tekee tokee tomak USA tour

The Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour

East Timor multimedia

USA, Sept-Oct 2003

this tour has been successfully completed

a similar tour, to Europe and the USA, is being planned for Sept-Oct 2005
Interested in us doing a gig at your place? Get in touch!

from e-mails received post-tour:

1. from Radford, Virginia:
"What an experience! It was interesting and thought-provoking and so well performed. The audience was small, but I think very appreciative and attentive and absorbed in the whole experience. Thanks for arranging such an extraordinary program."

2. from the University of Northern Illinois:
"Thanks for the great program here. Several of my students talked to me about the concert very enthusiastically."

3. from the University of Santa Clara:
"The performance yesterday was absolutely stunning - powerful and substantial, and beautifully crafted - if I had my way, I would require all of our students to see it since so much echoed essential principles of our University.
"Again on behalf of our faculty staff and students, thank you for reminding us that the performing arts are among the most effective tools we have for the promotion of justice in the world."

4. from Bowling Green State University:
"Thanks so much for your visit ... I truly enjoyed your 'provocative' presentation."

Our thanks to the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts and its International Program for a grant that enabled this tour to go ahead.

see reviews of our Feb 6 2003 London concert

** click here to download complete program notes, technical requirements, photos and other info **

optimised for Internet Explorer (yeah, we know ...)

Ros Dunlop is one of Australia's leading clarinetists, especially of contemporary repertoire. Martin Wesley-Smith is one of Australia's best-known composers and multimedia artists. Ros has played, and many of Martin's pieces have been heard (and seen), in many parts of the world. On May 20 2002, East Timor, a country and people ravaged by Indonesian occupying forces from 1975 to 1999, became the world's newest nation. Dunlop, Wesley-Smith and East Timor - these are the three main elements of The Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour.

In 2002 we visited East Timor twice, giving concerts in Dili, Ermera, Hato Bulliko, Laga, Los Palos and Same. In 2003 we toured Great Britain, giving concerts in Manchester, Kent, Reading, Liverpool, Glasgow, Oxford, Kingston, York, London and, on the way home, Hong Kong. In September and October 2003 we will be giving concerts in the USA. These, too, will focus on East Timor, the program to include Martin's multimedia pieces X (about Xanana Gusmão), for clarinet & CD-ROM (1999), Welcome to the Hotel Turismo, for bass clarinet & CD-ROM (2000), and Tekee Tokee Tomak (2003), for clarinet & CD-ROM. Also in the repertoire: Merry-Go-Round, with images of Afghanistan by Australian artist George Gittoes. We are hoping that a new piece about Iraq, also with George's images, will be finished in time ...

The current world situation has made our concerts more relevant - urgent, even - than ever. Many people who witnessed our program on our last tour commented that even though they didn't know much about East Timor, they saw the pieces as a metaphor for many similar, more familiar situations. Our program asks, indirectly, fundamental questions about power, privilege and human rights.

American composer Bill Brooks, who teaches at the University of York in England, wrote in an e-mail (Feb 6 2003):

"a fine show, provocative and skilled ... there have been ongoing mutters amongst the postgrads about art, politics, propaganda, and The Whole Damn Thing ever since you left"

Live clarinet, computer sounds, and stunning images of East Timor, many taken during the carnage of the Indonesian occupation ...

Several concerts have been organised so far, but there is plenty of room in the schedule for more. Get in early and avoid the rush! Both Dunlop and Wesley-Smith will also be available for talks, lecture/demonstrations etc, either separately or, better, together.

enquiries:
e-mail Martin Wesley-Smith [PO Box 6159 Kangaroo Valley NSW 2577 Australia; tel: +61 (0)2 44 651 299]

an image from X for clarinet & CD-ROM:

[click photo to enlarge]

Ros Dunlop has been a strong advocate for the cause of new music for the clarinet for most of her professional life. She has premiered many new compositions for clarinet and has had many written especially for her. She has performed throughout Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe and the USA, including a recital of Australian works at the International Clarinet Festival in New Orleans in August 2001. Her two solo CDs have received wide acclaim (her third - X - was released just last month). As a member of the chamber duo Charisma, she premiered five multimedia works at the 2002 Darwin International Guitar Festival and recently released a CD of works for clarinet and cello. She is also a member of the clarinet duo Touchbass, with whom she premiered a number of newly commissioned works at the 2002 Australian National Clarinet Festival. She teaches clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
For more information, see her home page

Martin Wesley-Smith is an eclectic composer at home in a diverse range of idioms. Two main themes dominate his music: the life, work and ideas of Lewis Carroll (e.g. the chamber piece Snark-Hunting, the choral piece Songs for Snark-Hunters, and the full-length choral music theatre piece Boojum!); and the plight of the people of East Timor (e.g. Kdadalak (For the Children of Timor) and VENCEREMOS!). A multimedia version of the "audio-visual music theatre" piece Quito - about schizophrenia and East Timor - has been performed many times in many countries by The Song Company. One of his pieces - For Marimba & Tape - is the most-performed piece of Australian so-called "serious art-music" (it exists in versions for other instruments, too, including For Clarinet & Tape). For many years Director of the Electronic Music Studio at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Wesley-Smith is now a full-time composer and duck-keeper.
For more information, see his home page

from Dunlop and Wesley-Smith's concert tour of East Timor, March 2002 (click to enlarge):


