This was the first in a series of performances FLO did at Macgeorge House (as part of Nela’s fellowship with the University of Melbourne, Australia) celebrating the birthday of May Macgeorge who lived in the house with her husband Norman Macgeorge since it was built in 1911. As both May and Norman were artists and patrons of the arts, their wish was to leave the house (the land and all their possessions) to University of Melbourne, so that it can continue to be used as a centre of artistic activity for many years to come. Throughout the years May and Norman hosted many gatherings of the local artists (mostly working with fine arts) at the house, so we thought a series of FLO performances connecting local artists with the female artists from around the world would be a very fitting activity, and kicked off Macgeorge House Sessions 2019 with a tribute to our fellow female artist May on the (137th) anniversary of her birthday! (whos presence can still be felt throughout the house, according to the caretaker!)
You can watch a short excerpt from this audio-visual performance celebrating the birthday of May Macgeorge on the FLO YouTube channel, featuring live electronics (by Nela and Sonia), poetry readings and live visuals by local artists (award-winning poet Kylie Supski and visual artist/poet ReVerse Butcher), and flute improvisations by visiting artists (Croatian flutists: Marija Esih, Danijela Klarić Mimica, Lidija Ljubičić and Marina Novak). The performance also featured dance art video by Fumi Tomioka, art photography by Andrea Bravo and piano composition by Maria Mannone (but that’s on another video we haven’t gotten around to editing yet!).
As a visual backdrop to the performance, Andrea sent us the images from her Heartgraphics series (2015-2019), which use ‘lightpainting photography and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) data’, Fumi sent us a video of her dance performance which celebrated the first Japanese ‘singing’ actress Sumako Matsui (who died in 1919, exactly 100 years ago!) and featured “Katyusha’s song” sung by Sumako, whilst Maria sent us her composition ‘Walking Alone’.
Happy B’Day May! We hope you enjoyed this celebration of female creativity (dating back more than 100 years!), that we put together to thank you for having us at your house!
A BIG THANK you to the following peeps and organisations who supported FLO performance of Happy B’Day May, as part of Macgeorge House Sessions 2019 in various ways:
- Roger Alsop (our dear colleague who gave us loads of gear to do the concert)
- University of Melbourne ‘music stores’ staff who gave us the rest of the gear!
- Renata Penezić and Marina Novak from the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb (who co-ordinated ZAF’s visit to Melbourne)
- Zagreb Flute Ensemble (ZAF)
- University of Melbourne Macgeorge Fellowship 2019
- Bitwig Studio, Audio-Technica and RØDE Microphones for supplying FLO with software and hardware!
A BIG THANKS to EVERYONE who joined us for this performance, which was held at the historic Macgeorge House, owned by the University of Melbourne, and not open to the general public. For those who could not be there in person, we hope you will enjoy a short video from the performance on our YouTube channel.