Arts in the Valley ‘Australian Made’ Festival 2019
Arts in the Valley presented its biennial Arts Festival on the weekend of 3-5 May 2019.
Legendary Australian piano-maker, Wayne Stuart brought not one but two of his latest concert grand pianos. These stunningly beautiful instruments were played by pianists Piers Lane, Natalia Ricci, Michael Endres and Kristian Chong. In addition, Wayne Stuart gave a talk on his pianos, their history and design features in a presentation entitled: “It’s what’s inside that counts”.
Sculpture in the Valley, 2019, our biennial exhibition of outstanding sculptures was held at Cedar Grove, 189 Jarretts Lane, Kangaroo Valley on Friday 3rd, Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th May, 10 -4pm. This beautiful and spectacular property hosted both outdoor and indoor sculptures and all exhibits were available for purchase.
In addition to our gala concerts in the Kangaroo Valley Community Hall, we once again presented 6 very special Hausmusik events. These featured Piers Lane, Umberto Clerici, Andrew Haveron, Paul Goodchild and Sydney Brass, the Acacia Quartet, Kristian Chong, as well as Peter Coleman-Wright accompanying Dr Jane McKellar in exploring the life of Percy Grainger.
The Hausmusik venues for 2019 were the newly-constructed and architecturally brilliant Blackrock on Mt Scanzi Road, the Bishops house with spectacular views on Wattamolla Road, and Serenata on Keoghs Road.
And if that isn’t enough, on Sunday 5th May from midday we offered a Family Picnic Concert in which the Royal Australian Navy Band under the direction of Lieutenant Brian O’Kane entertained our Festival crowd for a family picnic at Osborne Park. This was a free event.
Our final Sunday concert was a drama performance, in which we presented Nick Enright’s droll, epic and heart-warming poem of love, music-making and community, The Maitland and Morpeth String Quartet, narrated by Jillian O’Dowd and illustrated by the Acacia String Quartet, and the RAN Band. The production was directed by Festival Director, Robert Constable.