Ruthless Jabiru to perform London tribute to Maralinga

Australian Conductor, Kelly Lovelady was awarded the prestigious 2013 Julian Baring Award from the Tait Memorial Trust. The Trust are delighted to support Kelly and the orchestra which she created, Ruthless Jabiru, London’s all Australian Chamber Orchestra.

The article below was posted on 12 August, 2013 by Kelly Lovelady on the Ruthless Jabiru website

Ruthless Jabiru is to perform with guest artist Lara St. John at the Union Chapel on 14 October, in a programme centred around Maralinga, a work for violin and string orchestra by Australian composer Matthew Hindson.

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Hindson’s work will lay at the centre of a concert designed to pay tribute to the Maralinga story through music. Maralinga land in remote South Australia was used for undercover British nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s, leaving the area heavy with radioactive waste and thousands of Indigenous people and servicemen affected, both British and Australian.

“I wanted to devise a programme connected with the Australian landscape, to complement the Australia exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts,”

said conductor Kelly Lovelady, the orchestra’s founding Artistic Director.

“Maralinga was inspired by a stretch of desert where one political decision has had tragic repercussions for health, community, and the environment. I’ve chosen a programme to evoke the loss and the chemical strangeness which has become a part of that landscape.”

Maralinga scholar Dr. Liz Tynan described a complex tragedy of secrets, spies, and international relations.

“At Maralinga, part of our territory became the most highly contaminated land in the world. It’s time for Maralinga to become part of our national conversation, and the arts is a great medium to do this.”

Ruthless Jabiru will be joined by Canadian violinist Lara St. John, for whom Hindson wrote the solo violin part of Maralinga. St. John has been described as “something of a phenomenon” by The Strad and a “high-powered soloist” by The New York Times. She has performed as soloist with the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and with the Boston Pops, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Symphony, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, Amsterdam Symphony, Brazilian Symphony, Sao Paulo Symphony, China Philharmonic, Hong Kong Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and the orchestras of Brisbane, Adelaide and Auckland, among many others.

Ruthless Jabiru’s performance will also include the UK premieres of works by Australian composer Paul Stanhope and Dublin-based Linda Buckley, as well as cornerstones of the string orchestra repertoire by Arvo Pärt and Samuel Barber.

More about Ruthless Jabiru conductor Kelly Lovelady on her website here20130812-211101.jpg

More about Ruthless Jabiru, London’s all Australian Chamber-Orchestra here

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Tickets for this important concert can be purchased from the Union Chapel here

XENIA DEVIATKINA-LOH, Violinist – to begin her Masters at the Royal Academy of Music

Xenia is a 2013 Tait Memorial Trust Awardee, She is due to begin a Masters degree in Violin at the Royal Academy of Music. The Trust are delighted to be supporting Xenia and wish her the very best for the 2013/2014 academic year.

Xenia
Xenia Deviatkina-Loh, Violinist

Xenia Deviatkina-Loh studies violin with Alice Waten. She has performed with the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, the South Melbourne Orchestra, the Kuringai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed in Beleura House and Gardens, Melba Festival – Yarra Grange and Federation Square – Exhibition Centre. She’s been aired live on 3MBsFM, ABC radio, and Radio New Zealand. Xenia was the Junior Finalist and the Senior Winner of the Kuringai Philharmonic Concerto Competition in 2005 and 2008 respectively. She was the 2009 String Finalist of ABC Young Performer’s Award, and the 2009 winner of the Gisborne International Music Competition.

Xenia has had masterclasses and private lessons with The Brentano String Quartet, Trio Dali, Tasmin Little, Lina Bahn, Oleh Krysa, Charles Castleman, Kolja Blacher, Julian Rachlin, Zakhar Bron, Boris Kuschnir, Felix Andrievsky and Edward Dusinberre (Takács Quartet). She gained a full tuition scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music London. She will start her Masters degree in London later this year.

Xenia’s award from the Trust and her participation in the London Masterclasses is kindly supported by the Thornton Foundation