News Items: April - May 2005

UOW playwright lauded in London

Playwright Vanessa Badham spends the Australian summer teaching Writing for Performance to University of Wollongong Summer School students. The rest of the year she practises what she teaches, and is building an impressive international reputation.

Ms Badham, who spends nine months of the year based in England, has just been named Best Playwright on the London Fringe – marking her as one of the most exciting emerging talents in British theatre.

She also won the award for best writer of a comedy in last year's Short and Sweet short plays festival in Australia.

The UOW-trained playwright has just returned to London from her Summer School teaching commitments to work on some exciting new projects. She has been commissioned to write a radio play for the BBC as well as a full-length graduation play for 30 students at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. That project will see her following in the footsteps of acclaimed American playwright Peter Morris and successful English playwright Mark Ravenhill, who filled the role in the previous two years.

“They are big shoes to fill for a random Australian girl, but I've been let in (to the British theatre scene)," Ms Badham said. “The British are always looking for new talent and new ideas."

This, she says, is in contrast to Australia's closed theatre scene where new writers struggle for recognition. “I have found it hard to crack Sydney yet have taken scripts to London and received a great reception."

Ms Badham's interest in British theatre also has an academic perspective. She is undertaking a PhD through UOW's Faculty of Creative Arts researching British theatre in the 1990s and its role as a social barometer.

Although based in London, she says she loves the opportunity to teach Summer School at UOW each year.

“If it wasn't for the University I don't know where I'd be. I know where my loyalties lie and am always very happy to come back. I love the students. They are world quality writers who have brave and important things to say about Australian society."

2004 Vice Chancellor's Awards for Excellence in Research Supervision

Associate Professor Diana Wood Conroy is a senior staff member of the Faculty of Creative Arts who has made a sustained contribution to the successful supervision of many higher degree students in the Visual Arts and Design area.
In nominating her, students have drawn attention to her "commitment to academic excellence", and her "knowledge of historical and contemporary artistic matters coupled with her ability to encourage the cultivation of originality". Other comments relate to her generosity in providing access to her "network of fellow academics in the fields of textiles theory in contemporary art, funerary arts and gender studies," her "enthusiasm" for assisting students to develop their research focus, and her strong sense of "personal engagement" with each of her students individually.
Diana is herself a Doctoral graduate of the University of Wollongong and has been a staunch advocate of the importance of degrees, such as the Doctor of Creative Arts, which are primarily assessed on the basis of artistic contribution and originality.
Diana has supervised many students at Doctoral and Masters level and remains one of the Faculty's most prolific and successful supervisors. Her own background as a scholar with an undergraduate degree in archaeology and her standing as an artist have underpinned her work in the Faculty. Wollongong graduate gains motion picture scoring success

A graduate from the University of Wollongong's Faculty of Creative Arts has won an $80,000 scholarship to study film composition at a United States university renowned for composers scoring for motion pictures.

Geoffrey Russell won the 2005/6 Brian May Scholarship allowing him to undertake a nine months Graduate Certificate Course in Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. Geoffrey is a Bachelor of Creative Arts in composition graduate from Wollongong.

The course includes eight recording sessions, with one large orchestral -- seven of these sessions are recorded at the Paramount Studios. The subjects studied are Film Conducting, Composition for Film and Television, Film Music Production, Film Score Analysis, Composition Forum, Film Orchestration, Electronic Music for Film and Advanced Film Composition.

 Geoffrey was the winner of the Johnny Dennis Music Award for best movie theme in 2002 and also in the same year was winner of the ABC Newcastle Awards for Best Classical Composition. In 2000 he won the Best Student Composition for Short Film (Icarus) by the Australian Guild of Screen Composers.

 The Brian May Trust was established under the will of Brian May who died on April 25 1997. Brian was one of Australia's leading composers whose legacy includes the scores for Mad Max 1 & 2, Gallipoli, and Nightmare on Elm St.

 “This is an incredible dream come true for me. Studying at the Thornton School of Music in LA is a fantastic opportunity to greatly broaden my experience in more specific areas in film music and its related disciplines.It is a chance to nurture and develop my own unique voice as a film composer. I will get to experience the industry first-hand in the film-making mecca of Los Angeles," Geoffrey said.

 The Thornton School of Music has one faculty which is focused entirely on scoring for motion pictures and television. Staff from the faculty comprise America's leading writers on music for well known past and present motion picture and television scores.

Further information: Geoffrey can be contacted for further information at his email address (lokamusic@hotmail.com) or by contacting 0402 280 280 (m).

Dr Hilary Rhodes, Graduate Success

Dr Hilary Rhodes graduated from the University of Wollongong in December 2003, with a Doctor of Creative Arts (DCA) degree.

Melbourne University Press have recently announced their agreement to publish Hilary Rhodes thesis topic "Exploration Without Boundaries" in the form of a full colour art publication with Multimedia and Video DVDs. There will be a preliminary launch of this publication to ready for the AGIdeas International Design event in Melbourne. The proposed general release date will be in September this year.

Early last year, a review of Exploration Without Boundaries was also featured on Apple's US pro website. This review was publicised worldwide.

Hilary Rhodes will be presenting a paper (http://www.agideas.net/speakers/?id="28) about her DCA topic and multimedia production, "Exploration Without Boundaries", at the AGIdeas Conference
(http://www.agideas.net/about/) to be held in Melbourne on 26 April this year at the Melbourne Concert Hall (Hamer Hall). The AGIdeas International Design Week is an annual four day event with international speakers from all creative disciplines.

The Next Generation of Young Composers:

Two of the Faculty's Honours graduates, Serena Vashti Armstrong and Rhiannon Cook, and current student, Brent Williams, have been selected to participate in the 2005 MODART project where young, emerging composers have their compositions workshopped and performed by renowned, international ensembles. It is an amazing professional development opportunity for the 13 young Australian composers selected, following a national call for submissions.

Initiated by The Song Company and the Australian Music Centre in 2003, MODART's purpose is to give young composers from around Australia the opportunity to develop a short vocal work (two to six voices) in close collaboration with the singers of the ensemble and their director.
The workshops began in January in 2005 under the guidance of The Song Company's Artistic Director Roland Peelman and New Zealand composer and performer-in-residence with The Song Company, Gareth Farr.

MODART will culminate in a public performance in Sydney (September 17, venue TBC) and possibly Melbourne (funding dependant) in 2005. The concert will be recorded for broadcast on ABC Classic FM and a feature program on the composers and their experiences is planned. >More on MODART

 

Liz Jeneid and Brogan Bunt to the Antarctic

Liz Jeneid (Honorary Fellow for the Faculty of Creative Arts) was invited to be the artist in residence on the Quark Antarctic Expedition in January-February 2005.

On the same expedition, Senior Lecturer Brogan Bunt created a digital "ship's log" (a potential prototype for subsequent logs) and worked on his URC research grant which deals with aspects of Australian Antarctic scientific research.

Now, the prototype digital log for Quark Expeditions is complete with 150 copies being produced.

Brogan Bunt also collected footage for his related project, "3 Summers in
Antarctica: an Experiment in Dynamic-Combinatory New Media Documentary",
which will be exhibited in the FCA Gallery later this year.

View images >