Thursday, May 16, 2019

Various concerts with Tenzin Choegyal (2018 April-June)

Readers of this blog will know that one of my main musical collaborators outside the field of Indian classical music is the renowned Tibetan singer-songwriter Tenzin Choegyal. When we are joined by singer-guitarist Marcello Milani we call the band Tibet2Timbuk2, which along with a recent regular member Richard Grantham (viola) has been recording a new album which will be released very soon at the time of writing.

While compiling my list of performances over the last couple of years, this block of 5 events with Tenzin stood out. The first two bookings came about as a result of the various festivities surrounding the Commonwealth Games, being held on the Gold Coast at the time. There were also a couple of very significant events: 1000 Stories with Michael Leunig, and Songs from the Bardo with Laurie Anderson.

Thu 12 Apr Queen St Mall: Tibet2Timbuk2 (FREE)


Sat 28 Apr New Farm: 1,000 Stories Michael Leunig with Tenzin Choegyal - As part of his annual Festival of Tibet, Tenzin Choegyal invited renowned Australian artist Michael Leunig to come and do live painting in the Brisbane Powerhouse theatre while we played music for his "little art studio". The sold out auditorium had a wonderful atmosphere, with lots of laughs in between songs. At the end a painting was auctioned for $3000, which went to Tibetan Children's Village!


Menaka Thomas (Indian vocals), Shen Flindell (tabla), Tenzin Choegyal (Tibetan vocals), Michael Leunig (live painting), Marcello Milani (guitar), Richard Grantham (viola), Michael Askill (gongs, bowls)


After show celebrations: Shen, Marcello, Bronnie, Michael, Tenzin.

Sat 26 May Peak Crossing: Tenzin and Shen - Just a little show at Ivory's Rock for a festival welcoming recent migrants.

Sat 23 Jun ​​Surfers: Songs from the Bardo - Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal and friends - For several years, Tenzin has been visiting New York City most years to perform at the annual Tibet House concert in Carnegie Hall. During these visits he made friends with world famous performance artist Laurie Anderson, so when Laurie was planning to come to Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast for a week long residency, she contacted Tenzin to arrange a performance of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The stage was just beautiful and it was a very special experience to work with such an accomplished performance artist on this spoken word performance with abstract soundscapes and some very subtle improvisations. Thanks to Tenzin for including me.

Rehearsal/soundcheck


Rehearsal/soundcheck


Rehearsal/soundcheck


Showtime

The team post-show: Cye Wood (violin, piano), Tenzin Choegyal (vocal, dranyen, flute, percussion), Laurie Anderson (spoken word, viola), Michael Askill (gongs,bells), Shen Flindell (tabla, percussion)

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