Thanks to Charles Martin for his photo of the Fitters' Workshop in its unreconstructed glory
[Open email to] Chief, Minister, ACT - Mr Stanhope (Katy Gallagher)
Your time as Chief Minister has been significant, long and successful, and you are renowned and respected as a supporter of the arts. Especially here in intelligent Canberra, this is an enviable reputation and one that will survive. Our future will have to be energy-aware and tread lightly in economics, sustainability and the like. Things will change and experiences will be important and I expect the arts will be central for that time. The Fitters’ Workshop would be a siren call as a unique experience. For this reason, I wish to make a final plea for retaining the Printer’s Workshop as a musical facility. It’s a rare facility of superior acoustic qualities. It’s just the sort of thing that Canberra arts can be proud of, but also the sort of thing that attracts visitors – performers and listeners. And for a modern country, it has that old-world charm that adds to the mystique. To convert this into a workhouse, however valuable the purpose (and that I don’t doubt) is a sad outcome, but it’s also removing a potential place on a visitors’ map, a place people will come to experience. Excellence is fleeting and hard to replace. Acoustics are engineerable but the perfect space is elusive. Don’t remove the Fitters’ Workshop from the national musical map in its infancy. It’s too valuable as a symbol and a place of pilgrimage in the musical scene. It’s essentially another blockbuster exhibition spread over time. And it’s not replaceable. I don’t wish to devalue Megalo, and I can accept they are not well catered for. I don’t know. But I imagine they will be well suited to a newer space, even if it costs a little more.
The loss of a gem, even at the most difficult time, is still a cost we can’t afford.
I hope you can find the way to save the Fitters’ Workshop as a concert venue. It’s a gem but also it’s an investment.
Eric
Megan and I attended Concert 31 of the Canberra International Music Festival to hear the renowned acoustics, but it’s also a favourite era of Megan’s. The session was tagged “Discovering unknown Schubert masterworks”. The repertoire was Schubert Symphonies nos 10 and 11 along with Graeme Koehne’s Sleep of reason. The two Schuberts were Australian premieres, presumably for the orchestrations rather than the pieces. It was the no.10 that went first, then the Koehne with big sweeps of strings and obvious filmic resonances, then interval and the no.11 with paired cellos. I particularly remember a lovely segment at the end with one pizzicato cello accompanying a bowed cello melody. But the whole effect was quite magical. I understand the excitement over the venue, but also the reticence and I’m relieved that at least a decent alternative use has been selected. But this night was very special. I didn’t hear the sound as precise or particularly well balanced and it wouldn’t suit many musical styles (I expect jazz included). The buzz of conversation before the performance was like a noisy hip café where you can’t hear your partner speak. (Thinking back, I wonder if this will be a problem for an artists’ workshop and gallery). But this suits strings and orchestra and it was big and full and enveloping. I noticed bells ringing with a vibrancy I’ve never heard before. The strings were enveloping and the basses were stunningly present. One of the performing bass players told me later that they’d reduced numbers for some performances because the sound was so intense. But the key issue was the intimacy and intensity of the experience. This was something to savour in a way that our recent Sydney Symphony in the cavernous Opera House was not. There were errors and questionable intonations and the rest, but I’d choose this anytime over a precise, professional but distant music experience. The atmosphere was aided by the lack of facilities, the rough seating, the earthy location, the cables on the ground and the poor lighting, the musicians’ clutter at the back beside the trestle-table bar and the rest. But the musical effect was a stunner. I sometimes think back to mediaeval days when the greatest musical experience was the travelling troubadour every few months. We are now surrounded by excellence and excess but much of it is recorded or distant or disembodied. This was everything that is not. This was intimate and exhilarating and a musical treat in a space of accidental excellence.
The works were Graeme Koehne Sleep of Reason, Schubert Symphony no.10 orchestrated by Brian Newbold and Schubert Symphony no.11 orchestrated by Joseph Joachim. The performers were noted in the Festival program as Timo-Veikko Valve (cello), Fredrik Sjölin (cello), Canberra Festival Camerata, ANU School of Music Orchestra, Danish String Quartet, Édua Zádory (violin), Anna McMichael (violin), James Wannan (viola), David Pereira (cello), Justin Bullock (bass), John Harding (conductor), but I’m not sure this is 100% correct.
