CANBERRA TROUBADOUR
NAMED ARTIST OF THE YEAR
A Canberra diplomat, musician, philosopher, poet and raconteur was this evening (November 14) named 2023 Citynews Artist of the Year at the 33rd ACT Arts awards held in the ANU Drill Hall Gallery.
Fred Smith, who with an easy Aussie everyman persona, has become something of a national folk hero and was praised by the critics for his Australia-wide touring concert, a sellout at the 2023 National Folk Festival, and for his book of the same name, “The Sparrows of Kabul.”
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| Fred Smith and the presenter of the award, CityNews editor, Ian Meikle |
Smith has combined diplomacy and music for a long time and had already made his name as a musician years before for his original albums related to Australia’s peacekeeping missions in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville.
The first Australian diplomat to be sent to work alongside Australian troops in Uruzgan province and the last to leave, in 2011 he released the influential suite of songs “Dust of Uruzgan,” followed by a book of the same name.
He returned to Afghanistan in March 2021 to work at the Embassy in Kabul and ended up as part of the Australian team processing former Australian government staff and thousands of others through the human logjams at the airport’s gates, recounted in his book, “The Sparrows of Kabul.”
Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting
Earlier in the evening, the Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting was presented by Canberra Theatre director Alex Budd to Jim Adamik, who was singled out for a remarkable year of acting, especially for his performances in Yasmina Reza’s play “God Of Carnage” at The Q and as envious musician Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” at Canberra Rep.
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| Diane Fogwell, presenter, with the Helen Tsongas Award for Excellence in Acting winner and Theatre Award winner, Jim Adamik |
The award is an initiative of the Tsongas family to keep alive the memory of the well-known Canberra actor Helen Tsongas Brajkovic.
The 2023 Canberra Critics Circle is as follows:
Frank McKone, Helen Musa, Rob Kennedy, Meredith Hinchliffe,
Tony Magee, Alanna Maclean, Joe Woodward, Kerry-Anne
Cousins,
Cris Kennedy, Michelle Potter, Simone Penkethman, Bill
Stephens,
Brian Rope, Len Power, Graham McDonald, Peter Wilkins,
Dante Costa, Barrina South, Ian McLean, Con Boekel,
Jane Freebury, Samara Purnell, Beejay Silcox, Colin Steele, Theodore Ell.
Canberra Critics Circle Awards
The awards evening, hosted by the Canberra Critics Circle at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, also featured the circle’s own awards, which went to:
Visual Arts
Tom Rowney
For his magical exhibition displaying virtuosity in glass.
The exhibition included a new body of work: the Tesserae Series, which include
sparkles of gold in coloured glass. He
paid homage to Italian glass artists by using sea horses, which formed the
stems of goblets and candelabra. For his
lustrous exhibition at Canberra Glassworks in April and May: “Tom Rowney –
Aventurine Spirit".
Visual Arts
Hannah Gason
For her exhibition “Arranging Light” at the Canberra
Glassworks, an exploratory essay in light and glass. The artist created a
series of beautiful works using light as a key element to play on glass
surfaces creating magical illusions of space and movement.
Visual Arts
Linda Dening, Kim Mahood, Sally Simpson, Wendy Teakle
For the exhibition "Staying With The Trouble" at
Belconnen Arts Centre. These four artists worked together for over a year to
achieve this impressive joint exhibition. Their strongly individual works
highlight the expressive power of the graphic mark on paper as well as the
nature of the environment that is their inspiration.
Visual Arts
Wouter Van de Voorde
For examining issues of life and death, for his photobook
“Death is not here” published in October 2022.
Visual Arts
Peter Maloney
For a revealing account of his multiple media practice from
the perspective of his queer sexuality capturing a sense of his engagement with
apparently opposing, if related ideas, the image and its mirrored reflection as
distortion, “THE MIRROR Angles of Resistance” at CCAS April-June 2023. A
posthumous award.
Dance
Ruth Osborne
For her significant role, including her own
performance, in James Batchelor’s
production “Short Cuts To Familiar Places,”
in which she demonstrated connections with German dancer and
choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser and her Australian followers. For her
mentorship of Batchelor and the recording of a universally available oral
history interview on Bodenwieser.
Dance
Natsuko Yonezawa, Itazura Co
For "Kiku", an outstanding collaboration in the
areas of choreography, videography, music composition and sound design in the
creation of a short dance film and accompanying documentary that explored dance
and the ageing body through the experiences, both spoken and performed, of six
Canberra women.
Dance
Australian Dance Party
For "Culture Cruise'' and its innovative use of dance
to create a unique, innovative experience traversing land and water fusing
performing arts, fine dining and Canberra’s cultural institutions.
Dance
Gretel Burgess
For her extraordinary achievement in producing and directing “A Stroke Of Luck”,
an informative and moving dance work, which she performed with her daughter,
Chloe, and for which she drew on an eclectic choreographic repertoire to depict
her lived experience as a stroke survivor.
