The Tait Memorial Trust has raised more than £900,000 to help support young musicians and dancers from Australia & New Zealand who need financial assistance while they are studying in the U.K. Through the Royal Over-Seas League it grants a scholarship to ‘the Australian musician showing the most promise’ in the Annual Music Competition. The Trust also contributes financially to the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation, Bel Canto Awards and provides a concert platform in London to the winner.
In 2013 the Trust created a new scholarship at the Royal College of Music to be known as the ‘Tait Scholar’. This was followed by the 'Higgins Scholar' at the Royal Northern College of Music.
In addition to this, the Trust continues to support its numerous existing awards: The John Frost/Frank and Viola Tait Award; the Sir Charles Mackerras chair with the Southbank Sinfonia; in 2014 we created the 'Leanne Benjamin Awards' for young Australian dancers with the Royal Ballet School, English National Ballet School; for the winner of the Australian International Opera Awards we offer grants to singers with the Wales International Academy of Voice.
We are delighted to announce that as of May 2017 we now support young performing artists from Australia & New Zealand.
Principal Partner: The Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
On Wednesday 10 May 2017 the 2nd Year students at the Royal Ballet School, Upper School in Covent Garden performed a selection of their choreographies for the Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award.
Nine students were shortlisted to show their choreography, collaborating with fellow dancers to direct and stage the work. Each piece was then performed to an audience, including the judging panel: Aletta Collins, Kevin O’Hare, Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon.
Tait Awardee, Rebecca Blenkinsop with Tait Chairman, Isla Baring OAM
Congratulations to the 2017 winner Rebecca Blenkinsop, with her piece Fajjar. She started dancing at the age of 11 and was accepted into the Victorian College of Arts Secondary School in Melbourne. Now in her third year at The Royal Ballet School we look forward to watching this talented young dancer’s career blossom over the coming years. Rebecca’s award has been kindly donated by John Frost AM as part of The Leanne Benjamin Awards.
Please contact us james@taitmemorialtrust.org if you would like to support a young Australian or New Zealand dancer.
The Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award, generously supported by Peter Wilson,was created in 1973 to encourage choreographic talent. Winners have included Adam Cooper, Matthew Hart, Michael Clark, Jonathan Burrows, William Tuckett, Christopher Hampson, Christopher Wheeldon, Cathy Marston and Liam Scarlett, all of whom have gone on to have careers as choreographers.
It is an annual opportunity for students to create their own choreography. Each student is given two formal showings with feedback from guest choreographers, and regular discussions and meeting points to reflect on the students’ progress.
For the choreographers and their contributing dancers, this learning and development process has been a rich and rewarding time. These are the first or second pieces made by these choreographers and the award performance is followed by a feedback session with one of the judges.
The school is extremely grateful to receive funding for the creative and improvisation workshops. These stimulate ideas and encourage creative development in the choreographers and their dancers. It also enables music advice, guest choreographic feedback and collaboration with professionals on design, to realise the choreographers’ ideas for costume and video projection. Our thanks go to The Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation and June Drew, in memory of David Drew. We are also grateful to Peter Wilson who generously sponsors the competition.
The choreographic programme runs across two years at the Upper School, offering improvisation and choreographic strategies in a range of projects. In the 1st Year, students create short sketches on a given theme, whenever possible with live music and also see performances by visiting companies. In the 2nd Year, all students are involved in the Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award.
We enjoyed a performance by Andrey Lebedev at our annual Tait Friends event at Stoke Lodge. Here is a film of him practicing the cadenza from Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez for Saturday’s concert with the Westminster Philharmonic conducted by Jonathan Butcher. 19:30 at St John’s Waterloo.
On May 13 I am performing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Butcher at St John’s Waterloo. After recent ventures into more obscure concertos, returning to this work has felt like greeting a long forgotten friend.
More info: http://stjohnswaterloo.org/event/3063698
Thanks to a generous donation from the Australian Charity Art Auction, and with their encouragement, we have decided to create a new Endowment Fund with an initial deposit of £10,000.
Karen Goldie-Morrison, June Mendoza AO OBE and Michael Whalley.
We wish to sincerely thank all at the ACAA for their hard work and dedication to this noble enterprise. The auctions, and other donations related to the event, raised a total of £46,000, with a net £38,000 likely to be available to the nominated charities after all costs.
