Talking Drum

Young Artists!

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:10:00 GMT

As many of you will already know, the Tetrafide Percussion Young Artists Program is a unique training opportunity for young percussion students.

Auditioning the best young percussion students from high schools throughout the state, the TPYA brings these students together for an annual program of workshops and rehearsals, intensively training them in high-level percussion skills, with a focus on ensemble playing.

They also engage in composition of new works for percussion ensemble, which are played by the program participants and showcased in their end of year concert.

The program offers these young percussionists an amazing array of opportunities that most cannot access at their school in their normal music program. This could be due to facilities and instrument issues, simple lack of time in their normal program, or most often due to the fact that there simply aren't enough percussionists of a high enough standard in their school for them to take this sort of repertoire on.

This year's program is going great guns, and today Josh and Catherine & I worked on the first of their intensive rehearsal days with them. These day long intensives really challenge the students' skills and stamina (mental and physical) and today we got to see how this year's group will cope (You did great guys!).

The program engages strongly with the concepts of ensemble, and students are consistently encouraged to consider what ensemble is, and how they are engaging in this in their playing in the group (or not!). Too often the focus of music programs and training is on 'getting the notes right', but for us the TPYA is an opportunity for young musicians to really engage at all levels what 'ensemble' means, beyond the obvious things of playing the same music in time with each other. We hope this will continue to develop the quality and standard of ensemble playing in WA over the long term.

11 of the 16 current undergraduate students studying percussion in Perth are graduates of our program, and there are many more working professionally in the field or studying elsewhere. We're so proud of the TPYA and its graduates, and I know you'll be seeing much more of them over the next decade as they take their places as the next generation of leaders in the world of banging stuff.

So anyway, you should all totally come and see their showcase. Tickets have just gone on sale. It's 7:30pm on Saturday June 23 at the Music Auditorium at WAAPA in Mt Lawley. Tickets are $24/19 (bargain) and you'll get to see both the TPYA kids and Tetrafide showcasing the best of WA's percussion both student and professional! Tickets on sale at WAAPA- http://www.waapa.ecu.edu.au/performances-and-events/bookings

Hope to see you ALL there!

Neville

Full Circle

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:07:00 GMT

Tetrafide Percussion, one of Australia's longest-lasting and most active new music ensembles, goes Full Circle with our first public concert of 2012.

Featuring works such as Steve Reich's newest work Mallet Quartet, David Pye's Rebana Loops, Bill Douglas' Feast, and a selection of new works from Tetrafide's Small Things project, Full Circle will see the group return to the beautiful acoustic of Perth Modern School's Music Auditorium. Tetrafide's first ever performance was in this venue back in September 1996, and was described by the West Australian's Neville Cohn as 'riveting'.

More than a thousand performances, 4 continents and hundreds of thousands of people later, Tetrafide continues to create and define a unique West Australian percussion sound.

Don't miss the show- go to the upcoming performances tab at http://www.tetrafide.com/performance.htm and register there (you'll get a special promo code for a discount on your ticket price) and then follow the links to the ticket service.

Tickets are on sale now, so get moving!

Small Things, Big Things

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:29:00 GMT

Hi to everyone out there.

Tetrafide has had a challenging and interesting year. After almost 200 performances in 4 different countries in 2010, with tours throughout Australia, India, China and the USA, 2011 was a much quieter affair.

As many of you would know, we lost 2 of our full time players last year, with Marcus joining the Cirque du Soleil team in North America for a stadium tour of Dralion, and with Louise leaving the group for personal reasons soon after.

This change caused a few challenges for us. The major project for the year was writing a new production, tentatively titled 'Small Things'. This process has proven to be harder than we'd hoped, with the big turnover of players meaning that the process took a lot longer as we all got to know each other and experiment with ideas. Writing is such a personal process that this familiarisation time became necessary.

Well, finally we're reaching the point where we can show some of this material, with a performance/showing at Trinity College (where we're artist's in residence) on December 3. Go to http://www.tetrafide.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=160869 for more detail, and to book your (limited) spot in the room. It will cost a measly $10 to get the first look at this new show.

