hours of Sunday morning. And true to form, out came the instruments once again and suddenly all sorts of weird and whacky things started to happen! But no more about that or else I'll be in trouble!!!

This was a fantastic Mandolin festival thanks to the hard working committee who made it all happen, the composers who created wonderful music, Adrian Hooper who patiently and vigorously moulded the players to his direction, the section leaders who conducted section rehearsal and who aided their sections in many different ways, the players who worked dilligently to play to the best of their ability, the Shore School for providing food and accommodation and finally the weather.

Everybody left the Festival exhausted but sad that the week was over, and with wonderful memories, new friends and renewed acquaintances, overused laughing muscles as we all had heaps of fun, and very importantly, with improved musical skills.

I can't wait until the next Festival in Brisbane 2009!

Report by Danny Silver, mandola player with MMO

Click here to download a recording of an interview about the Sydney International Mandolin Festival, recorded on the ABC, featuring Mark and Beverly Davis and Marissa Carroll, soloists performing in the Gala Concert

 Mandola section lead by Jan Gillingham

is this real Aussie tucker?

how many bass players can we fit on the stage???

Duo Kyoto

West Australian Mandolin Orchestra - WAMO - with Robert Schulz

Auckland Mandolinata with Bryan Holden

Sydney Mandolin Orchestra with Christopher Keane

Fuji Women's University Mandolin Club

Sydney Balalaika Orchestra with Victor Serghie

some of our wonderful Japanese players & friends

and here's to all of us!

square dancing pluckers

1st Mandolin section lead by Paul Hooper

Second Mandolin section lead by Penny Ross

A Mandolin Affaire - Penny Ross & John Jooste

doing a Japanese song and dance - but not seriously!

a surprise performance by NZ composer Yvette Audain!

Caroline Szeto with conductor Adrian Hooper

Adrian Hooper with composer John Peterson

our Square Dance combo

talented squeezebox players with the Sydney Balalaika Orchestra

Urban Excentrics

Guitar section lead by Mark Davis

rehearsals can be fun!

Marissa & Ray Carroll

Marissa after her solo in the Gala Concert

Fiona Ziegler playing Michael Smetanin's new work. (click HERE to download a recording of this piece by Michael Hooper in London - courtesy of Jade Records.)

composer Eric Gross

Michelle Nelson composer and guitarist