City of Women
Premiére: Melbourne Concert Hall, Sun 28 January 2001, Melbourne International Jazz Festival (Director Adrian Jackson)
Composer: Deborah Conway and collaborators
Arrangements: Adrian Sherriff, Lachlan Davidson, Paul Grabowsky, Niko Schauble, Phillip Slater, Alister Spence
Program
- 'Only The Bones', Deborah Conway (arr. Alister Spence)
- 'Here In My Arms', Deborah Conway (arr. Adrian Sherriff)
- 'It's Only A Dream', Deborah Conway (arr. Niko Schauble)
- 'It’s So Sweet', Deborah Conway (arr. Niko Schauble)
- '3 Love', Deborah Conway (arr. Adrian Sherriff)
- 'City Of Women', Deborah Conway (arr. Philip Slater)
- 'Evil Homer', Deborah Conway (arr. Paul Grabowsky)
- 'By Then Dead', Deborah Conway (arr. Lachlan Davidson)
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- 'Las Vegas Tango', Gil Evans (arr. Sam Keevers)
- 'Praying with Eric', Charles Mingus (arr. Sam Keevers)
Program Notes
Formed by Paul Grabowsky in 1994, the Australian Art Orchestra is an ensemble whose members (many of them bandleaders in their own right) are equally skilled at reading music and improvising, and whose aims include the dismantling of the artificial barriers that separate such genres as ‘contemporary classical music’ and ‘jazz’.
City of Women finds the AAO breaking down another set of barriers, those between ‘popular music’ and ‘jazz’, with the active participation of one of Australia’s most respected singer-songwriters, Deborah Conway.
Deborah recalls sitting down with Paul Grabowsky and her partner and collaborator, Willy Zygier, to play some of each other’s CDs:
the idea Paul approached us with was to select songs from our canon and drag them kicking and screaming out of the pop world and into the contemporary music world that the Art Orchestra inhabits. It was an intriguing and flattering proposal, though it remained to be seen if the gap could be bridged. My concern was how interpreting something like 'It's Only The Beginning', which has become a ‘gold classic’, would sit; whether it could cross into an Art Orchestra piece or become mutilated in the attempt._
Paul, however, has been very perceptive with his choices. It's a great set list from my vantage point. These are amongst our more challenging and provocative pieces. To hear them scored and played by the Australian Art Orchestra is something I'm looking forward to immensely. And singing them with the AAO at the start of the new millennium is a prospect I anticipate will see musical boundaries collapsing around our ears !
Press for City of Women
- "Flawed Gem"
- The Age (Jessica Nicholas), 29/1/01
- "Earthiness and sensuality"
- The Australian (Kevin Jones), 02.02.01