Tetrafide played in the opening of the Commonwealth Festival last month, a part of the CHOGM happenings here in Perth. Along with about 220 other percussionists we were involved in creating a great opening to this festival- Drumming the Light, a work by Australian composer Graeme Leak, specially commissioned for the Festival. The event was coordinated fabulously by ex-Tetrafide's Louise Devenish.

Recent events have included gigs for various corporate, education and festival clients, including the Bull and Barrel Festival in Dardanup, and the Multicultural Food Festival for the City of Gosnells.

Next year will involve some exciting projects which I hope to announce over the next few weeks, including the premiere performance of the newest Steve Reich work, and some exciting developments involving the group nationally. We're sure that you will enjoy Tetrafide's 16 year of activities. Thanks for your interest in one of Australia's greatest and most underrated arts organisations!

Neville

We're still here!

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:37:00 GMT

Hi to everyone in Tetrafide land.

Tetrafide Percussion has had another big year, though you won't have seen much of us playing out in public.

We're writing a new show called Small Things at the moment, we're playing at the Commonwealth Festival Opening Event for CHOGM, we've gone out on our own with schools and education work, we're new Artists in Residence at Trinity College in East Perth, we're playing a few festivals around the place, and we've undergone some big personnel changes at the end of last year.

I'll be writing with much more detail in the very near future, as this website has suffered a little bit of lack of love and attention for a while now.

New blogs updating what we've been doing, are doing, and will be doing coming soon, and I'll be updating the photo galleries to include images from 2010, including our tours to China, the USA and India, as well as our 3 month 96 concert tour of Australia!

I also have some announcements about upcoming concerts that you can come to, with Tetrafide premiering some of our new works from Small Things, and hopefully I'll soon have a big announcement about a premiere performance of a new work from one of the world's best-known composers.

Over the next few days you will notice a bit of freshening up of the site, and introductions to the new players. Feel free to drop a line and ask us any questions you might have!

Yours in the beat,

Neville Talbot

Manager- Tetrafide Percussion

Blast Off! Tetrafide Percussion, Defying Gravity & Louise Devenish US Tour Fundraiser

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:28:00 GMT

Tetrafide & Taikoz - tickets on sale NOW!

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 06:06:00 GMT

Tour blog so far...

Wed, 26 May 2010 14:57:00 GMT

Day penultimate.

Well, our house is full of stuff. We head out tomorrow for 3 months on tour, and the house looks like it! There is everything from luggage through to the new camera and video camera, and all the various bits and pieces for Rosie who is coming on the trip with us. (Rosie is 22 months old, so there is a lot of gear!)

There are so many things we still need to do, and it is a little stressful. However, the trailer is packed well, with virtually all of the instruments in there, which is a very good start!

Me and the boys will get on our way early tomorrow (I hope) with the big drive to Meekatharra.

Day 1

Perth to Meekatharra. 760 kms

Well, the tour began today with me and the boys driving the long haul to Meekatharra, with a view to making it to Tom Price for our first show as quickly as possible.

The drive was fun, with all of us getting used to the bus and trailer haul, and all of us starting the day a little tired. Everyone got a good sleep in the back on their break though, with cute photos resulting. It was also interesting to have the driver’s choice IPod selection happening. We will all be listening to each other’s music for the next few months, so we’ll wait and see how this goes!

Most unexpected part of the day was the rain we were getting, which got worse the further north we went. We parked the van in what through the night became a large puddle!

Day 2

Meekatharra to Tom Price. 694 kms

Today saw us drive to our final (first) destination- Tom Price.

Tom Price is a lovely little town located in the middle of the Hamersley Ranges in the Pilbara region of WA. It has the distinction of being right next to one of Australia’s natural jewels- Karajini National Park- and of being the highest altitude town in WA at 747metres above sea level.

Its biggest distinction though is being the place where I was born! J My parents were early settlers in the region, and all of my siblings and I were born there.

The day started with me doing a radio interview on the phone at 7am. This was organised via Skype the night before as my mobile phone didn’t work. The worst bit about it was the fact that the ABC seems to have again lost our CD from the library, and the only audio the guy had was from a random youtube posted from a camera phone filming us in Manila a few years back. The sound was awful!

