Spring Revolution festival:
Xenia Hanusiak
Songlines for a New World: The Sky Above the Roof
With Genevieve Lacey
Featuring US Premieres of “En Masse” and “Pleasure Garden”
Saturday, March 3rd – 7pm
About the Show
Songlines for a New World: The Sky Above the Roof, created by Artistic Director Xenia Hanusiak, celebrates Australian female perspective.
Recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey, described by The Guardian as “a combination of sensuality, wit and mind boggling flamboyance,” presents an airy evening of poetic contemplation to celebrate Australia’s Mother Earth. Hear the New York premieres of two tranquil, immersive experiences: “En Masse” and “Pleasure Garden.”
After sold out performances in the Melbourne and Adelaide Festivals, “En Masse” was presented in Beijing, and will travel to London next year. The work is a lush, layered soundscape, using both film and music, that envelops Genevieve as she plays live with her simple, wooden pipes. The piece evokes questions about environmental themes, migration, the impact of individualism, and tribal consumerism. The film’s soundtrack uses music from composers John Rodgers, Jim Atkins, Lawrence English, Steve Stelios Adam, Christian Fennesz, Nico Muhly, Ben Frost, dj olive, and Taylor Deupree.
“Pleasure Garden” is an aural retreat into an imagined garden of delights. Originally debuted to visitors in the Vaucluse House Gardens in Sydney, the lush tranquility transports you to the beautiful Lambley and Vaucluse House gardens in Australia. Inspired by the story and music of the 17th-century musician, composer, and nobleman Jacob van Eyck, Pleasure Garden combines excerpts from his work with newly composed music by Genevieve Lacey and Jan Bang, in collaboration with Jim Atkins, Robin Fox, Pete Brundle, Sera Davies and Stephen Goddard.
Photo credit: Genevieve Lacey/Stephen Goddard
About the Artists
Genevieve Lacey
Genevieve Lacey is a recorder virtuoso, serial collaborator and artistic director, with a significant recording catalogue and a career as an international soloist.
She’s commissioned and premiered works by composers as diverse as Erkki-Sven Tuur (Estonia), Elena Kats-Chernin (Australia), John Surman (UK), Peter Sculthorpe (Australia), Christian Fennesz (Austria), Ben Frost (Iceland), Paul Grabowsky (Australia) and Nico Muhly (USA). Genevieve also creates large-scale collaborative projects, recent examples including Pleasure Garden (an interactive sound sculpture), one-infinity (a music-dance piece with Jun Tian Fang, Beijing Dance Theatre, Dance North, composer Max de Wardener and choreographer-director Gideon Obarzanek, 2016-), Life in Music (a 5-part series, written, composed and narrated by Genevieve for ABC Radio National, 2015), Namatjira (a theatre piece, and now a feature documentary film, 2010-17).
Her wide-ranging musical interests have seen her playing for the Queen in Westminster Abbey, representing Australian culture with a performance at the Lindau International Convention of Nobel Laureates, playing as a concerto soloist in the BBC Proms, making music in a prison in remote Western Australia, and at the opening night of the London Jazz Festival. Her repertoire spans ten centuries and collaborators include filmmakers Sophie Raymond and Marc Silver, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Danish pipe and tabor player Poul Høxbro, playwright-director Scott Rankin, and iconic Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly. Genevieve has also performed as soloist with Academy of Ancient Music, English Concert, Concerto Copenhagen, Tapiola and Kymi Sinfonietta, St Petersburg Chamber Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and all the major Australian Symphony Orchestras.
Genevieve has won two ARIAs (Australian Recording Industry Awards), a Helpmann Award, Australia Council, Freedman and Churchill Fellowships and Outstanding Musician, Melbourne Prize for Music. She holds degrees (including a doctorate) in music and English literature from universities in Melbourne, Switzerland and Denmark.
In 2018, Genevieve is Artist in Residence at Melbourne Recital Centre, she takes on a new role as Artistic Advisor to UKARIA, and continues as Chair of the Australian Music Centre board, and inaugural Artistic Director of FutureMakers, Musica Viva Australia’s artist leadership program.
Artistic Director Xenia Hanusiak
Described as the ‘High Priestess of Harmony,’ whose writing has ‘enjoyed exceptional public approbation,’ Xenia Hanusiak enjoys one of the most diverse lives experienced by cultural leaders today. As a global festival director, writer and opera singer committed to cultural narratives Xenia’s critically acclaimed festivals and her contributions to contemporary performance including ‘MADE IN CHINA’, ‘Earth Songs’, ‘The Garden of Joy and Sorrow’ and ‘A thousand doors, a thousand windows’ have been appreciated at the Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Ten Days on the Island festivals (Australia), Aarhus Festival (Denmark), Banff Festival (Canada), Next Wave Festival, BAM (New York), Kennedy Center (Washington), Singapore Arts Festival, Gruppo Aperto Musica Oggi (Florence), Beijing Musica Acoustica, Beijing Music Festival (China) and the MODAFE Festival (Seoul). Her works for the stage as a writer include Un_labelled (Young People’s Chorus of New York City), the msTaken Identity (for Soprano and string quartet) and the play Ward B.
Xenia is currently recognized as a Global Cultural Fellow, University of Edinburgh and has held fellowships at Columbia University, Peking University, the Churchill Foundation, Shanghai Theater Institute and National University of Singapore. She holds a Doctorate in Creative Writing, and multiple degrees in music and literature.
