THE RAAH PROJECT
The New Score
Festival Theatre. Adelaide Festival Centre. June 21 2014
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Tamil Rogeon and Ryan Ritchie - THE RAAH PROJECT |
Tousle-haired Ryan Ritchie of internationally acclaimed THE
RAAH PROJECT still can’t believe that he has pulled off the grand finale of the
2014 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. With a little help from his friends that is:
collaborator, Tamil Rogeon, stellar backing vocalists iOTA, Kylie Auldist and
the phenomenal Kate Ceberano, joining the concert as a final appearance at her
final Adelaide cabaret Festival as Artistic Director and to top it all off 23
superb musicians from the Adelaide Art Orchestra.
Singer, Ritchie and violinist,Rogeon take turns to conduct
the orchestra as they re-arrange and re-imagine some of the world’s greatest
songs. Ritchie opens with a primal arrangement of Massive Attack’s Teardrop. This is going to be a very
special event! It is soon followed by Kate Ceberano’s scream from the soul in Wild is the Wind, a version of the Ned
Washington number that Ceberano makes her very own, “It was good in rehearsal,”
Ritchie says, “but that is ridiculous.”
That’s not all that’s ridiculous. IOTA’s haunting, eerie
voice soars high above the audience in the song All of Your Things. Auldist fills the theatre with her soul. The
audience sits, transported by the music, seduced by the song and carried along
by Ritchie’s larrikin swagger and bourbon thirsty nonchalance. I am not a
musician, but I find myself beguiled by modern classical sounds of an
orchestra, swayed by the challenge of invention and singers imbued with the
spirit of their song. THE RAAH PROJECT’s The
New Score takes us beyond the expected and leads us into what Ryan calls
the Dark Arts, that light our way to the
new.
The two people sitting next to me have not returned after
interval. Fools! THE RAAH PROJECT has new surprises in store. I slip in to the
empty seat to escape the head that had obscured my view. The haunting,
seductive orchestral sweeping sound and genre bending song give way to popular
sway. Hip hop takes to the stage, as Ritchie solicits random words from the audience
to construct his hip-hop verse. The words come as the lights go up on the
auditorium; Love , pancakes, computer, avocado, vodka, Adelaide and several
more and Ryan Ritchie spits his halting
verse into the microphone. The words begin to flow and soon the hip hop rhythm
of his imagination gives cohesion to the random vocabulary and the audience
breaks into appreciative applause. Ceberano steps forward to announce their
surprise guest and in a flash of stardom, Darlene Love takes the stage with her
four backing vocalists and musical director, Michael Jacobson and for the next
20 minutes the powerhouse of pop and rock thrills with her song and her spirit.
Audience leap to their feet to pound the beat of Mountain High – River Deep. The Festival Theatre goes wild.
The mirror ball sends its patterns across the theatre. The
orchestra, under Rogeon brings in the improvised rhythms of Jazzbar 2025. Is
this the sound of the future or the imaginings of a time when freedom will find
her style? The Adelaide Art Orchestra merges and then slides away as strings,
percussion, woodwind and brass find distinctive voice in the improvised score and
the extraordinary final event of the 2014 Adelaide Cabaret Festival comes to a
close amidst an applauding, cheering wave of adulation. The bold challenge has
found conquest in THE NEW SCORE.
I barter over a Vinyl in the foyer and Ryan Ritchie kindly
strikes a deal. The CDs are all gone by the time I arrive. He who hesitates,
but there is a stature to a vinyl that a CD can never hope to have. My house
can now be filled with the sounds that thrilled tonight. Next door in the Piano
Bar, patrons sit to hear the next generation of cabaret performers as some members
of the University of South Australia’s Cabaret Intensive Workshop Week strut
their song upon the tiny stage. The magic of tonight’s performance of The New Score and other cabaret
performances I have seen during my visit to Adelaide in the festival’s final
week fill with hope the future for the cabaret artists of tomorrow.
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| Ryan Ritchie - THE RAAH PROJECT |