PUBLIC LECTURE: Materials for Life; the enduring value of biography

Background information:

Robyn Archer is a singer, writer and director who has performed throughout the world and on all the main stages of Australia. She is still performing, most recently in New York, Zurich, Berlin, Adelaide, Melbourne and Oxford and continues to write essays, songs and copious notes towards her own memoirs. Having directed the major international festivals in Adelaide and Melbourne , the National Festival of Australian Theatre in Canberra, and created Ten Days on the Island for Tasmania , Robyn is currently Artistic Director of Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008.

Her specialty of the songs of Brecht/Weill /Eisler and Weimar culture generally, have marked her out internationally. Her landmark recordings with the London Sinfonietta were re-released on CD as Songs For Bad Times Vols 1 and 2 and she continues to sing an eclectic repertoire including country, standards, and her own songs. She is an exponent and a champion of music theatre and the classic European cabaret tradition.

Archer was Artistic Director of the National Festival of Australian Theatre in Canberra for three years and of the Adelaide Festival in 1998 and 2000. In 2001 she created a new celebration of the arts for Tasmania: Ten Days on the Island. Robyn was Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts for 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Archer performed with Paul Grabowsky at BAM Café in New York in October 2001 and in 2004 she premiered an intimate new show Whispering at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. In 2005 Robyn created iProtest! with Paul Grabowsky and performed the show in Adelaide and at the Melbourne International Arts festival.

Robyn was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2000, and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001. You can find more about Robyn at The depArcher Lounge (www.robynarcher.com.au)

The National Biography Award Lecture for 2006 is generously supported by Geoffrey Cains and Michael Crouch AO.

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