Rob Wesley-Smith with kids in Gleno [72K]	audience in Ermera [58K] photography © 2002 Martin Wesley-Smith	Timorese young people near Hato Bullico [128K]

"I had complete strangers coming up, with tear-stained faces (saying) how powerful it was ..."

concert repertoire | lecture/demo topics | Dunlop & Wesley-Smith bios | pics | top of page

e-mail Ros | e-mail Martin | London review 1 | London review 2 | schedule

schedule: [grab a slot!]

Mon Sept 22 depart Australia

Tues Sept 23 concert, Bowling Green State University, Ohio

Wed Sept 24

Thurs Sept 25 concert (evening), University of Illinois, North Chicago

Fri Sept 26 festival, Community College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas

Sat Sept 27 festival, Community College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas

Sun Sept 28 festival, Community College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas

Mon Sept 29
Tues Sept 30
Wed Oct 1 concert, University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, California

Thurs Oct 2 concert, Palomar College, near San Diego

Fri Oct 3 concert, Music at Founders Hall, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito, Solana Beach CA

Sat Oct 4 concert, California State University, Los Angeles

Sun Oct 5

Mon Oct 6 concert, School of Music, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana

Tues Oct 7 workshop & master class, School of Music, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana

Wed Oct 8 concert, Radford College, Virginia

Thurs Oct 9

Fri Oct 10 return to Australia

concert repertoire | lecture/demo topics | Dunlop & Wesley-Smith bios | pics | top of page

e-mail Ros | e-mail Martin | Ros's home page | Martin's home page

London review 1 | London review 2 | schedule

TEKEE TOKEE TOMAK
Australian Multi-Media Works
February 6, 2003
St Cyprian's Church, London NW1
reviewed by David Morris in Clarinet & Saxophone, London, Spring 2003

My diary tells me that I had a clarinet lesson on Monday 20th May last year. Strangely, it neglects to mention that on that same day, the people of East Timor gained their independence, dollowing 24 years of Indonesian occupation. This British Music Information Centre-supported concert in St Cyprian's Church was part of a tour by Ros Dunlop and Martin Wesley-Smith (the Tekee Tokee Tomak Tour) to raise awareness of the struggle of East Timor to recover from its recent history of seemingly often brutal oppression.
In another world, the fine golden screen at St Cyprian's provided a vivid backdrop for this multi-media programme. Before it stood a large screen of a different kind flanked by speakers on tall stands, and a modest projection and mixing desk set between the two front rows of the audience.
The evening opened with Gerard Brophy's Iza, a short but vigorous and warming duet for bass clarinets, performed by Natascha Briger and Ros Dunlop. Both players immediately established their proficiency, though throughout the evening it was the legato lines that fared best and sometimes a little of the rhythmic punch was lost to the big acoustic.
Down to business, however, and next was X by Martin Wesley-Smith. This was the first of several of his multi-media works, comprising slides, tape and clarinet. Lest there be any confusion, the slide show was not of the 'Could we have the next one, please Geoff' school, but a compelling sequence of images fading into one another, colours and textures constantly on the move, all under the control of the composer and his Macintosh. The tape merged broadcast sound bites with choral passages and electronic effects, big noise with jaunty instrumental numbers, all synchronised with the visual images. Over the top was Ros Dunlop's live clarinet. "X" refers to the resistance leader Xanana Gusmão, imprisoned in 1999 while the Indonesian military withdrew from East Timor. The images were brutal. So was the music, though the screaming clarinet might have benefited from some amplification to match the volume of the tape and heighten the anguish in the climactic passages. However, in quieter parts, Ros Dunlop's melancholy lines were serene.
Later came Wesley-Smith's short epic Welcome to the Hotel Turismo, in a similar format, but now observing the occupation of East Timor from the viewpoint of the eponymous hotel, still standing after all these years. No winds, just a cello and CD-ROM of sound bites and song, with a catchy refrain to rival anything by Don Henley. Despite the subject, the work had an easy flow and structure and Rachel Scott discharged the simultaneous vocal and amplified cello parts with passion and to great effect.
The item between these two was another worry given Amnesty International's past features on Central America. But the programmers were merciful and Stephen Ingham's Panama turned out to be a take on an old jazz standard, for clarinet, bass clarinet and a CD-ROM that provided a virtual jazz rhythm section to get the audience tapping along, if occasionally on the wrong beat.
The second half started in bright style with Tekee Tokee Tomak for clarinet and CD-ROM, Martin Wesley-Smith's portrayal of post-independence East Timor, full of smiling people and beautiful landscapes. For the next piece, the positive mood grabbed an attractive ideal and the two danced shoulder to shoulder in Dave Smith's snappily-titled Mitchell Principles and Laws on Central Albania, for two clarinets. The Mitchell in question appeared to be Ian, past Clarinet and Saxophone Society Chairman, who had premiered it, but his Principles were not obvious in this alternately angular and glissando-ridden romp. However, Natascha Briger and Ros Dunlop communicated the mood well here.
With Ros Dunlop back on bass clarinet and Martin Wesley-Smith on the CD-ROM, the evening was brought to a close with Merry-Go-Round, his treatment of contemporary Afghanistan. More scenes passed rapidly before us, including children and men having naive fun aboard a small home-made merry-go-round. This, we were told, was an allegory for the repeated invasions suffered by the people of Afghanistan, but it worked most powerfully as a striking reinforcement of common humanity.
In a multi-media show, attention is necessarily shared amongst the components. Music communicates, but to achieve a message as strong and specific as this, the various media components were tightly harnessed in support of the central theme. The clarinet as political blunt instrument. Placing the solo players beside a large bright screen, further from the audience and beyond the mixing console, visually reinforced the supporting nature of their role. However, with occasional balance problems against the tape at the climaxes and a big acoustic to fill, perhaps the clarinet writing didn't always get the attention it deserved. It would certainly have been more interesting to hear the clarinet lines more amplified, and perhaps for the instrumentalists to have been further forward.
Overall, the apolitical works set the human rights issues in perhaps greater relief, and ensured there was plenty of variation in the programme. The subject matter was often hard-hitting and it is unlikely anyone left the church unmoved, though not necessarily for musical reasons. "Tekee Tokee Tomak" apparently means something like "Let's all get together", and it was a refreshing experience to see our instrument used in support of such worldly issues.

