When it comes to contemporary art and culture, the Sydney Opera House is in a league of its own. From hosting an array of incredible shows from the likes of Bon Iver, The National, Deafheaven, Sleater-Kinney and Hiatus Kaiyote to TED Talks, specialised lectures, and exclusive cinema screenings, the traditional venue has become a hub of contemporary cultural activity over the past two decades.
Now, the venue is expanding further into the realm of audio information, today announcing the interview-based It’s A Long Story podcast.
Similar in format to television programs like Australian Story, the program sets to unpack what made influential individuals decide to follow their convictions and pursue their ambitions.
Hosted by award-winning journalist Hamish Macdonald, the first season of the podcast launches this month and will include nine interviews with influential individuals like the great Henry Rollins, Alicia Garza, co-founder of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and Jesse Bering, author of the critically acclaimed novel Why Is The Penis Shaped Like That? Additionally, the music for the Podcast is also composed by Hrishikesh Hirway, creator and host of Song Exploder.
Head of International Development and co-curator of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas Daniella Harvey says of the podcast that the Opera House is “a place of discussion of issues of local, national and international importance… It’s A Long Story is a way of telling the stories behind the stories on our stages.”
Podcasts have become a staple of the cultural landscape of today, with Laura Marling launching her own series earlier this year to document sexism and the challenges faced by women in the male-dominated music industry.
It’s A Long Story expands well beyond the musical sphere, but the cultural treasures that it no doubt holds are incredibly exciting.
Listen to the first podcast here:
Images: Supplied
The Sydney Opera House has become as well known for its contemporary music and interesting, thought-provoking festivals as it has for, well, the opera. Last weekend it hosted GRAPHIC, a festival celebrating comics, visual arts and more, with talks, screenings and performances from the likes of revered comic author and novelist Neil Gaiman, Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Now in its sixth year, the festival has previously seen visual arts-infused music from Gotye, Sarah Blasko and The Cinematic Orchestra among others, alongside authors and artists including Kevin Smith, George Miller and the Robot Chicken team.
Neil Gaiman fans were treated to three hours of short films, a documentary and a Q&A session (with Gaiman speaking via satellite video). The documentary followed Gaiman around the world on a book signing tour, and provided unique insight into his life and personality. This was followed up by the Q&A, during which he announced his next book, a collection of retold Norse mythology stories. As a gift for the audience, we were presented with one of the short stories from the book, out in February 2017.
Matt Groening also delivered the goods for fans of the Simpsons and Futurama, delivering a keynote address, as well as a hilarious, insightful conversation with his friend and artist Lynda Barry. During their conversation, the pair recalled experiences from their upbringing, with Groening even sharing home videos, talking about how he got into drawing, and clueing the audience in about how Simpsons characters were inspired by people he knew and named after his immediate family. They went on to discuss many interesting aspects of art, graphic design and comics, showing examples and even drawing a few on stage. One guy asked Groening to take home his quick sketch of Marge Simpson’s silhouette – let’s hope that doesn’t end up on eBay any time soon.
Never thought we’d be watching The Simpsons at the Opera House! Image: Supplied
The weekend finished with a screening of George Lucas’ 1971 film THX 1138, with the score performed by a live orchestra, the Asian Dub Foundation.
The film is Lucas’ feature film directorial debut, and first came out six years before the release of Star Wars. THX 1138 is a dystopian sci-fi thriller set in a future where humans live in sprawling underground cities and are controlled by emotion-suppressing drugs. The film, which has a distinct Orwellian feel to it, stars a young Robert Duvall as the title character.
The performance saw four members of the UK’s Asian Dub Foundation lending their significant musical talents to a live re-scoring of the film, which, given its menacing themes, should have been a fascinating audiovisual experience. And it was – kind of.
For a building renowned for its architectural acoustics, the sound quality in the Opera House was remarkably poor, although this could be forgiven, considering the unusual nature of the event. The film’s dialogue was often incomprehensible, making for an incredibly frustrating experience from which numerous people departed in the early stages. Asian Dub Foundation, it should be noted, were sublime. Aside from a few rare moments of incongruity, the band displayed an intimate understanding of the film’s themes. They captured the ethereal, futuristic vibe of THX 1138 quite brilliantly, mirroring the storyline’s ebb and flow with pulsating bass, clattering percussion and flute that was in turns eerie and urgent. Action sequences – including the epic car chase finale – were accompanied by cacophony, while moments of tension and emotion were complemented by delicate cymbals and flute.
The sound issue was with the film itself; when not drowned out by the music, the audio was muffled and reverberant. It was possible to glean the gist of the story from the visuals and the occasional bit of dialogue, but the lack of sonic clarity undoubtedly detracted from what could have been a magnificent experience. Ultimately the event was a fun way to end a fabulous festival, and although the novelty was not lost, the sound issues faced when bringing a live score to a 1971 film unfortunately did not go noticed.
Image: Sydney Opera House
Written by Lauren Ziegler and Andrew Adrian
Image: Sydney Opera House
Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson is one of those artists so enormously talented that his appeal is able to transcend the barrier between languages. So potent is his talent, that an Anglophone can sit there in complete and utter rapture and enjoy his music. The melodic folk singer’s success in his native Iceland is even more impressive, where it’s estimated that ten percent of the population owns his debut album Dýrð í dauðaþögn.
And what better place to showcase such great talent other than the Sydney Opera House? The architectural wonder was the perfect backdrop to the Scandinavian’s mysterious and enthralling music. Performing there is a huge feat for any artist, and even bigger one for the 22-year-old who played a repertoire of songs from his album In the Silence, both in Icelandic and English.
It was a balmy Wednesday night as hundreds of Ásgeir fans packed themselves into the iconic venue in eager anticipation of the night’s sold-out performance. With no opener, the Icelander took to the stage soon after 9pm, accompanied by a veritable orchestra of violins, trumpets, drums and trombones, and began with Head in the Snow and In The Silence. Higher followed, Lupin Intrigue, also known as Frost, was a standout performance, with Ásgeir’s voice soaring to impossible heights as he hit every note perfectly, leaving the entire audience utterly transfixed.
You are a beautiful man
However, his most standout performance of the night was yet to come. I literally sat gob smacked in amazement as Ásgeir launched into the most harmonically, pitch-perfect, transcendently beautiful rendition of Heart Shaped Box. Time and space disappeared as my tunnel vision zoomed in on just Ásgeir, lit up under a single, translucent beam of light. It’s moments like these that make you realise that raw talents like Ásgeir need live performances in order to demonstrate the true extent of their talent.
In between songs, Ásgeir took the time to thank to the audience for coming to see him in his adorably truncated English, gushing as best as one could in a second language about how honoured he was to be performing in such an iconic venue, before launching into Dreaming and Nu Hann Blaes.
Finishing on his most well known hit King and Cross, he and his band swiftly departed the stage, leaving the audience craving more as they stomped their feet in protest. But he wasn’t finished just yet, returning to the stage to perform On That Day with just his guitar to accompany him. This was perhaps the most poignant moment of the night. Ásgeir’s lone voice singing out to a captivated audience, concluding on a theme that had come to characterise the hour-long set : humble minimalism.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/100304663″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]