New Musica Viva & Belvoir 2017 seasons launched

Annabelle Traves performing at a Musica Viva Masterclass with Maxim Vengerov

It's been a week of pleasant surprises recently, with a number of arts organisations announcing their new seasons for 2017 - and a couple of them using my work to do so!

Musica Viva's season launched recently, and it was great to see a couple of my images in their Masterclasses section from the workshop with Maxim Vengerov late last year, at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He was a lovely guy, and very encouraging (if a little strict) to the young performers who were chosen to work with him. But I'm sure he was right about how they could improve, he knows how a violin should sound!

Interestingly, this is the only image that has that flare in the top corner, which I actually quite like. A moment after I took this one someone spoke to Annabelle from the auditorium, so she stopped rehearsing - and the next frame is taken within the same second as this!

I was even more surprised by an image from the Belvoir launch, which I saw come up on Twitter on Friday night - featuring my friend Jacob Rajan from Indian Ink Theatre in New Zealand, in an image I created for them about six years ago!

This one's had a bit of a colour treatment from the original version (below) by my friends at Alphabet Studio, where I shared an office for a few years when I first moved here to Sydney. (I'm assuming it's not because the set & costumes are now pink, it's to fit in with the overall look of the brochure this year!)

It's a great show, Jacob's a masterful storyteller - so I'm looking forward to having them here in the neighbourhood for a couple of weeks next year. I'm sure they'll be well received by anyone who enjoys a good yarn, told well - which is arguably what theatre should be most of the time, really.

Jacob Rajan in The Guru of Chai, by Indian Ink Theatre Company

Oh - and I nearly forgot, there's this one in the upcoming Melbourne Festival as well - from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed concert earlier this year. Nice!

Melbourne Festival brochure