Category: life

blog, life, percussion

Music for 18 Musicians

christinahopgood

(Photo from the 2004 version)

For the past few months, our ANU Percussion Ensemble (DRUMatiX) and some other ANU instrumentalists have been rehearsing Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich.  We finally performed it today at the Fitters Workshop as the grand finale of the Canberra International Music Festival.

I personally have fond memories associated with Music for 18 Musicians.  It was performed by the DRUMatiX back in 2004 when Charles was in first year and I was still in year 11 (See above photo from GaryFrance.com).  It was in a concert with lots of pieces, and I went to see Charles perform mostly.  He wasn’t in 18 Musicians so we could sit and watch it together.  It blew my mind!  That was my first Reich exposure.

It’s a piece with lots of instruments: 3 marimbas, 2 xylophones, vibraphone, 4 pianos, 4 singers, 2 bass clarinets, a violin and a cello.  It’s a minimalist piece with not much in the way of melody, so I would call it a sound work rather than a regular instrumental piece.  It’s exploring the different sounds that the combinations of instruments and harmonies can create, in a very repetitive and mesmerising way.

I was the Xylophone 1 player – that meant I had the easy part of playing on the beat while my friend the Xylo 2 player had to play off the beats.  Difficult for her!

Today it was kind of cold in the venue so I wore my cardigan – but that turned out to be a huge mistake!  I got extremely hot playing and almost died.  I managed to take off my cardigan in a resting part and felt better.  The piece itself went very well indeed!  All the wonky bits went very smoothly.  We got a standing ovation and each got a flower.

The performance was in the Fitters Workshop in Kingston.  There has been a lot of fuss recently in Canberra about that venue, because it is going to be scrapped as a music venue and turned into a gallery or something.  Musicians from all around are throwing hissy fits because they claim that it’s a wonderful venue for music, acoustically and visually.  There have been petitions and letters to the paper and blogs and speeches.  I agree that it’s okay acoustically (if you’re a singer or a solo guitarist or something) but the problems associated with performing there outweigh the benefits.  Charles wrote a great blog about it recently, and I have some thoughts to add to his.

(Fitters Workshop, Kingston.  Basically a barn.)

I’ve been rehearsing and performing there on and off for over two weeks now.  And I have to say it’s one of the more unpleasant places to play in Canberra.  During the day, the sun shines in the giant windows and blinds everyone – players, audience – and also is really hot on whoever it hits.  At night, it becomes super cold and the drums all tighten up. 
All the venue is, is a hall.  Everything else has to be provided – toilets, seating, heating, lighting, ushers, even the stage needs to be brought.  There’s no backstage area and no foyer. No toilets, you guys!!

Why do people like it so much?  It’s trendy because it’s in Kingston, the venue has an arty sort of history, it’s next to the Glassworks and the Markets (two very fashionable places to be seen), it’s nice to look at, it has free parking, and it’s cheap to hire.  Oh, and apparently it has a nice acoustic.  When rehearsing 18 Musicians in the venue, we’ve been having enormous trouble hearing each other from just metres away.  The sound is good out in the audience, but it’s extremely difficult to stay in time.

So in short: today they had a petition to save the Fitter’s Workshop and I didn’t sign it.


Me before I took my cardigan off!  I had a hot flush!  But I played very well nevertheless!
blog, fashion, life

Christina Style Evolution! Photo diary.

christinahopgood
I used to be an absolute dag.  I didn’t care about clothes or appearance at all.  My clothes were all bought for me, and although my mum is extremely stylish, I was fairly stubborn.  I refused to wear skirts or the colour pink.  I just didn’t care.  When boys started coming on the scene though (well, the one and only boy) I started to pay more attention to how I looked.  Problem was, I still didn’t have much taste!  My favourite item of clothing was a pair green wide-leg trousers with patches on the knees and embroidery on the pocket.  You would never catch me in high heels!

I continued being a total dag for many years.  I had (and still have!) a boyfriend who loved me anyway, and I could scrub up all right if I made an effort.  I had grown some taste in fashion but still didn’t put much effort in on a daily basis.  Cardigans and jeans daily.  Gross hair.  Weird t-shirts.

