Music and lyrics by Paul Kelly, musical and vocal arrangements by Paul Grabowsky. Performed by the Australian Art Orchestra with special guests Paul Kelly, Vika and Linda Bull and a choir led by Tina Harrod.

Sydney Opera House, Friday the 17th of October
tickets are available to buy online here or you can ring the SOH direct on 02 9250 7777

Julien Wilson - named Australian Jazz Artist of the Year

Eugene Ball - won Best Australian Jazz Composition for Fool Poet's Portion

Phil Slater's Quartet - named Best Australian Jazz Ensemble of the Year

More information about INTO THE FIRE and music samples can be found here

The Adelaide Festival Corporation has announced Paul Grabowsky as the Artistic Director for the 2010 Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts.

The photograph doesn't lie: it shows two people at great ease with each other. Paul and I first worked together in 1979 at the Universal Theatre on the very first version of A Star is Torn. Since then we have re-connected at various times in all kinds of capacities- this is a rich friendship borne from writing, performing, touring and chewing the fat together. In big halls and hotel rooms, small rehearsal studios and theatre foyers, on the phone or at home with Paul ( and the generosity of Margo and Isabella and Guy), our discussions spanned music, politics, books, festival direction and the role of the artist in society.

Ten years ago I had taken my first step as a festival director (the National Festival of Australian Theatre in Canberra) and was deep into the preparation for my first Adelaide Festival. Paul had just embarked on his most ambitious project yet - The Australian Art Orchestra. It's quite challenging for any artist who programs a festival - the accusation of gigs for mates is never far away - the problem is , you do know and like a vast range of artists who comprise the core of those with whom you want to make your festival: you can't avoid working with the art , and therefore the artists you love. There was never any doubt in my mind: The Australian Art Orchestra was a big musical idea that would certainly grace my program. One of its first projects Passion also happened by blissful accident ( or was it divine intervention ?) to coincide exactly with my theme for the 98 festival - expressions of 'faith' in all its dimensions- religious, spiritual and lay. I was lucky to be able to help the project along, and it turned out to be one of the great musical highlights of that year.

But by the time Hanover was happening, I had already become involved in another AAO project. It remains one of my guiding models for the successful cultivation of new projects. I suggested to the Major Festivals Initiative ( a program for the major international festivals to create and share new shows together) that we have a no strings attached seed fund. I asked Paul what he wanted to do with the orchestra next, and he said that he had been interested in gamelan for along time - and that Nigel Jamieson was also interested in Indonesia- especially Wayang Kulit ( the shadow puppetry tradition there). We gave the pair enough money to go to Bali for a short research trip. They came back and delivered an inspiring pitch for the project: we found the money to make it and that resulted in The Theft of Sita. Outdoors in Adelaide's Botanic Park, under the huge Moreton Bay Figs in balmy March 2000, the show had its first performance and it was magic- beautiful, political, musical, a delight for audiences and again an example of pure two-way collaboration.

Jonathan Mills, then at Melbourne Festival had co-commissioned it with me , and the following October it played indoors in Melbourne and won the Age Critics Award for that festival ,over all the international competition. The Theft of Sita traveled far and wide - to BAM in Brooklyn and to Zurich for the Theaterspektakel among others, and proved a great success everywhere it toured. In Zurich, late one night on the open air waterstage, I moderated a talk about music theatre. I remember it so well because my mentor John Willett had died in France two days before and that day I had flown from Zurich to Paris, been chauffeured 250 ks from Paris to Le Thil ( near Dieppe) seen John on ice and sat with him awhile in his French house, had lunch with the family, bid the coffin good bye as they sealed it in wax and drove it off to Rouen, been chauffeured back to Paris, flown back to Zurich, been picked up by the festival staff and driven direct to the water stage. During the conversation, European music theatre artists, very well-funded, talked about having maybe four or five performances of their new works: I recall Peter Wilson saying that the Theft of Sita had just done it's 57th! This is what I call a perfect process and a huge international success . I took the tram back to my hotel at 1am feeling deep satisfaction about The Theft of Sita.

By the time I got to Melbourne Festival, the AAO was proposing a project with Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter. I had invited them both to Adelaide and was very happy to continue the association via the AAO. Ruby's Story had already had its first outing and I was delighted to be able to take the next step with the full band and some staging in Hamer Hall in Melbourne. Again the rich musicianship of the orchestra together with two of the finest singer/songwriters in Australia proved to be an ecstatic festival night.

And now that I am in the rare position of being in constant conversation with so many festivals throughout the world, it's a valued stream of continuity in an otherwise fragmented and gypsy life to be able to advocate new extensions of such Australian Art Orchestra projects. As I write am in the UK doing some work for Brighton Festival ( the largest in England) and I have just sung and spoken at the Norwich and Norfolk Festival ( the oldest in Britain). I have joined the programming team as International Artistic Advisor for Luminato ( a brand new very well-endowed international festival in Toronto) ,am on the International Advisory panel for the Dublin Theatre Festival, and have been advising Germany's triennial Theater der Welt on its Australian content, as well as planting new seeds in Mildura, Melbourne's Federation Square and the fertile fields of Western Australia. This all gives me an expansive feeling quite different from the AD experience - instead of holding on to projects for my own festival alone, I can advocate good work from all over the world, to good festivals all over the world. It gives you the feeling of being able to be ultimately generous and I have tucked into my hard-traveling suitcase projects from Chunky Move, Marrageku, Brink, The Malthouse, Jo Dudley and of course the Australian Art Orchestra's Bloodstream - the ultimate Archie, Ruby and AAO combo.

The AAO package also includes Crossing Roper Bar, a slice of which I saw at the Potter Gallery of the NGV in March. I am saying all over Australia and the world ( that's physically in Seoul, Brighton, Norwich, Montreal, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and Prague in these two months) that it's the most exciting music I have heard in years. Again the process has been exquisite and you see that in performance as the AAO musicians' respect for the elder songmen is palpable in both human and musical terms. The AAO proves itself again as an invaluable conduit of authentic and otherwise inaccessible tradition and creates a platform for the very best of Australian musicianship at the same time. This is still one of the best big musical ideas in my country, and it deserves every support we can give it to be able to go on creating landmark musical experiences and touring them to all corners of Australia and the world.

I have been 'patronising' the AAO almost since its inception, and was delighted to be invited to take on a formal role: I'm very happy to be the inaugural Patron of the Australian Art Orchestra.

Robyn Archer

Members of the Australian Art Orchestra led by Julien Wilson and Wagilak Gujarra/Nyilapidgi musicians led by Benjamin Wilfred came together in Melbourne recently to perform Crossing Roper Bar. A week of workshops preceded two extraordinary public concerts at Birrarung Marr (read reviews here) and a special evening performance at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia's Indigenous Collection.