What's On at UWA

Join Chair of Guitars Jonathan Fitzgerald as he works with talented high-school guitarists in a free masterclass.

Expressions of interets to perform: [email protected]

Free entry - no bookings required

Held at the University of Western Australia, the Day of Percussion is a day of masterclasses, workshops and performances of percussion related music for all ages and skill levels.

The 2019 Day of Percussion program will include sessions on, contemporary drumset, orchestral percussion, concert marimba, flamenco castanets, African marimba, concert performances, and much more!

All welcome!

Fee - $30

Accompanying Mum's attend for FREE (Happy Mother's Day!)

Contact details: [email protected]

A public talk by Dr Stefano Carboni, Director, Art Gallery of Western Australia.

The celebrated Venetian painter Gentile Bellini was sent by the Serenissima Republic to spend two years at the court of Mehmet II the Conqueror in Istanbul in 1479. This important moment in the cultural and artistic relationship between Venice and the Ottomans ushered in an Orientalist phase in Venetian painting and also inspired Turkish artists to portray Ottoman courtly figures in the “European” manner. No other city or European power from the Medieval and Renaissance periods can claim the complex and mutual closeness to the Islamic world that Venice enjoyed for many centuries. Progressively losing control over the Mediterranean waters that were to become the “Ottoman lake” and becoming sidelined by the new profitable transoceanic trade routes, Venice eventually became more closely aligned with the other European powers, losing her unique connection with the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. The 15th and 16th centuries, therefore, represent a true “moment of vision” in the fecund relationship between two distant cultures.

2019 marks the 90th anniversary of the teaching of Italian language and culture at The University of Western Australia. In 1929, Francesco Vanzetti, an idiosyncratic and popular Venetian, offered the first courses in Italian. This was the first appointment of a lecturer in Italian in any Australian university. This lecture series, supported by the Institute of Advanced Studies and by Italian Studies in the UWA School of Humanities, celebrates aspects of Italian language and culture, past and present.

Edmund Gurney was a late-nineteenth-century polymath who is today best remembered for his writing on music and listening, and for his research into ‘psychical’ phenomena such as telepathy and ghosts. He wrote an influential book in 1880 titled The Power of Sound (1880), which is customarily read as an enclosed work of music philosophy. Yet much of the text of this book was initially published as separate essays in the liberal press years earlier—such as in the Fortnightly Review, Fraser’s and Macmillan’s Magazine, as well as in Nineteenth Century, and Mind. Gurney’s ideas about music were therefore initially directed at and read within the context of the broader discourses on politics, economics, moral philosophy and psychology that regularly appeared in these journals. This presentation will trace the interaction between Gurney’s wide-ranging thinking and the traditions of utilitarianism, political economy and liberalism through his association with the novelist George Eliot and the moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick in particular, as well as through the liberal press. It will argue that one of the central tenets of Gurney’s thinking on sound—namely the idea that there is an irreducibly ‘musical’ form of beauty—might be construed as a manifestations of a form of ‘liberal individualism’ as it was framed by the liberal utilitarians with whom he associated. Bringing together ideas about sound, pleasure, labour and the good, these figures attempted to combine the cultivation of disinterestedness with the pursuit of pleasure as a means to attain a balance between self-interest and the common good.

Special Collections

The Friends of the Library have recently donated a facsimile copy of the Barcelona Haggadah to Special Collections. The illuminated Hebrew manuscript dates from the fourteenth century and contains the Haggadah, Laws for Passover, piyyutim and Torah readings for the festival of Passover according to the Spanish rite. The purchase of the facsimile was supported by Assoc/Prof Suzanne Wijsman (Chair of Strings Conservatorium of Music) for her research as the manuscript contains illustrations of musical instruments.

Special Collections will next be open on Tuesday 11th June from 6.30pm – 7.15pm for members to view the Barcelona Haggadah.

Members: Free, Guests: $5 donation

The vision of the UWA Conservatorium of Music is to enrich all lives with music. Through UWA’s broadening units, all undergraduate students have the opportunity to engage in practical music-making as part of their degree.

Enrich! brings together these students in vibrant and dynamic ensemble performances.

Come and hear the wealth of musical talent on campus.

The Percussion Fiesta will feature over 80 students, performing pieces from film and TV, Pop and Rock favourites as well as more traditional African melodies in the culmination of their semester's work!