The drive was very interesting. It became apparent very soon that we had definitely left the farmland of the south behind us, as the landscape became more and more rough and rocky. The sight of the ubiquitous red dirt and the growing landscape of the Hamersley’s coming into view was truly awe-inspiring.

The Pilbara Region of WA contains what I believe to be some of the most unique and beautiful country, and it was a pleasure to introduce the 2 boys to it for the first time.

The other feature of this part of the country is that the roadtrains get larger and larger. Overtaking our first 4-trailer truck was a little scary. These things have to be seen to be believed! Most seemed to be carrying explosives as well, so obviously business in the Pilbara is booming!

Most fun in this aspect was the houses we kept passing. We had a convoy of trucks driving up prefab homes which we had had to pass yesterday, and which reappeared about 4 hours and 400 or so kms into the days today. This time I had finally read the instructions on how to use our 2-way radios, and this helped with the process. However, the number of trucks required several passes before we finally cleared them. I hope the people who will live in them enjoy them!

We stopped at Newman for lunch, and I finally had access to an ANZ bank (I’d left all my money sitting on the bench at home), and mobile phone signal. There were lots of messages to deal with on the phone, and I finally thought to change my voicemail message.

The final part of the drive had us going through the spectacular country of Karijini, and I tell you, this is the way to finish a long drive! Vista after stunning vista greeted us around every bend of the road, and finally the sky had cleared and little and we were under a brilliant blue sky. I love this country!

How could the day get better? A good feed followed by some Articulate. Those who have played this game know its powers.

Day 3

Tom Price and Concert no. 1.

Why Tom Price?! Rio Tinto has just injected a large amount of sponsorship into the Musica Viva in Schools Program, the group who we do the bulk of our school shows with. To celebrate this new relationship MVIS and Rio Tinto wanted to do a public concert in town. So here we are!

Louise joined us in the morning after her flight from Perth and we had a pretty quiet day getting ready for the show.

We played in the community centre, which is a very nice little space with a nice lighting rig and PA. Noone to operate them, and it appears not enough people using the space for shows. Thankfully we had Pier from Musica Viva to help us out and to do some lighting. So the show looked great. We might pop up some video from our brand new HD camera on you tube soon. The difference in the quality of the video from my old High 8 camera is quite incredible. We were lucky to have it though, me having already left the camera behind at lunch in Newman the day before. Thanks Josh for noticing and picking it up!

Lovely concert with a really happy and boisterous audience, so such a great way to kick the tour off.

Day 4

School show at Paraburdoo Primary School.

Paraburdoo is about 80 kms down the road from Tom Price, and the school there was lovely. Great bunch of kids and really good teachers. You can tell the quality of the teaching and the spirit of the school by how the kids react as an audience, and these kids were wonderful. Such a positive way to start a tour.

It was cool as well to run into some people who had been at last night’s concert.

We finished our day by being driven up by Peter, a teacher from Tom Price, to the top of Mt Nameless for the sunset. LOTS of photos taken up here. This is an amazing place to stand and look at the world. The most impressive, and slightly depressing in some ways, story about this town is the mine itself. Tom Price used to have 2 large masses near it, Nameless and Mt Tom Price. Mt Tom Price is the iron ore mine, or was. The mountain no longer exists. Sitting on Nameless, which apparently used to be smaller, and looking at the little of the mountain that remains is an awe-inspiring demonstration of humanity’s capacities. The mine is near the end of its natural life, which is understandable considering the mountain basically doesn’t exist anymore! However, they have found another ore body nearby. The sheer scale of work around mining is difficult to grasp. Saw our first 2km long ore train today. I gave up counting carriages around 50 or so. They do have well over 200…

We then went back to Peter’s house and cuddled the kangaroo joey they had adopted. Not what I thought I’d be doing when I woke up this morning.

Day 5

Tom Price to Karratha 580 kms.

Today started nice and early with a bit of trailer reversing practice. We should all get better at this as the tour goes along, but this was a little bit ‘Austin Powers in Dr Evil’s Lair’!

