The Perth FAME Festival held from January 8th t0 15th, 2023
This will be held at St Catherine's College, 2 Park Rd, Crawley WA 6009. Information about the College is available HERE.
The conductor for the FAME Festival Orchestra was Werner Ruecker, currently conductor of the Sydney Mandolin Orchestra, and previously conductor of the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra and the Warrnambool Symphony Orchestra.
Here are some more detailed notes on how the FAME Perth Mandolin and Guitar Festival 2023 went.
Music Program
Having been left dormant for the last two years waiting for travel to once again become an option, the Perth FAME Festival program contained one new work (a World premiere) and one Australian premiere.
The music for Festival registrants was made available for download from a Secure password protected Music Library in this website.
The rehearsal room was fully air-conditioned with space just outside for cases and bags.
Festival Program
One important new idea for our time together was to make all Orchestra rehearsals take place during the day. So by 4 PM we were able to sit back a bit and recover from the 4 hours of hard yakka. there was a midweek break for players to relax and see a bit of Perth on the Wednesday afternoon and evening.
As in years before the FAME Annual General Meeting took place on the Monday evening and we held a wonderful in-house concert on Friday evening with players performing in small groups or as soloists with comedy and some amazing playing!
Festival Concert
The Festival Concert was held at the Perth Modern School Auditorium. This was a venue for our end of week concert which was held on the Saturday afternoon from 3 PM and left the Saturday evening to wind back and relax. The following Sunday we all said our farewells and left to go home but we're all looking forward to the next FAME Festival in Brisbane from 3oth of June 2024!
The conductor for the FAME Festival Orchestra was Werner Ruecker, currently conductor of the Sydney Mandolin Orchestra, and previously conductor of the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra and the Warrnambool Symphony Orchestra.
Here are some more detailed notes on how the FAME Perth Mandolin and Guitar Festival 2023 went.
Music Program
Having been left dormant for the last two years waiting for travel to once again become an option, the Perth FAME Festival program contained one new work (a World premiere) and one Australian premiere.
- Werner Ruecker’s new work "Covid Times" is an acknowledgement of the mood purveying the continent over the last few years.
- Robert Schulz' "Symphonic Fantasy in E minor" , a truly ambitious title, was premiered in Japan in 2015, so its been sitting on the sidelines waiting for its Aussie premiere. It is scored for Mandolin Orchestra, timpani, percussion and flute. One long movement and depending on the tempo about 25 playing minutes.
- Yasua Kuwahara's “Outside of Forest" is typical of his understanding of what mandolins can do. This composer is also renowned for his avant garde writings, but you will be pleased to know this is not one of them.
- From the original guitar solo, we will be exploring the rhythms of South American composer Maximo Diego Pujol in a re-working of his 'Trez Piezas Rioplatenses’, a three movement work with some exciting challenges but some beautiful melodic interest especially in the slow movement.
- To compliment the above we will also be performing Valentin Roesser’s "Sonata No 2", a well written baroque work in four movements.
The music for Festival registrants was made available for download from a Secure password protected Music Library in this website.
The rehearsal room was fully air-conditioned with space just outside for cases and bags.
Festival Program
One important new idea for our time together was to make all Orchestra rehearsals take place during the day. So by 4 PM we were able to sit back a bit and recover from the 4 hours of hard yakka. there was a midweek break for players to relax and see a bit of Perth on the Wednesday afternoon and evening.
As in years before the FAME Annual General Meeting took place on the Monday evening and we held a wonderful in-house concert on Friday evening with players performing in small groups or as soloists with comedy and some amazing playing!
Festival Concert
The Festival Concert was held at the Perth Modern School Auditorium. This was a venue for our end of week concert which was held on the Saturday afternoon from 3 PM and left the Saturday evening to wind back and relax. The following Sunday we all said our farewells and left to go home but we're all looking forward to the next FAME Festival in Brisbane from 3oth of June 2024!