Tickets: $5 (available at the door)

A public lecture by Jon Blundy, Professor of Petrology, University of Bristol and 2019 UWA Robert and Maude Gledden Senior Visiting Fellow.

In this public lecture Professor Blundy will discuss how our concept of volcanic systems has evolved in the light of recent geophysical and geochemical studies from the classic magma chamber concept, so beloved of textbooks, to a more nuanced system of partially molten rock that straddles the entire crust of the Earth. Professor Blundy will explain how such ‘transcrustal magma systems” can account for apparent dichotomy of outcome (“ashes or ores”) and what such systems mean for the monitoring of restless volcanoes. He will show that the build-up to very large eruptions may be much shorter than previously assumed, while some of the world’s largest copper ore deposits may form in the geological blink of an eye. The talk will draw on examples of Professor Blundy’s fieldwork in some of the world’s most hazardous volcanic regions.

The new season of moved readings is upon us and we are delighted to present our offerings for first semester 2019.Overseen by Bríd Phillips (project director) and Steve Chinna (staging director and much else!) with educational input from Kathryn Prince, the Renaissance Moved Readings Project continues the tradition of informal, participatory, fast-paced and usually hilarious readings of Shakespeare’s plays.

This semester’s moved readings are Thursdays from 4-6 pm on the New Fortune Stage:

28 March, Much Ado About Nothing (a witty battle of the sexes is waged, comedy ensues)

11 April, King Lear (a king foolishly divides his kingdom among his daughters, tragedy ensues)

16 May, The Tempest (on an enchanted island, magical and muggle characters meet, romance ensues)

Participants and spectators of all ages are welcome: over-18s are invited to bring their own libations for festive imbibing afterwards in the Shakespeare Garden.

Murujuga, Burrup Peninsula, comprises one of the world’s greatest petroglyphs assemblages. Spanning many tens of thousands of years, displaying a myriad of styles and subjects; this rock art provides many stories. Correspondingly, the discipline of rock art research has a number of paradigms and ways of interpreting. One of the advantages Australia has over many other rock art provinces is the existence of people directly linked to the art, it is a living tradition. This, sometimes, can add a complication to research but in the main it adds a rich and insightful way of viewing rock art. There are other ways of getting at the story than through the Aboriginal informed process. Description of what we see, the formal recording and analysis of objects has proved to be useful in archaeology. Ways of looking, ways of identifying and ways of interpreting are interwoven with the rock art of Murujuga. This seminar explores just some of the intertwining of these narratives, revealing patterns in understanding the petroglyphs and the sacred landscape of Murujuga.

Join us for the Anthropocene Sea Change Seminar Series talk with the UWA Oceans Institute as Jo McDonald from the UWA Centre for Rock Art Research + Management discusses recent research from Murujuga (the Dampier Archipelago).

Murujuga (the Dampier Archipelago) juts into the Indian Ocean on the Pilbara coast in Australia’s north-west. When people first started using this region 50,000 years ago, the coastline was more than 160km away. Murujuga rock art reveals the long-distance hypermobility of arid zone peoples at different times during its long occupation as well as differing human responses to major environmental changes through time. Recent archaeological work reveals that the period after the last Ice Age – as the sea level rose – was a period of intense human interactions, with hunter-gatherer villages and intensive rock art production being signs of increased social and population pressure. The engraved rock art of Murujuga provides a visual record for the entire human occupation of Australia’s north-west, up until the arrival of European explorers and north-American whalers in the early-mid 19th Century, and the Flying Foam Massacre in 1865. This seminar showcases recent findings from Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming ARC Linkage project.

Jo McDonald is the Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia and holds the Rio Tinto Chair of Rock Art. She has studied the rock art of the Western Desert and Dampier Archipelago (Murujuga) for the last two decades. Jo was the Lead CI for the Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming ARC Linkage Project, and is a CI on the Deep History of Sea Country ARC Project.

17th-century Italian nuns had no contact with the secular world outside of their convent, yet their fame as composers and performers spread throughout Europe and attracted visitors from far and wide to hear their music. Join us as we present chamber and choral works by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Maria Xaveria Perucona, and Sulpitia Cesis.

Free entry, no bookings required.