TEKEE TOKEE TOMAK
February 6, 2003
St Cyprian's Church, London NW1
reviewed by Carmel Budiardjo

It was a pleasant surprise to hear that Martin Wesley-Smith was in town and would be presenting a concert of his music much of which is dedicated to East Timor.
The name rings bells. The Wesley-Smith family has such a long association with East Timor. Rob is an old friend, an activist like myself who went the long haul for East Timor from obscurity in the 1970s to stunning success and international recognition more than two decades later. But I still had to find out what his composer brother was all about, and here at last was the opportunity.
The venue of the concert was a church in north London and the performers were two clarinetists and a cellist, with Martin busily pressing buttons on a video machine. An unusual combination, something quite new in artistic presentation. It was good too to see quite a crowd of East Timorese in the audience, for this novel experience.
The concert bore the name Tekee, Tokee, Tomak, a Tetum phrase meaning 'Let's all get together'. Yes, indeed!
Martin is a composer of considerable talent and versatility who has hit on the idea of audio-visual presentation for many of his compositions. And what could be a more suitable medium for his music than East Timor with so many visual records of its tragic experience.
Most of the music performed was programme music, telling a story that is helped by the visual presentation. But I have to say that when I first heard his composition, Welcome to the Hotel Turismo, some months earlier without the visual presentation, performed by the first class cellist, Rachel Scott, I was immediately taken by its shape, its changing moods and colour. A sombre and serious piece, like his other work, X, celebrating the outstanding role of the East Timorese leader, Xanana Gusmao. Tekee, Tokee, Tomak is a much happier piece, in which one feels the joy and high spirits of the East Timorese, at last savouring their independence.
Included in the programme was a composition by Dave Smith, called Mitchell's Principled Based on Albanian Laws, a piece full of dance-like melodies. I happened to be sitting next to an Albanian woman who showed her delight at the composition. with themes so familiar to her. The Klezmer-like character of this piece had a particular appeal to me and provided a good balance to the programme.
The clarinetists Ros Dunlop and Natascha Briger performed superbly well and the combination of sound and visuals worked extremely well in helping to give the compositions greater depth and to appeal to a very mixed audience.
The group are to be congratulated for bringing together this event which was both artistically rewarding and a powerful tribute to the courageous people of East Timor.

concert repertoire | lecture/demo topics | Dunlop & Wesley-Smith bios | pics | top of page

enquiries: e-mail Ros | e-mail Martin | Ros's home page | Martin's home page

schedule | London review 1 | London review 2

** for concert organisers: **

click here to download complete program notes, technical requirements, photos and other information

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site updated June 3 2004

schedule:	[grab a slot!]
Mon Sept 22	depart Australia
Tues Sept 23	concert, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
Wed Sept 24
Thurs Sept 25	concert (evening), University of Illinois, North Chicago
Fri Sept 26	festival, Community College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas
Sat Sept 27	festival, Community College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas
Sun Sept 28	festival, Community College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas
Mon Sept 29
Tues Sept 30
Wed Oct 1	concert, University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, California
Thurs Oct 2	concert, Palomar College, near San Diego
Fri Oct 3	concert, Music at Founders Hall, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito, Solana Beach CA
Sat Oct 4	concert, California State University, Los Angeles
Sun Oct 5
Mon Oct 6	concert, School of Music, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana
Tues Oct 7	workshop & master class, School of Music, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana
Wed Oct 8	concert, Radford College, Virginia
Thurs Oct 9
Fri Oct 10	return to Australia