Patron:
HE The Hon Alexander Downer AC
Vice-Patrons:
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas DBE
Sir Christopher Benson
Yvonne Kenny AM
Isla Baring OAM
Peter Box
Mark Mills
Advisory Committee:
June Mendoza AO OBE RP
Dr Margaret Mayston AM
Karen Goldie-Morrison
Nicholas Lambourn
Roger McIlroy
Belinda Syme
Cathi Taylor
Dr Robert Travers
Michael Whalley
Establish your legacy by ensuring The Tait Memorial Trust can meet the needs for young Australasian performing artists for generations to come. Your gift to the Endowment Fund will enhance the income that the Fund generates, income that helps us fund studies, pay for instruments and generally support our awardees well into the future.
We have created a new class of patron or supporter whose donations can be directed to building our new endowment fund. An “Endowment Patron” could be anyone who gives or bequeaths more than, £5,000, and their names would be recorded against the endowment fund in our records.
Endowment Patrons
Anne Longden
KarenGoldie Morrison
Michael Whalley
If you would like to add your name to our role call of Endowment Patrons by contributing to the fund, or would like to know how a bequest can be used to support it, please email James at: james@taitmemorialtrust.org
We are delighted to announce that the Tait Trust will now support young performing artists from Australia and New Zealand.
HE The Hon Alexander Downer AC with Tait Chairman, Isla Baring OAM announcing Tait support of NZ young performing artists.
This decision is inspired by the work of the Tait Brothers who were instrumental in the development of the Arts in Australasia in the 20th Century as can be seen in the advertisement for J.C.Williamson Limited.
Over the years we have supported several young New Zealander’s due to our partnership with the Joan Sutherland & Richard Bonynge Foundation, Bel Canto Awards, including James Ioelu and Marlena Devoe (pictured here with Australian tenor, Gerard Schneider at our 2014 Tait Winter Prom).
Marlena Devoe & Gerald Schneider | Tait Winter Prom 2014 at St John’s Smith Square
Our wish is to provide financial and mentoring support for outstanding NZ dancers, singers, instrumentalists & composers to develop international careers at the highest level.
We extend a warm invitation to all Kiwi’s living in the United Kingdom who wish to join us to help their talented countrymen. Maybe consider sponsoring an award or contribute towards our Endowment Fund.
Please contact james@taitmemorialtrust.org if you wish to learn more about this exciting development, or would like to be involved.
For its inaugural show, JGM Gallery is proud to present the first UK exhibition by Australian Aboriginal artist, Kittey Malarvie (b.1939). Founded by Jennifer Guerrini-Maraldi, the new space will deliver a rich programme of exhibitions and events devoted to contemporary Australian Aboriginal art. Kittey Malarvie: Milkwater and Luga is the first in a series of exhibitions that aims to demonstrate the rich potency, symbolism and heritage of Aboriginal art and culture on an international arena.
Launching in March 2017, JGM Gallery is a new space in London dedicated to exhibiting and promoting contemporary Australian Aboriginal art
For its inaugural exhibition, the Gallery will present the first UK exhibition by Indigenous Australian painter, Kittey Malarvie – Kittey Malarvie: Milkwater and Luga runs from 17th March to 22rd April
Malarvie’s richly layered paintings refer to the artist’s deep-seated connection to the landscape and sites of her childhood, as well as a reflection on questions pertaining to identity, memory and displacement
For further press information, please contact jgmgallery@kallaway.com or call on 0207 221 7883
Malarvie’s subtle, abstract paintings reflect the artist’s deep-rooted connection to nature and her work consists of layers of cultural meaning, childhood memories and recollections of family histories. The two series presented at JGM Gallery, Milkwater and Luga, depict the remarkable desert landscape around Sturt Creek, Australia, where the artist spent her childhood, an area that sits between the Great Sandy Desert and Kununurra, Western Australia. At the heart of Malarvie’s practice is an enduring connection to her traditional country and childhood memories as a way of reconnecting with a time before the disruptions to family and cultural traditions that have occurred during her lifetime and throughout Aboriginal history. Painting in a palette of soft earth ochres, including natural pale pinks, black, greys and milky white, Malarvie translates the language of place into energetic gestures of abstraction. Layers of circle motifs in the Luga paintings represent a land that is flooded and dry by turns, leaving behind the patterned ground of luga – the cracked mud across the parched black soil plains of Sturt Creek. The white circles specifically refer to the salt crystals found in the mud and that are believed to have healing powers. Malarvie’s recent Milkwater series, by contrast, is a meditation on the multifaceted play of wind and light on this same area of land in times of flooding, when the water takes on the eerily beautiful colour of milk.