The lively public discourse on academic cheating in Indonesia is focused on the National Examination, which is a standardized test organised for Year-9 and Year-12 students. However, since the focus is too narrow, other behaviours that may actually have developed into a pervasive cheating problem have been overlooked. In 2015 the Indonesian government introduced a new twist to the problem by stating that cheating in the National Exam could be one of the causes of the country’s corruption problem. This thesis looks at patterns of actions and beliefs regarding academic cheating shared by students, teachers, and parents in two senior secondary schools in Indonesia. The findings of this study show that cheating in schools in Indonesia is indeed beyond the scope of the National Exam. The pervasiveness of the problem can be partly explained by looking at the dynamics of the social relationships of the students. As for government’s claim on the cause-and-effect relationship between academic cheating and corruption, opportunism and individual collectivism identified in both schools could become the enabling elements.

Be transported from the everyday by our free lunchtime concert series, featuring the best musical talent from within the UWA Conservatorium of Music and around the country.

This week, the UWA Guitar Studio will present a free concert of solo and chamber repertoire, featuring some very special works including Bill Kannengieser’s rarely performed “Gongan” for prepared guitar quartet, and Leo Brouwer’s epic Concerto Elegiaco.

From the lute works of Bach to the hypnotic minimalist compositions of Steve Reich, there’s something for everyone on this exciting program.

Free entry, no bookings required.

Transnational Students, Gentrification and Urban Subjectivities: An ethnography of transnational Chinese student residents in Perth, Western Australia.

This paper explores urbanisation processes of gentrification as they intersect with Australia’s international education industry. These concurrent conditions have led to an increase in what I argue to be transnational studentification in Australia’s urban centres. Little research, however has been undertaken to understand the impacts of these patterns of urban transformation on the students themselves. This project examines a case study of transnational middle-class Chinese students living in the City of Perth precinct. Adopting de Certeau’s theory of tactics and Bourdieu’s notion of habitus as analytical frameworks, and employing a walking interview methodology, this project interprets the students’ experiences and perceptions of space and place. I aim to understand and interpret new regimes of subjectivity that emerge through these patterns of socio-spatial transformation in Australia. I outline positions of translocality, temporality, and contested space which govern these students’ interpretation and construction of the city, and of their modes of subjectivity. Ruth is an Honours’ student in Anthropology and Sociology.

Australian Rules football and Aboriginal well-being in Perth, Western Australia.

Sport, and more specifically in this case, Australia’s ‘native’ game of Australian Rules football, has provided important points of reference around which racial and cultural relations in Australia take place. Australian Rules football brings to the fore, and allows us to investigate, the already established boundaries of moral and political communities, whilst allowing for the physical and social expression of those values and a means of reflecting on them. This seminar aims to shine light on the significance of Australian Rules football in the lives of Aboriginal footballers. The seminar will address some of the inequalities experienced by Aboriginal footballers, and explore the potential for the game to contribute to Aboriginal health and well-being. Furthermore, it is hoped that this research will create a greater understanding of Aboriginal identity, well-being and life ways in the unique social context of Australian Rules football. Leighton is a PhD student in Anthropology and Sociology.

Each year on IDaHOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, lntersexism and Transphobia), UWA and the Equal Opportunity Commission co-host the Isabelle Lake Memorial Lecture in memory of Isabelle Lake, a UWA student and trans activist who passed away in 2012 following a battle with leukaemia. The lecture aims to raise public awareness about gender matters. Joleen Mataele, the main protagonist in the film Leitis in Waiting, will speak at the 2019 Isabelle Lake Memorial Lecture here at UWA. The movie will also be screened, so it promises to be a great night. Refreshments will be served. Please see the attached flyer for more details or register via the Trybooking event page.

Chair of Electronic Music and Sound Design, Chris Tonkin leads a day of workshops and production masterclasses in electronic music for students in Years 10–12. Participants will be fully engaged with beatmaking, song-writing and mixing using Ableton Live and the Ableton Push 2.

Fee - $25

Musica Viva and the UWA Conservatorium of Music offer you the opportunity to attend a Masterclass with piano duo ZOFO (Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi).

You are invited to observe the duo working with talented UWA music students, learning techniques to perfect their craft in an ‘open lesson’ format.

ZOFO:

Playing one piano with four hands – but a unified artistic mind – is about the most intimate form of chamber music there is. Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi are ZOFO; a ‘20-Finger Orchestra’ who for a decade now, have electrified audiences with their dazzling artistry and outside-the-box thematic programming for piano-four-hands.

