down under...

the Jugendgitarrenorchester Baden-Württemberg

in Australia and Singapore (16.08.99 bis 13.09.99)

35 players, 2 conductors, the manager and 42 instruments, (96! luggage-pieces had to be checked in at each airport), the Jugendgitarrenorchester Baden-Württemberg undertook a wonderful four-week concert-tour to Australia and Singapore during the last summer. This absolutely outstanding trip was full of musical experiences, interesting contacts, meetings with composers and guitarists, and finally of course also of impressions of Asian ways of life in Singapore and of an unique continent at the other end of the world - " down under ", like the Australians themselves call their situation on the world-map.

This project was financially supported by the German music-council and the country of Baden-Württemberg. This commitment in matters of youth - music-culture is a very pleasant and welcome contribution to the support of gifted young musicians - most of them have prooved their talent beeing prizewinners of the competition "Jugend musiziert". The positive impact of such a trip for both, the travelling ensemble and the hosts, may hardly be overestimated.

The tour began with a three-day stay in Singapore. The route on the Australian continent included all main cities in West- and South-Australia, Victoria and Queensland: Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and finally Brisbane. The gigantic distances between these cities were travelled by airplane.

Schedule and route

Singapore (aug 17 - aug 20) Perth (aug 20 - aug 25) Adelaide (aug 26 - aug 28) Melbourne (aug 29 - sep 02) Sydney (sep 03 - sep 07) Canberra (sep 08) Brisbane (sep 09 - sep 11)

Repertoire

The concert-programs consisted of the following repertoire. Two of the pieces were especially composed for the JGO, in fact the contributions of the Australian composer John Patrick Plankenhorn and from Michael Quell, both advanced works of contemporary music.

These were first performed on the tour: In Singapur we played Satori of Quell, a piece of subtle sound-effects, and in Perth Plankenhorn's Frank Zappa inspired Magic Mystery Mama Nostalgia Flog, a very complex and difficult ensemble-piece. Two soloists with electric guitar and amplified classical guitar are accompanied by the orchestra: Various short musical motives, superimposed on each other and circling around through the orchestral parts, generate a polyrhythmic and polytonal texture of high density. The part of the soloists, played by Antje Asendorf and Torsten Koker, demands high virtuosity. David Domingez played another solopart in Leo Brouwer's Danzas. Some concerts also contained pure solistic contributions: Christian Wernicke played Campero of Astor Piazzolla and the duet Andreas Krause - Rüdiger Weiß played Due Musici of Jana Obrovska .

Concert-highlights

All concerts were unique and noteworthy. For instance the appearance at the German School in Singapore where the JGO played for a very young audience or the concert in Adelaide where we went by foot to the concert-hall with the entire luggage or the performances in the distinguished concert-hall of Penrhos College, where the teachers were concerned about their pupils (all girls) not being able to concentrate on their lessons because they were watching our boys. A concert planned in Canberra in the parliament unfortunately had to be cancelled since the premises were required for a state visit of the Chinese Prime Minister. Nevertheless, there were four concerts, that became evident as the absolute highlights:

It's been a real honor for the JGO being invited to play in Perth at the 11th Western Australian International Classic Guitar Ensemble Festival, as the " featured ensemble " right at the beginning of the tour. In the final concert of the entire festival, we had the last performance at all, directly after " Guitarstrophy ", that best and most well-known Australian guitar-ensemble; - enthusiastic resonance! , ("...final climax of the festival!", - John Casey, conductor of "Guitarstrophy".)

The Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne is one of the main centers of the Australian guitar-playing. Anthony Field, the head of the guitar-department, is a young, but masterly guitarist, who commits himself very seriously about teaching. He is successor of Peter Constant who lives now in the Netherlands. Formerly he was a member of "Guitartrek", the leading Australian guitar-quartet. Interesting CDs are released by both, A. Field and Guitartrek. The concert in the VCA was recorded by the Victorian Classical Radio.The main part of the program was played by the JGO, but there were two contributions of Australian composers too, played by the VCA - guitarensemble: One piece was from Richard Charlton the second was the first performance of a composition of Marian Budos, a very humorous man, with whom we became real good friends some days later in Canberra . Both ensembles played the encore (America of Leonard Bernstein) together.

Another climax had been the concert in Sydney. (" ...the best concert I ever attended ", Ojas Sangoski said, the chairperson of the Australian Classical Guitar Society.) Both Australian composers whose music we played listened to the concert. Richard Charlton was enthusiastic about our interpretation of his Five Impromptus, a tonal composition, that in an intelligent way comprises baroque, folkloristic and elements of moderate contemporary music. We had been looking foreward to meet John Patrick Plankenhorn very tense, because with his piece we had spent so many hours of rehearsing. He is regarded in Australia as "the composer who is far out", probably because of the uncompromising attitude of his musical ideas. After the performance of the JGO he told he were overwhelmed by our interpretation of his piece and said, he would wish his music would always be played as precisely and concentrated as we did. Roland Boehm and Helmut Oesterreich, the two conductors subsequently were invited to his house, that offered a fantastic view on the big Harbor-Bridge, on the bizarre Operahouse and on the nightly skyline of Sydney. This evening, drinking some real good red wine, there was a lot of interesting conversation about music.

The final concert of the entire tour in Brisbane also was particularly beautiful . Organized excellently by guitarist Angelina Ellis, we had a big and competent audience, -among them the Australian shooting star Karin Schaupp - that celebrated our performance overwhelmingly . Two days before the concert, we had two interviews with different radio stations. They also broadcasted several pieces of the JGO - CDs.