1285 Milkwater, 2016, natural ochre on canvas, 185 x 284 cm
Like many Aboriginal artists, Malarvie works within the iconographic traditions of the desert, deeply in tune with the natural environment and ecology. Herself a healer, Malarvie’s paintings seem to capture not just the elements but also a certain energetic presence within them. Having had her first solo exhibition at the age of 68, these series together also form a visual biography. In her own words, ‘When I paint, I remember my childhood… when we were all together…’, an homage to her late sister.
For the Aboriginal community today, painting – inasmuch as it is a form of traditional mark making with a centuries old existence – retains its communicative function. Dating back 60,000 years, Indigenous Australian culture has consistently used painting for demarcating space, place and body: from paintings of detailed maps in the red sandy soil to ceremonial body painting and decorating traditional objects. In more recent decades, Aboriginal art can be viewed as a re-assertion of identity set within the context of a long and difficult period of colonial dominance and displacement. According to Jennifer Guerrini-Maraldi, Director of JGM Gallery, ‘Aboriginal artists are custodians of a different aspect of the earth – they have intellectual copyright for a pattern which has symbolic meaning… and a spirituality that is uplifting’.
1274 Luga, 2012, natural ochre on canvas, 90 x 120 cm
A fully illustrated catalogue of the exhibition has been published with a newly commissioned text by award-winning poet and journalist Olivia Cole.
Contacts
For further press information please contact Anya Harrison at Kallaway PR
Based in Battersea, JGM Gallery is London’s only dedicated space for contemporary Indigenous Australian art. JGM Gallery aims to establish a greater awareness of Aboriginal art in the UK and internationally. The Gallery works only with registered Aboriginal owned art centres across the whole of Australia, ensuring that works are ethically sourced and that local communities directly benefit.
Located in the heart of Battersea, JGM Gallery is set to become one of the cultural markers of the neighbourhood, which is already home to the Royal College of Art, Battersea Arts Centre and Battersea Power Station.
Kittey Malarvie was born at the Brockman gold mine near Halls Creek, Western Australia. Malarvie travelled with her family to the East Kimberley township of Kununurra in the early 1970s where she first learned boab carving and artefact making with her parents. She turned to painting in 2006, having first assisted the late Rover Thomas (c. 1926-1998) and Billy Thomas (b. c. 1920). She works through one of the earliest Aboriginal art centres in the region. Her works are included in international collections at the Nevada Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Australia Collection and the Government of Western Australia.
About JGM Art
We (my husband, Count Filippo Guerrini Maraldi and I) have been building our own art collection including Australian Aboriginal art, for more than 20 years .
Copyright Tony McGee
Following my career as a journalist in London, I transformed my passion for fine art into my business. JGM ART has been exhibiting and selling the best art from Aboriginal Communities across remote Australia for a decade. I have been dealing privately from No 1 Battersea Square, (our uber contemporary home – a modern apartment with views across London and the Thames) as well as showing Aboriginal art in Milan Italy, USA and the most prestigious art fairs in London, including Masterpiece Fair, an annual highlight of the London calendar each June.
We are so excited about the launch of our new Gallery which is beautifully situated next door to the Royal College of Art, Sackler school of Painting.
The RCA are siting their entire London Campus in Battersea, and opposite our new gallery will be their newest development, designed by award winning architects Herzog de Meuron.
It is going to be a serendipity to be situated bang in the middle of the RCA and some of the most revered young creatives today.
Donation to the Australian Charity Art Auction
JGM Art has entered a painting for donation to the Charity Art Auction by Kaye Bush from Mornington Island. Kaye painted with the late Sally Gabori. The work is 91 x 61 cm.
