menu: introduction | Annalisa | Dean | Clare | KVRP | projects In January 2007, Annalisa Kerrigan gave a memorable concert in Kangaroo Valley with Genevieve Lang (harp) and Jennifer Hoy (violin). Popular demand is bringing her back, this time with two other superb musicians - Dean Sky-Lucas (piano) and Clare O'Meara (fiddle) - and a program of popular Irish songs, including Danny Boy, Galway Bay, I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen, When Irish Eyes are Smiling, The Rocky Road to Dublin, The Last Rose of Summer and Cockles and Mussels. ABC Classics released Annalisa's best-selling album Waiting on an Angel in 2005. It jumped to the top of the classical charts and remained there for six weeks. Last year saw the release of Ireland, which promptly sold out. She is currently touring this concert version, which has received standing ovations in various regional towns and sold-out audiences in theatres such as the Geelong Performing Arts Centre and Ballarat's Royal South Street Theatre, throughout Australia. menu Annalisa Kerrigan After a six-year career touring and producing concerts in Europe to great acclaim, Annalisa returned to Melbourne enchanting audiences at Channel 9's Carols by Candlelight, performing in various high profile events like Orchestra Victoria's Opera in the Market, Opera in the Otways, Opera in the Vineyards, Opera in the Roses, Opera in the Winery, Opera in the Park, Melbourne Opera Company's Cosi Fan Tutte, for the Singapore Lyric Opera, the Vietnamese National Symphony, Wellington Symphony Orchestra, Tullynally Castle, Castello D'Argiano, concerts in Paris, London, and with shows such as Scotland the Brave with the Western Australian Symphony, South Australian Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. She has performed La Princess for Ravel's L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges (Melbourne International Festival), and has been adopted by Virtuosi Tasmania as one of their lead artists. She toured the role of Eliza in My Fair Lady and has had extraordinary success with her three-person show Ireland. She has received standing ovations throughout the world with various internationally-acclaimed artists including Sir Richard Bonynge conducting the London City Orchestra, Universal's Aled Jones, pianist David Helfgott, and in concert line-ups with David Hobson, Anthony Warlow, Marina Prior, High Five and more. Annalisa has had an extensive corporate entertainment career, with performances for the Formula 1 Grand Prix (televised globally), the Victorian Rugby Union World Cup, the Melbourne Racing Club, Caulfield Racing Club, Telstra, Optus, ANZ, Committee for Melbourne, The Lord Mayor's Ball, the KOALA Foundation, Pathways Foundation, Operation Smile, the Singapore Hospice Council, Think Pink's Gala Ball, the International Trade and Investment Outlook Conference, the Australian Export Awards, Asia Pacific Rail, Number 12, the Federal Government at Parliament House, the State Government at Victorian Parliament House, the Australian Embassy in Paris, Oaks Day, The Australian Rugby League at Olympic Park, the Sapphire Stakes Day, Oaks Day at Flemington, the British Institute in Florence, the European Institute in Florence, the International Orthodontics Congress, Good Morning Australia, Channel 7, Channel 10, Sky News, and much, much, more. She is shortly to release her third major CD, recorded with the help of the Governor of Tasmania at Government House, Hobart, with her favourite and most loved chamber orchestra, Virtuosi Tasmania. click here for a large high-resolution colour photograph of Annalisa by Susan Gordon Brown menu Dean Sky-Lucas Dean performs as soloist and chamber musician throughout Australia and abroad. He has a reputation for extraordinary improvisations, and is famous within the industry for his unique ability to change styles from early music to jazz to Irish to contemporary opera. Widely known to Australian audiences through numerous national broadcasts, both live and pre-recorded with ABC FM, Sunday Live and Radio National, he tours regularly with Musica Viva and Annalisa Kerrigan. Festival engagements have been notable with solo and accompaniment performances at the Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane International Festivals. During 2004, Dean performed the role of the singing pianist in ChamberMade opera's Recital in the USA, the Melbourne Season and the Victorian tour. Dean was associate artist with the Australian National Academy of Music for four years. He has been the vocal coach and repetiteur to Australia's most acclaimed opera singers including Rosamunde Illing, Ghillian Sullivan, Roxanne Hislop, Suzanne Johnston and David Hobson. Since the founding of the Victorian Opera in 2006 he has coached the Young Artists of the company and acted as the Principal Repetiteur for the 2007 season's opening presentation of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and Les Noces. He lectured in psychology and physiology for musicians at the Melba Conservatorium over four years, and during 2006 lectured in piano accompaniment at the University of Melbourne. menu Clare O'Meara Multi instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter and one of the hardest-working musicians around, Clare began her musical career at the age of five. Initially studying classical violin and piano, performing with orchestras in her teens, Clare then made the transition into every other conceivable music style, including Country, Rock, Celtic, Folk, Funk, Pop (and added a few more instruments along the way; Accordion, Guitar and Mandolin). She is renowned as Australia's premier female fiddle player. For the past decade, she has toured, recorded and performed at every major Australian music festival, including live television performances with major Australian country music stars; Lee Kernaghan, Gina Geffreys, Slim Dusty, Tania Kernaghan, Troy Cassar-Daley, Beccy Cole, James Blundell, the Feral Swing Cats, Adam Harvey, Graeme Connors, Brian Cadd, Shanley Del, Felicity and more. She is a member of the legendary Aussie band the Bushwackers, and has toured China twice with James Blundell. She has toured Japan with Fiddlers Feast as well as Europe and the USA. She is constantly in demand as a session fiddler, singer and pianist and has been a finalist in the 2008 Golden Fiddle Awards with her fiddle compositions. Clare is the only fiddle player we know that not only has a wine named in her honour (Clare Tere Chardonnay) but has won Gold medals in two consecutive Hunter Valley wine shows (the wine, that is). Clare can be contacted by email here. menu Here are three other dates for your diary (all fund-raising events for projects in East Timor sponsored by the Kangaroo Valley-Remexio Partnership): 1. 