HOT NEWS

Aug/Sept 2008
You'll find us somewhere in Europe ...

In late July 2008, my partner Adrian and I went to Italy to work for a month on a new festival called ‘Inspirato’, which is starting up in Umbria (near Assisi).  We will be working with other professional theatre practitioners and a group of drama students to present two new plays and a new music theatre piece up to a rehearsed dramatic reading stage. The philosophy of the festival combines holistic and healing principles with theatre and music theatre performance,  and focuses on lives of the saints.

After our Italian Job, we’ll be going to the United Kingdom, working in drama schools and doing our recently-performed cabaret, ‘When We Are Old And Gay’.  We don’t yet know when we will return to Australia.  We may not.  We’re off on an adventure!

April 2008
When we are old and gay - Cabaret show

Download sample song - click here.

Performed 9th -10th April 2008
Slide Bar, 41 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney

When Adrian Barnes and Pat Wilson - once considered hip, now considering hip replacements - get together, the show is always irreverent and wry; they specialize in original satirical songs with a wicked twist.

In their most recent* cabaret, When We Are Old And Gay, Barnes and Wilson take a look at what happens when the passage of time turns gorgeous gay young things into senior citizens.

Drugs (licit and illicit), lifestyle, fashion, health, fun, fetish, relationships and the whole damn disaster… it’s all fair game to the wit of Barnes and Wilson.

He sings, she sings, and plays a mean piano. You laugh – if you dare. It’s original satirical cabaret from a couple of old troupers.

So round up your deviant old uncle, or persuade your favourite (unmarried) auntie with the diamante nipple-clips to join you , and slip into the Slide Bar for a night of riotous filth and fun.

Dinner and Show: 7:00pm
Show Only: 9:00pm

*You may still be trying to forget their previous shows:
Not a Vicarage Tea Party, The Incredible Shrinking Mortgage Show, Sod ‘em and Tomorrow

- Download your own old & gay poster here! (PDF)

July 2007

I will be visiting Europe in August and September of this year, primarily to attend the Conference of Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM07), to be held in Tallin, Estonia. 15th-19th August: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cim07/index2.htm

The focus of this conference will be on singing, and I will be giving a spoken presentation to the conference based on my recently-completed research. Here's the abstract of my paper: Learning to sing in tune – does real-time visual feedback help? (Download DOC: Click here)

I will be spending some time in the United Kingdom both before and after the conference, catching up with old friends, teaching workships and meeting colleagues in my areas of research interest.

April 2007

Just received examiners' comments and marks for my Masters thesis: I've been awarded a High Distinction!

The Library of the University of Sydney runs the Sydney eScholarship Repository, a digital platform for safe storage and online access of a broad range of research documents and data. You can read my thesis at: http//hdl.handle.net/2123/1526

2006

The academic year commences in Australia in late February / early March,  so I’m just about to start again at the Actors College of Theatre and Television  (http://www.actt.edu.au),  where I teach singing for theatre to the first-year and second-year actors  in a three-year full-time tertiary course. Unfortunately,  I won’t have the time in my schedule this year to work with the A.C.T.T. Music Theatre course;  I have taught Singing for Music Theatre in this course since its inception,  and I know I will miss the pleasure of that work.

I have also been honoured to be asked to work at the University of Western Sydney (http://www.uws.edu.au)  again this year,  for the first semester.  I’ve lectured in the theatre performance courses of this university on and off for quite a few years.  For this semester,  I’m looking at Heightened Language with the second-year actors.

My research work continues at the University of Sydney;  I’m currently at the thesis writing-up stage.  I presented a short paper based on the findings of my research thus far at a colloquium held in December last year (University of Sydney, Faculty of Health Sciences – Research for a Healthy Future – Colloquium 2005).  My paper  was awarded equal first prize from all papers presented during the two-day colloquium;  this was a remarkable and unexpected honour. (http://www.fhs.usyd.edu.au/researchcolloquium.shtml#1)

Meanwhile,  I just keep churning out those thesis chapters…

In composition,  I’ve been commissioned to write a song for the celebration of the baptism and blessing of a child;  it’s looking good,  and there’s every hope that it will be ready for Adrian and me to do the premiere performance at the end of March.

I’ve just finished a one-off stint as Guest Editor on my professional association’s newsletter The Voice of ANATS  (http://www.anats.org.au).   It was a challenging task,  but one which I really enjoyed.  In essence,  it’s a bit like being a grandma – you have fun being with the child,  but you can hand it back to its mum afterward.  I’m glad to pass all that responsibility back to the usual editor!