Dance
Caitlin Schilg
For her choreography for the Canberra Philharmonic Society
production of "Cats" for which she drew on a whole gamut of demanding
dance styles to create a series of brilliantly staged production numbers which
were executed with admirable commitment and precision by the large ensemble.
Music
Phillipa Candy
For a stunning premiere performance of “Keys of the Kingdom”
by composer Michael Dooley, which featured playing ranging from the lightest,
most delicate touch to thundering intensity with every moment of imagery
magnificently captured and interpreted.
Music
Edward Neeman, Larry Sitsky
For a bravura performance of "Apocryphon of
Initiation", a "concerto" for piano without orchestra composed
by Larry Sitsky, in which the full capacity of the piano was explored with
performer becoming at once the conductor, soloist and full orchestra.
Music
Liam Budge
For "In His Words - Voices of Fatherhood," a
musical exploration of fatherhood based on video interviews with nine fathers,
featuring the sophisticated combo of Brett Williams on keyboard, Chris Pound on
bass, Ben Hauptmann on guitars and James Hauptmann on drums.
Music
Fred Smith
For his concert, "Sparrows of Kabul," a musical
retelling of Australia's Afghanistan experience which comprises a sense of
shared collective grief and an astute musical analysis of Australia's 20-year
involvement in the Afghan War from a man who witnessed the many shades of war
first hand.
Music
Apeiron Baroque
For an innovative, edgy approach to programming and a
performance of baroque music of the highest quality featuring forte-pianist
Marie Searles and violinist John Ma.
Musical Theatre
Canberra Philharmonic Society
For its production of “Cats”. Directed by Jordan Kelly with
musical direction by Alexander Unikowski and choreography by Caitlin Schilg,
this remarkable production succeeded in creating a fascinating feline world.
Musical Theatre
David Cannell
For his masterful performance as Sir Joseph Porter in
Queanbeyan Players production of “HMS Pinafore”. His excellent diction and
mastery of the Gilbert & Sullivan technique stamped him as an exemplary
interpreter of these patter roles.
Musical Theatre
Dramatic Productions
For an outstanding production of “Dogfight” which was
highlighted by inventive direction, atmospheric choreography, tightly balanced
singing and orchestra playing and sensitive character portrayal from a fine
cast.
Musical Theatre
Heartstrings Productions
For its production of “The Hello Girls”. This imaginative
production with its accomplished cast and deceptively simple setting achieved
an impressively professional sheen.
Musical Theatre
Dramatic Productions
For its exuberant production of “School of Rock” for which
it fielded two separate casts. This production was an outstanding example of
what can be achieved when youthful enthusiasm is supported by clever creative
leadership.
Poetry
K.A. Nelson
For “Meaty Bones”, a poetry collection that combines wry and
fond reminiscence with clear-sighted sensitivity to injustice, to bring home
the legacy of colonialism to the personal dimension.
Poetry
Sandra Renew
For “Apostles of Anarchy”, a poetry collection that
trenchantly dramatises the antagonism, defiance and hope of lesbian and gay
rights activism from the 1960s to the 1980s, to depict an often invisible
struggle still haunting the present day.
Non-fiction
Frank Bongiorno
For “Dreamers and Schemers: A political history of
Australia”, a work of virtuosic sweep and synthesis that perceptively traces
institutional machinations and social movements to their roots in personal
motives and quirks of character.
Memoir
Fred Smith
For “The Sparrows of Kabul”, a memoir that presents a unique
and humane perspective on the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and that
testifies candidly and poignantly to the dedication of consular officials to
helping people escape desperate circumstances.
Fiction
Zoya Patel
For “Once A Stranger”, an assured debut novel that braids
together narratives of past and present to consider eternally knotty questions
of familial belonging.
Screen
Wildbear Entertainment
For the documentary “Ford vs Holden” and their evolving slate of Canberra-produced factual content, including “Rachel's Farm” and “The Black Hand”.
Theatre
Jordan Best
For her direction of “God of Carnage” for which she created
a claustrophobic world on stage exemplifying the conflicting contemporary
dilemmas of homeless minds.
Theatre
Jim Adamik
For his performance as the 18th Century composer, Salieri,
in “Amadeus”, combining an impressive stillness and thunderous outpourings of
emotion.
Theatre
Natasha Vickery
For her performance in “Collected Stories” for Chaika
Theatre at ACT Hub, a challenging role in which she skilfully introduced subtle
changes that hinted at past emotional damage as her character matured over the
years.
Theatre
Andrea Close
For her fast-paced, witty performance as the eccentric
Judith Bliss in “Hay Fever” by Noel Coward, at ACT Hub.
Theatre
Mill Theatre
For the riveting production in an intimate setting and a
pitch perfect ensemble performance, where the cast carried the complexities of
time and space to great effect in Nick Enright’s “Good Works”.
Photos by Len Power. All photos of the presentations can be seen in my personal blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/2023/11/33rd-act-arts-awards-photos.html.