7.30pm Saturday July 4 2009 in Kangaroo Valley Hall: The Idea of North brilliant a cappella jazz vocal quartet 2. 7.30pm Saturday August 15 2009 in Kangaroo Valley Hall: The SEVENTH ANNUAL KANGAROO VALLEY BUSTER KEATON SILENT MOVIE FESTIVAL with pianist Robert Constable 3. Saturday September 19: Trek for Timor (this website still under construction) The challenge is to walk 50 kms in 24 hours. The trail is through national park & state forest in beautiful Kangaroo Valley and the Southern Highlands. menu The Kangaroo Valley-Remexio Partnership After the destruction and killing which devastated East Timor in September 1999, a small group of KV residents felt a need to help. A partnership was discussed with an East Timorese village, Remexio (a small village in the hills about one hour's drive south of Dili) and the Kangaroo Valley - Remexio Partnership was born. Eight years on (2008), we continue to have a mix of KV locals and associates working with East Timorese in Australia and in East Timor. The KVRP is a "bottom up" or "grass roots" approach to helping the East Timorese help themselves. We strive to assist the East Timorese achieve dignified living through health, education, justice, employment and ecologically sustainable industry. We selectively try to help in ways that may be of a low priority to the UN and other NGOs. Rather than large single projects, we pursue small, personal and usually integrated activities. Being substantially self-funded, our material contributions are small. Instead, we rely on sharing our existing skills in projects or in day-to-day situations. We try to foster long-term personal relationships with East Timorese people and actively encourage this approach in others. That part which is conducted in Australia is the provision of education and training to those who have appropriate interests and aptitudes for leadership and mentoring roles back in East Timor. Much of our involvement is now outside of Remexio, in other parts of East Timor, as well as in active networking within Australia. We now enjoy ongoing relationships with numerous individuals and activities. Along the way we have tried to identify the best and worst of our respective Australian and East Timorese lifestyles, to better influence both our paths into the future. The violent "situation" in Dili, that drastically worsened in May 2006, provided us all with significant and new challenges in safety and communication. Yet clearly, the needs of the East Timorese people became even more acute, highlighting the importance and urgency of continuing and extending our Timorese relationships. Paul Turnock (02 4465 1357) menu donations While we cover all our own expenses such as air fares, accommodation etc as well as all administration overheads, we welcome donations from others. If you can spare a few dollars - or a lot - please make your cheque payable to KV East Timor Assistance If you send your donation to John George 1255 Moss Vale Road Kangaroo Valley NSW 2577 and include your address then we'll make sure you get a receipt from AFAP (The Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific), allowing you to claim a tax deduction. You may also donate by making a payment directly into our bank account - for details, see here. 100% of funds raised from the public go directly towards helping the East Timorese and are fully accounted for. Donors may request that their funds be directed towards particular areas of their own special interest, such as health, education etc. menu projects scholarships One of our current projects is the provision of scholarships for students from Remexio to the Teachers College in Baucau, East Timor. Agostinha, Eduarda, and Virginia (left) are among the first recipients of these. Their costs from October to December 2007, for example, included, for the three of them combined, college registration: US$75; fees: $180; photocopying: $45; note paper: $5; lodging ($10/person/month): $90; food: $40; gas, phone card: $15; and bus fares (for one trip home each month): $54. That's about AUD200 per student per tri-semester, or $600 per year (which is 20 concert tickets @ $30). It's more now, of course. Two generous donors are helping us with these expenses, but we need more support ... We believe that education is one of the key areas to be developed if East Timor is to make the transition from a war-ravaged divided country to one that's peaceful and prosperous. Helping Timorese learn to teach others is one of the most useful contributions we can make. Remexio District Village Lighting Project Last year Brian Bailey was in Timor-Leste working with ATA (Alternative Technology Association) installing solar lighting systems. Read his report here (.pdf, 936KB, amended, from the December 2008 edition of the Kangaroo Valley Voice). An extract: We identified approximately one hundred and twenty houses in need of lighting. The group has made the mistake in the past of contributing to selected individuals in a community, and found that this can cause more problems than it solves. The only solution is to offer solar units to every one of the hundred and twenty ... With each household making an initial payment (plus a monthly servicing fee), the cost per unit will be more than $150. Thus we need to find more than $18,000. In fact we're aiming for $30,000 so that we can expand the project to more communities within the Remexio area. Read more here, particularly the bit at the end about how to make a tax-deductible donation! menu Annalisa Kerrigan's Ireland with Dean Sky-Lucas & Clare O'Meara 2.30pm Sunday 30th August Kangaroo Valley Hall Kangaroo Valley ticketing info

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page last updated May 16 2009