The live auction will take place at Australia House on the 28th February. More info here
Australian born soprano Lauren Fagan is a young artist at the outset of a promising career. Initially completing a Business degree, Lauren has recently moved to London to accept her scholarship on the Opera course at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the tutelage of Susan Waters. Lauren is a 2013 Tait Memorial Trust Awardee.
Lauren Fagan has been in Banff, Canada for the past 5 weeks singing the role of Mrs Coyle in Owen Wingrave. This was the Canadian premiere of this opera, conducted by Dominic Wheeler and directed by Kelly Robinson. GSMD took across 6 singers from the opera course for the production where they got the chance to work with the original Owen, baritone, Benjamin Luxon.
Lauren is about to start her second year on the opera course at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In the first term Lauren will be singing the role of Lia in Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue at the Barbican and in the second term, Lauren will sing the role of the Blue Fairy in Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio
Lauren’s award is supported by the Michael Whalley Foundation
Biography
Australian born soprano Lauren Fagan is a young artist at the outset of a promising career. Initially completing a Business degree, Lauren has recently moved to London to accept her scholarship on the Opera course at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the tutelage of Susan Waters. In August this year Lauren will be singing the role of Mrs Coyle in Britten’s Owen Wingrave as part of the Banff Summer Arts Festival in Canada. In Guildhall’s Opera scenes she has been featured as; Micaëla Carmen, Jenůfa Jenůfa, Marschallin Der Rosenkavalier, Natasha War and Peace, Vitellia La clemenza di Tito, Alice Falstaff, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte and First Lady Die Zauberflöte. Other operatic roles performed include Frasquita in Carmen at The State Theatre and Chorus in the Australian premiere of Dead Man Walking.
Lauren was runner up in the 2012 McDonald’s Operatic Aria Final, with finalists from around Australia and New Zealand. In 2012, she also placed third in the National Joan Sutherland Richard Bonynge Vocal Scholarship and won the Operatic Aria Final at the Ryde Eisteddfod. She was awarded ‘The Dame Nellie Melba Scholarship – ‘Patrick and Vivian Gordon Award’ from ‘The Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust’ in 2011 and 2012. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Dame Nellie Melba she performed a solo recital on 3MBS FM, Melbourne as part of Ann Blainey’s radio interview, ‘I am Melba’. Her performance of “Depuis le jour” was later selected for the 3MBS Alive CD (2012).
She has developing experience as a soloist; performing for The Opera and Arts Support Group, Clonter Opera, Artsong NSW, Opera on the Beach, Joan of Arc – Voices of Light Oratorio, Carols in the Domain, World Youth Day Opening Ceremony and Australian Idol Grand Final.
Over the last two years Lauren has had the opportunity to work with Dennis O’Neill, Christine Brewer, Liane Keegan, Sylvia Greenberg, David Aronson, Cheryl Barker, Eilene Hannan, Yvonne Kenny, Sharolyn Kimmorley, Glenn Winslade, Anna Sweeney and Chuck Hudson.
Lauren’s continued development is generously supported by The Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust, The Opera and Arts Support Group, The Tait Memorial Trust, Ars Musica Australis, The Donnelly’s, Opus 50 Charitable Trust and The City Livery Club London.
Since relocating to London, young soprano Phoebe-Celeste Humphreys (22) has gone from strength to strength. Phoebe recently completed a Master of Music at The Guildhall School Of Music and Drama, London under scholarship and received a distinction in her final recital. In 2013/14 Phoebe will undergo an additional year of study at The Guildhall to complete a Masters in Performance under the tutelage of Marilyn Rees.
Phoebe-Celeste Humphreys. Soprano
Originally from Sydney, Australia, Phoebe has been on the classical singing scene for many years having won numerous Australian competitions and prizes, including:
Winner of Operatic Aria Open Final (Woolongong 2012)
Winner of Operatic Aria (McDonalds Performing Arts Challenge 2012),
French & German Award (McDonalds Performing Arts Challenge 2012)
Winner of the prestigious Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonygne Scholarship in 2009, selected by Maestro Bonynge.
Fourth prize in the National Aria Final (Australian National 2011)
In 2012, during her time at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Phoebe’s roles have included: Mimi La Boheme, Elvira L’italiana in Algeri, Polisenna Radamisto as well as Chorus Le Portrait de Manon. Externally, her roles this year include Lauretta Gianni Schicchi. Phoebe was recently invited to take part in the Young Artist program with Des Netherlandes Opera working on the role of Eve in Stockhaussen’s Montag aus Licht.