Concerts andWorkshops

Workshops

Two times the conductors of the JGO did workshops with local guitarists and guitar-ensembles. In Adelaide participated guitar-teachers and the players of a youth-ensemble, in Melbourne, they worked with music - students. H. Oesterreich lectured on both occasions about General Aspects of Ensembleplaying With Guitars, in Melbourne R. Boehm additionally explained about "Playing Graphic Scores" . The lectures were supplemented by some live - demonstrations of the JGO.The local ensembles then had the opportunity to work practically with the JGO conductors on their repertoire. That was regarded very positively: ( A. FIELD: " We can really learn a lot of you ").

Australian Guitarscene

The entire Australian continent covers a surface, that is as big as Europe. However only 20 million people live in it - mainly in the urbane centers which are many hundreds of kilometers away from each other. The guitarists, interpreters as well as teachers, are organized in regional Classical Guitar Associations, the top organization is resident in Sydney. The individual groups mostly act independently. Only if - like with our concert-tour - national events stands in line, then they communicate about dates and advertising. Hence everybody knows of each other despite the spatial isolation. Everywhere we stayed, we were told about Timothy Kane, who has apparently built a type of "guitar-empire" in the government-capital Canberra. Most of the younger professional guitarists of Australia had studied with him - at least occasionally. The Australians are proud also of the guitar-builders of the country, especially of Smallman. The young guitarist Karin Schaupp is very well known because of her success at a big international CD-company.

Ensemble-playing with guitars occupies a high status in Australia. The Guitarensemble -Festival in Darwin is a big-event of international range. Aside from foreign stars like the LA Guitar Quartet, many Australian groups appear there. The most renowned quartet is Timothy Kanes Guitartrek. The players apply different sizes of guitars: Requinto - normal guitarsize - bass-guitar. But also the Sydney Guitar trio or the already mentioned Guitarstrophy (approximately 30 players) participated at the festival. Another ensemble-festival is the one in Perth. Numerous compositions for guitarensemble, written by professional composers, show that this genre is taken absolutely seriously even among non-guitarists. The overall - number of guitar - fans admittedly is rather small, however they try to obtain a wider public influence in the classical music scene.

Impressions of the country

Apart from the musical activities we also had marvelloud impressions of the country and of the very uncomplicated and open - minded people. That really made the trip turn into an outstanding experience. It is impossible to mention everything, some few events may serve as examples:

• Singapore, - a colorful mixture of the cultures was a very strong impression: super - modern skyscrapers, small colonial houses in " Little India ", the traditional Indian district, Chinatown with numerous restaurants and Asian food kitchens, discos and Karaoke - bars at the harbour.
• Trip from Singapore to the island Sentosa, transit with a cable car over the harbour, sightseeing of sharks in the aquarium, view from the palm-beach to the ships in the Street of Malakka, the most frequented shipping trail of the world.

• First experiences with the left-side - traffic, it is hard to imagine how difficult it is to look to the right first, when you are crossing a street.
• Boat-trip on the Swan-River from Perth to Fremantle, a port with colonial flair.
• Whole - day - trip to the approximately 350km of Perth distant " Pinnacles ", a surreal landscape with bizarre rock-formations, that protrude like thousends from the yellow desert-sand at the coast of the Indian Ocean.

• Visiting wildlife - parks, where we could stroke kangaroos, could observe koalas, wallabies, dingos and other typical animals of Australia. When we had a barbecue-picnic in a park near Canberra, some emus approached us up to only a few meters because they hoped to take part in our meal.

• When Roland Boehm cooked spaghetti with tomato-sauce for the whole orchestra in the backpacker resort in Adelaide , we remained undisturbed from such surprise.
• Watching the city and the harbor of Melbourne in the evening from the 350m high Rialto Tower. Another attraction of the city was the Hard Rock Cafe, in which numerous relics of popstars are displayed in glass-cabinets, a brassiere of Madonna, a hat of Michael Jackson, a motorcycle of Billy Idle...
• There was much nature to be seen on the trip along the " Great Ocean Drive " and to the " Twelve Apostles " called rocks at the " shipwreck coast ", where in the 18th and 19th century more ships sank, like anywhere else in the world.

• Next day: A part of the orchestra rehearses on their own in order to advertise for the forthcoming concert with street-music.
• A visit to the Opera House in Sydney, which is one of the most famous buildings of the world. One could either listen to the Magic Flute by Mozart or to a concert with Mahler's 1st Symphony and Strauss' Don Quichotte.

• Sailing on one steeply in the water lying Olympic - boat in the bay of Sydney - directly before the dream-scenery of the Opera House. The entire orchestra was invited by Tig Thomas, a guitar-afficionado of the CGA , who also is chairperson of a sailing - club.
• Firealarm in the YWCA - hotel, in the middle of the night - it was half past three in the morning - everybody hurried down to the street in their pyjamas. A stack newspapers were burning in the lobby and the smoke - indicators had given alarm. The fire brigade was there within 3 minutes. Fortunately, nobody has been harmed.
• Sightseeing: The splendid Parliament in Canberra, its post modern architecture, its rich interiors. The whole environment looks, as if the Palace of Versailles had been transformed to the 20th century . In a cabinet, an original autograph of the " Magna Charta " was displayed.
• Excellent Australian red wines, farewell-party in a restaurant in Brisbane.

And from here, from Brisbane, we finally started home again, full of uncomparable impressions - and in the luggage numerous Dijeridoos. Arrival in Frankfurt at the first schoolday after the summer-vacations in the morning 6:40am - who may have managed to be at 8.00 o'clock in his lessons in school?