Five Short Blasts
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Sunday, 4 May 2025
7:00 am
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Lake Burley Griffin
Queen Elizabeth Terrace, Parkes ACT 2600, Australia
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General Admission $60,
Concession $55
Repeat performances at 7am and 8:30am daily 1-4 May. Space numbers are limited.
In the early morning, when the wind drops, when the waters of Lake Burley Griffin that now submerge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri plain are still, we head out on the water in a small flotilla to listen. Five Short Blasts – the name of the signal known instantly to mariners as an expression of uncertainty or alarm – has surfaced the sounds and stories of oceans, ports and rivers through major festivals in Melbourne, Hamburg, Perth and Prague.
As a centrepiece of the 2025 Canberra International Music Festival in the 60th anniversary year of Lake Burley Griffin, Five Short Blasts combines live performance, new composition and simulcast radio in an intimate one-hour experience on electric boats. Surprise encounters echo across the lake in a waterborne orchestration of space, music and human spirit. Marked by the enduring reality of the original cultures of this place, and by the continual and dynamic change and negotiation that occurs within, across and beyond these captured waters, Five Short Blasts is made as a multi-faceted encounter with this age-old place, and the people whose lives unfold around its constructed waters. Created by Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey with local water and sound communities, including soloists on National Carillon, local bagpipers, ANU SoM composition faculty, Alex Raupach (trumpet)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Photo credit – Cam Campbell
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-
Sunday, 4 May 2025
7:00 am
-
Lake Burley Griffin
Queen Elizabeth Terrace, Parkes ACT 2600, Australia
-
General Admission $60,
Concession $55
ARTIST Learn more about the artist
Artist Flynn & Humphrey
Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey are Australian artists who create unexpected situations for listening. They have a long-term highly awarded collaborative practice. Their work is driven by a curiosity about listening in human and non-human ecologies and seeks to evolve and engage with new processes and audiences through public and participative interventions. They work with emerging technologies, cultural groups, sites, and experts across practice and ensemble-made processes. Their current creative obsessions include acoustics of the dark, the sound of existential risk, and ecological and cultural impacts of practice. Maddie and Tim are based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.
Maddie and Tim’s works have been presented by major festivals and contemporary art spaces, including Setouchi Triennale and Kinosaki Arts Centre (Japan); Busan Sea Art Biennale, Ansan Arts Festival, and Seoul Street Arts Festival (Republic of Korea); Brighton Festival and Science Gallery London (UK); Sonica Festival ; Edinburgh Festival and Counterflows Festival (Scotland); ANTI Festival and Oulu Capital of Culture (Finland); Prague Quadrennial (Czech Republic); Theatre der Welt (Germany); Ars Electronica (Austria); Melbourne Festival, Perth Festival, Sydney Festival, MONA FOMA, ACCA, ArtsHouse, Melbourne Recital Centre, Substation, Sydney Opera House, Bundanon, and Science Gallery Melbourne (Australia). Their awards include the national Australia Council Experimental Arts Award, APRA-AMCOS awards for Experimental Music, GreenRoom Awards for Sound and Hybrid Arts, Melbourne Festival award and an Honourable Mention Ars Electronica.
Photo credit – Jody Haines