When I went to Japan at the end of 2008, it was a real eye-opener.  There are seriously NO dags in Japan.  When I look at my trip photos, my evolution over those 3 weeks is astounding.  I discovered Lolita, having never really considered it before, and bought my first blouse and skirt from Bodyline (the blouse was so ita I reconstructed it last year, but the skirt is still a winner).  I also bought a buttload of magazines (hair, lolita, regular fashion) and clothes and a really nice winter coat, makeup, plus a couple of pairs of shoes.  I even got a cute haircut with a fringe!  I think that going out every day and seeing how beautifully people were dressed made me want to fit in, that really did it for me.  At home in Canberra it’s okay to be a dag!  In Japan it’s not done.
So on my return I started trying harder to look good.  I started wearing skirts with tights instead of only jeans, and I kept my hair looking much nicer.  My second trip to Japan really cemented my idea of how to dress well.  I’m not saying that I dress perfectly now, or that my style won’t change at all.  It’s constantly changing!  All I’m saying is that now I’m way more aware of how I dress and look.  

Here’s my style evolution over the last few years in 9 photos!
This is probably from about 2007.  Walking my beautiful dog in a TERRIBLE coord.
Getting off the plane in Japan – our first trip!  End of 2008.
In Akihabara – nice new coat, scarf and haircut.
Home again and trying to make a cute skirt!  Early 2009.  That’s my Bodyline shirt pre-modifications.
Japan trip no. 2 at the end of 2009!  At a cafe post-haircut.   I just like the haircuts I get in Japan!
Looks like I bought a beret!  First photo of me in tights and a skirt.
First shopping service purchase – my favourite dress, the Adele Bustier dress.  Early last year my man friend.
Late last year, going to see Bill Bailey.
Early this year in Sweden, wearing my new Milk dress!  Quite a change from the first photo, but more casual than most of my other recent photos.
Well!  This blog is kind of embarrassing!
craft, life, percussion

Photo from the radio peeps!

christinahopgood
Last Thursday, some lovely chaps from ABC Canberra’s local radio station came and did some interviewing, recording, and photographing of a rehearsal for the Harrison Organ Concerto.
They took a great photo of me playing my boxes (and a bass drum): 
These are boxes that my dad hand crafted according to instructions in the score.  They took him ages and ages to make!  They are cubes, 21″, 16″ and 11″ (not that I usually use Imperial, but that was the specification).  The striking surface of each cube is a thinner gauge plywood.  It took a lot of calculations and measurements and tricky pre-drilling of holes, but we made them and then my mum varnished them.  Aren’t they good?
My dad is the best.
Yay craft!
life, percussion

2 Concerts on Friday!

christinahopgood
It was a dark and stormy night… on Friday the 13th…
On Friday the percussion ensemble met at uni at 9am to begin our giant day of concerts.  We had two to perform in the one day – one in the High Court, and one in Albert Hall.
Each concert was to use a giant percussion setup, none of which overlapped at all.  We hired a truck and started packing for the first concert, which needed lots of cymbals, two marimbas, two vibraphones, and a giant tam tam, amongst other things.  We played that first concert with Synergy Percussion, which was fun.  They played a great piece called Good Medicine which I really liked.
After that concert, we packed up all our stuff and shoved on over to Albert Hall.  Gary took some boys in the truck back to uni to get the rest of the gear (sooooo much stuff…) and left us girls to set up what was left.  Eventually everything was there and we set up for the concert.
It sounds so easy when I write it down!  It was super exhausting.
Then we played the concert, with a huge re-set in the middle.  Photos:
 This is the first piece we did, you can juuuust see me in the back there.  This was the Lou Harrison Organ Concerto we played with the amazing organist Calvin Bowman.  It says on the website it was with Synergy, but it was NOT.  Every time it says “DRUMatiX”, that’s us!
 Next piece: Carmen, as arranged for small string orchestra and percussion ensemble.  More gear!
After the concert, the organiser said “We need to have the stage clear in 20 minutes… there’s another concert on” so we had to run around like hairy goats trying to pack everything down.  Then it was back to uni to put everything back!  Two truck trips!
So we eventually got to leave at about 10:30pm after starting at 9am that day.  Long day!  But it was good fun to be with my percussion friends all day!