We stopped off to visit the wonders of Karajini. Fortescue Falls and a few gorge lookouts provided us with some beautiful moments, and a couple of short hikes.

We couldn’t stay for long with the huge drive in front of us unfortunately.

So back on the road through the Pilbara. Again the best way to truly grasp the vastness and size of this country is to travel through it.

We arrived safe and sound in Karratha just after sunset, staying in digs just behind the Walkington Theatre.

More updates about the next few days coming soon!

CD back on sale!

Fri, 21 May 2010 02:39:00 GMT

Hi everyone! We are very happy to announce that after a lengthy absence from our trusty merchandise sale table after each gig, Tetrafide Percussion's hugely popular debut self titled CD is now back on sale. Visit the link on our homepage to 78 records to purch ase your co py now or grab one at a gig near you. Thanks for your support!

Tetrafide @ Fairbridge Festival 2010

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:39:00 GMT

Well we've returned from another fabulous Fairbridge Festival. This festival we did two performances of our show, SPICE: Rhythms of India along with dancers from the Temple of Fine Arts, Vick Ramakrishnan and Brannan.

Video footage to come soon! We also performed a more traditional Tetrafide set on the dance stage and in a collaboration concert with Greg Sheehan, Tunji Beier and the members of Taal Naan (Steve Richter and Josh Hogan - both former members of Tetrafide). Thanks to all of you who were there supporting us! You can check out more photos from the weekend on our galleries page on our website.

Tetrafide does Collie!

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:26:00 GMT

Tetrafide toured to Collie, WA, at the end of last week. We performed for the Bendigo Bank at their State Conference, facilitated two community percussion workshops and performed one public concert. We had a great time and loved working with the Collie community. A big thanks to all those people and organisations that supported us including the Bendigo Bank, the Collie Mail, the Collie Community Radio and Naomi and Lennon Swann. We also got to fit in some creative time at the Mineworkers Institute, our venue for the tour. Here are some pics from our time in Collie.

Tetrafide Percussion @ the Ellington Jazz Club

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:49:00 GMT

Come and see Tetrafide Percussion live in Perth returning to the Ellington Jazz Club on Monday night 26 April 2010. It's a public holiday so you can get your beauty sleep during the day and come out and listen to some fantastic live music at night. It's a funky cozy venue worth checking out if you haven't already! They do great food as well. We'll be playing two sets, starting at around 9pm. Tickets through their website. We look forward to seeing you there!

Tetrafide Percussion at the Australian Performing Arts Market in Adelaide

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:26:00 GMT

Neville, Louise, Marcus and Carly are busily preparing to attend the Australian Performing Arts Market ("APAM") in Adelaide at the Adelaide Festival Centre from February 21-26, 2010.

We will be in attendance to sell our show "Stick It!", a 90-minute journey of contemporary world music sounds, full of energy and fun, to national and international festivals, venue managers and more! We are very much looking forward to having the opportunity to distribute our new promotional materials, including the demo of our live DVD "Stick It" Live in Concert, which can also be found on our website.

We already have meetings scheduled with various delegates from around the world and look forward to networking with many more. Big thanks to the WA Department of Culture and the Arts for supporting us to attend this amazing networking opportunity. APAM here we come! Maybe we'll see you there?

Tetrafide Percussion Live in Collie

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:25:00 GMT

Watch out Collie residents, Tetrafide Percussion is about to descend upon you! Following on from our successful concert and workshops for and with the past and present students of Fairview Primary School in 2008 and 2009, we've decided to return in 2010! This year we're visiting on March 24, 25 & 26 to facilitate two public workshops and perform a public concert.

We'll be at the Mineworkers Institute on March 24 & 25 from 4-5:30pm to teach people of all ages about percussion composition. Come along and try your hand at writing original music in a fun and friendly environment.

It only costs $10 for both workshops and you can register by sending an email to admin@tetrafide.com. Our public concert will also take place at the Mineworkers Institute at 7pm on March 26.

We'll be performing our highly acclaimed show, Stick It!, check out the sneak preview in our You Tube video on our website. Tickets are $15 and are available from Reuben's Newsagency and at the door. Big thanks to the support provided by the Collie Community Bank. We look forward to seeing you there!