Phoebe has enjoyed a fruitful summer that included travelling to North Yorkshire with Ryedale Festival Opera covering the role of Pamina The Magic Flute followed by travelling to Wales to perform the role of Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring with Mid Wales Opera Young Artist Program.
Phoebe has also had the opportunity to sing at a number of concerts throughout the year, one highlight was to sing as soprano soloist for the LSO Song day performing Brahm’s Ein deutsches Requiem.
Phoebe-Celeste Humphreys, Soprano
For the upcoming academic year her aim is to focus on performing a number of recitals within London, including one focussing on the works of Australian Art Song composers, to spread the intelligence and beauty of Australian classical compositions, as well as being actively involved in all performance opportunities offered at college as well as taking part in a number of external engagements.
With the ongoing support of The Tait Memorial Trust Phoebe has been able to experience her new life as a London based singer to the fullest and looks forward to what the next year has to bring.
Australian Conductor, Kelly Lovelady was awarded the prestigious 2013 Julian Baring Award from the Tait Memorial Trust. The Trust are delighted to support Kelly and the orchestra which she created, Ruthless Jabiru, London’s all Australian Chamber Orchestra.
The article below was posted on 12 August, 2013 by Kelly Lovelady on the Ruthless Jabiru website
Ruthless Jabiru is to perform with guest artist Lara St. John at the Union Chapel on 14 October, in a programme centred around Maralinga, a work for violin and string orchestra by Australian composer Matthew Hindson.
Hindson’s work will lay at the centre of a concert designed to pay tribute to the Maralinga story through music. Maralinga land in remote South Australia was used for undercover British nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s, leaving the area heavy with radioactive waste and thousands of Indigenous people and servicemen affected, both British and Australian.
“I wanted to devise a programme connected with the Australian landscape, to complement the Australia exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts,”
said conductor Kelly Lovelady, the orchestra’s founding Artistic Director.
“Maralinga was inspired by a stretch of desert where one political decision has had tragic repercussions for health, community, and the environment. I’ve chosen a programme to evoke the loss and the chemical strangeness which has become a part of that landscape.”
Maralinga scholar Dr. Liz Tynan described a complex tragedy of secrets, spies, and international relations.
“At Maralinga, part of our territory became the most highly contaminated land in the world. It’s time for Maralinga to become part of our national conversation, and the arts is a great medium to do this.”
Ruthless Jabiru will be joined by Canadian violinist Lara St. John, for whom Hindson wrote the solo violin part of Maralinga. St. John has been described as “something of a phenomenon” by The Strad and a “high-powered soloist” by The New York Times. She has performed as soloist with the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and with the Boston Pops, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Symphony, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, Amsterdam Symphony, Brazilian Symphony, Sao Paulo Symphony, China Philharmonic, Hong Kong Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and the orchestras of Brisbane, Adelaide and Auckland, among many others.
Ruthless Jabiru’s performance will also include the UK premieres of works by Australian composer Paul Stanhope and Dublin-based Linda Buckley, as well as cornerstones of the string orchestra repertoire by Arvo Pärt and Samuel Barber.
Dear Friends, I really appreciate all the warm, caring and loving messages I have received in the past week. Many of you have asked for details of the funeral and memorial services.
I really appreciate all the warm, caring and loving messages I have received in the past week. Many of you have asked for details of the funeral and memorial services.
The funeral will take place on Tuesday 20 August 2013 at 11am at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate Church, Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2DQ (directions below), followed by a short service and burial in Aldeburgh on Wednesday 21 August at 12pm, at St Peter & St Paul’s Parish Church. All welcome.
Directions:St Sepulchre without Newgate is located at the junction of Holborn Viaduct and Giltspur Street. Nearest tube stations are St Paul’s (Central line) and Farringdon (Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines). The church is located almost exactly opposite City Thameslink overground station.
John Amis Award
For the last six years of his incredible life John Amis was a Patron and an active supporter of the Tait Memorial Trust. The Chairman, Isla Baring OAM, wishes to create an Award in his name to be called the ‘John Amis Award’. Any money donated via this page will go directly to fund this new award.
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