Tickets - $5 Students, $20 Standard

Contact details: [email protected]

Don't miss ZOFO performing at the Perth Concert Hall on 21 May. Further details at https://musicaviva.com.au/zofo/.

The Musica Viva Masterclass program is supported in Western Australia by Wesfarmers Arts.

The vision of the UWA Conservatorium of Music is to enrich all lives with music. Through UWA’s broadening units, all undergraduate students have the opportunity to engage in practical music-making as part of their degree.

Enrich! brings together these students in vibrant and dynamic ensemble performances.

Come and hear the wealth of musical talent on campus.

In the World Percussion Carnival, renowned Perth percussionists Paul Tanner and Steve Richter will lead over 100 students in a lively performance of traditional Zimbabwean, Zulu and West African music, alongside new sounds of AfroJunk and traditional Samba Batucada.

Tickets: $5 (available at the door)

A public lecture by Dr Susanne Meurer, School of Design (History of Art), UWA.

Rembrandt features amongst a select group of artists whose work proved influential across various media. He was never “just” a great painter, but also a prolific and innovative printmaker. Over four decades, he produced almost 300 etchings, many of which pushed the technical and expressive boundaries of printmaking. Above all, this lecture will argue, Rembrandt lent a new level of intimacy to the medium. By treating the printing plate like a sketch book, Rembrandt granted unparalleled insights into his working processes. The resulting prints defied their status as multiples and left a lasting impression not only on collectors, but also on generations of artists.

Rembrandt – 350th Anniversary Lecture Series

Rembrandt’s death took place 350 years ago this year, in 1669. Museums across the globe, from Amsterdam to the Arabian Gulf, are staging exhibitions to commemorate his artistic legacy, and a life that was far from a masterpiece. Sometimes dismissed contemptuously in his own time, the supreme genius of Rembrandt is now universally acknowledged. The Institute of Advanced Studies at The University of Western Australia is pleased to present a series of lectures offering insights into the artist’s life, his work and its reception.

In collaboration with WASO, we are delighted to welcome passionate music educationalist Paul Rissmann to present the 2019 Callaway Lecture, one of the most prestigious events in the calendar of the Conservatorium of Music.

‘The Jamie Oliver of animateurs’ Neue Muzikzeitung

‘Rissmann is without parallel. He has a line of communication that exactly matches, then advances the listening skills of his audience’ The Herald

Challenging Classical Conventions: exploring new opportunities to engage with the orchestra in the 21st century

The orchestra is changing. For centuries, its role and reach were more or less static. Today, thanks to the development of creative and inclusive educational programmes, the orchestra and its musicians are more assessable and more relevant to society than ever before. This talk will explore how composer and educationalist Paul Rissmann’s work has helped expand the range of activities the modern symphony orchestra has to offer, both on and off the concert platform.

Free entry - bookings essential RSVP to [email protected]

Lecture: 7pm

Refreshments served from 6.30pm

The merchant vessel Edwin Fox was exceptional for being unexceptional. It was old fashioned even before its keel was laid down in Thomas Reeves’s shipyards near Calcutta in 1853. It was neither large nor fast, and had none of the prestige of the great tea and opium clippers that captured the public imagination in the mid-nineteenth century. The Edwin Fox was a small, ugly slowpoke in the heyday of the age of sail and a lonesome survivor in the age of steam, and from a mariner’s perspective it sat at the bottom of the hierarchy of opportunities. Yet the life and career of this undistinguished ship coincide with a pivotal era in globalization: the years between 1860 and 1890 that Jurgen Osterhammel calls the “inner focal point” of the 19th century. And the Edwin Fox participated in many of the developments that made these years so crucial: the rapid expansion and intensification of trade around the globe; the spread of industrialization to many regions; the great thrust of Western imperialism; the unprecedentedly large migrations of people, both free and forced; the large-scale and systematic dispossession of indigenous peoples and their replacement with settler populations; the integration of settler colonies into imperial markets; and environmental change on a massive scale. Beginning with the November 20, 1858 arrival of the vessel at Fremantle, Western Australia carrying 82 passengers and 280 convicts, this talk will combine archival research and Arc GIS mapping to reconstruct the many worlds of the Edwin Fox. Emphasizing stories of integration, interactions, and entanglements, this paper describes the ways in which the unique perspective of this single ship can provide to a more intimate understanding of the human agencies and the human costs involved in the most important period of globalization to occur prior to the one we have been experiencing since the 1990s.