CIMF starters

It was a big day with two major pre-CIMF events.  First up was a session with Tim Lamble to help setup for recording in the Fitters Workshop.  No easy task, this, with long cables from front to back and mics to hang from lighting trusses.  Setting up the trusses alone was the work of 10-or-so people plus those outside setting up temporary entrance rooms and a few for other things.  It's surprising how much is involved.  No wonder people question that I can take my double bass, bass amp, PA and lighting in my Golf.  My gear is nothing like this!  And then session 2 for the CIMF day, a reception at Government House, no less, for CIMF volunteers.  Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, the GG's wife, is patron of CIMF thus the invitation.  It was not my first visit to Govt House (that dated back to Ninian Stevens ' days) but my first formal reception.  We were ushered in after showing photo ID, heard a short concert by the young but wonderfully capable Meyer piano quartet playing some very challenging Mahler (featuring echoed lines) and Brahms (with rabidly fast unison lines), chatted in the dining room and explored the public rooms and the art (on loan from NGA).  Some big names in Australian art hanging there.  The reception was pleasant, the company was chatty, the hosts, His Excellency the GG and Ma'am, were friendly.  We dressed to the nines, of course, and that also was fun.  Amusingly we were to attend a session on effective protest/activism immediately thereafter.  Oh, the bewilderment of life for this republican.  But more on the talking cure later.

CIMF 2023 started for me with Fitters Workshop setup and a Government House reception for CIMF volunteers.  The Meyer Piano Quartet performed at the reception.  The Meyer Quartet are David Cavenagh (piano), Brad Tham (violin), Pippa Newman (viola), James Monro (cello)