SHARE THE LOVE
Share the love, share the music, as Arafura Music Collective presents their final performance of the year.
WORDS BROOKE GIBBS
IMAGE PAZ TASSONE
THE LOVERS: MUSIC as the Heart of Community explores love as a force that binds us between partners, families, friends and the wider community. Moving from tender duos to rich ensemble textures, from the divine and celestial to the personal, familial and deeply held friendships, the music offers a joyful and heartfelt close to the year.
Created from the real relationships that shape Arafura Music Collective, The Lovers opens a window into how a music community grows.
“This performance explores both the many forms of love through music and also how music creates a sense of connection, community and love,” says Coordinator and Creative Director Claire Kilgariff.
“It’s really about music as a force that brings people together and shapes relationships and builds community, so Arafura Music Collective really is an ensemble of amateurs in the real meaning of the world, which means lovers of music.”
The Collective is a community formed through music. When they first started playing together many years ago, that’s what drew them together – a group of people who wanted to play small ensemble music together rather than orchestral music.
In this performance, enjoy a brandnew Australian work by Annette Anderson alongside favourites from Bach, Tchaikovsky and much-loved Australian composers, Elena Kats Chernin and Peggy Polias.
“One of the new works we've commissioned by Dr Peggy Polias, is a beautiful work called ‘25’, which celebrates the 25-year marriage of Laura and Rob Llewellyn,” Kilgariff says.
“It’s got some really beautiful sections in it that’s inspired by their meeting at Verdi’s Requiem and late-night kebabs in Marrickville, so it’s a story of two people coming together and creating a life together.”
The Collective invites you to experience how the music, and the love of playing together, forms the threads that link musicians, audiences and the wider community.
“We’ve got Adrian Walter, who’s quite a famous person in Darwin. He doesn’t live here anymore, but he was the man who ran the Darwin International Guitar Festival for many years,” Kilgariff says.
“He and Bill Gross, who’s also a very prominent member of the music community, both absolutely love the music of the 19th century romantic guitar, and they’re playing this really gorgeous piece called ‘The Adventures of Love’, as a duet. It’s quite funny as well as being very beautiful and touching. Bill and Adrian really exemplify the love of friends who come together and who spend many years playing together because of the love of the particular form of music they have.”
This celebration makes a fitting end to the Collective’s performance season, ending the year on a positive note.
“Everything around us seems to be full of problems, war and despair. What we’d like audiences to take away is that music and love both invite us to imagine new possibilities, and to feel hope and to recognise beauty, even in the simplest and smallest of things. It’s the idea of shared creativity,” Kilgariff says.
“The Lovers offers a moment of optimism and a reminder that when we come together in music, whether you’re an audience member or you’re a musician, it’s a shared moment that can open our hearts and our minds to new potentials and new relationships. It forms a sense of belonging to a community.”
The Lovers | Music as the Heart of Community
WHEN SAT 7 NOV | 3.30-5PM
AT GRAY COMMUNITY HALL
COST $15-$25 | FREE (U18)
WHEN SUN 8 NOV | 5-6.15PM
AT DARWIN SUPREME COURT
COST $35-$40 | FREE (U18)
INFO arafuramusiccollective.org.au
