Super Luminum Tour Diary: Europe November 2019
THE BEGINNING
This tour was part Birthday gift for Lisa' MacKinney’s big birthday, part work, part just what musicians do.
Super Luminum (Lisa and I) departed Melbourne for Palermo on 7th November, straight from the Hotel in central Melbourne where i had been attended a work event. We arrived in Palermo on Friday 8th, via Hong Kong and Rome, safe and sound. There were some tense minutes waiting for the guitars to appear on the ‘large items’ belt at the airport, but they did eventually. Our hotel was a lovely place with balconies over looking a piazza that hosted an antique market on Sunday and only meters from the sea. As someone who has lived some wonderful years in Italy, it was great to be back, and the first coffee is always one for celebration.
Our first concert was at the Curva Minore festival, at Teatro Gabrielealla Kassa on Saturday 9th. Friday evening we met with the director, Lelio Gianetto, and after a few cocktails we went to visit the theatre. Lelio has booked shows for me before, with Decibel, and is a wonderful person and double bass player, very passionate about improvisation. There was a large and rather fragile installation in the audience and stage area - in the short time we were wandering around some items fell over and we left wondering how this was going to happen. I woke the next morning to a text from Lelio: the gig was off. The venue was not suitable for our concert with the installation in it. But an hour later, I received another message: let’s meet in the piazza to discuss. Two great press articles: in La Repubblica and Corriera Della Sera had come out and Lelio had decided to find another venue. He did: Fabbrica 102, a small bar in the old centre of town. It was a warm, celebratory event - if a little low fi - with an encore and an increadible meal afterwards. We decided at that meal that we would return to Polizzo Generosa, the town where my friend and guitarist Gandolfo Pagano lives, to do some recording, touristing, eating and drinking.
The next day we drove to Catania, where we stayed with my (ex) inlaws and enjoyed their hospitallity, great food and visiting family. The day after we did indeed go to Polizzo Generosa, a medieval town in the mountainous regions in the centre of Sicily, half way between Catania and Palermo. We stayed the night there after visiting nearby towns, eating some of the best ricotta ever experienced alongside Gandolfo and his partner Daniela’s amazing cooking: and recording around an hour of music.
Next concert was back in Catania on the 13th, at the occupied Theatre, Teatro Capolla, established by the singer in my old band from the 1990, the Quartered Shadows. We stayed in a small ‘fit for purpose’ rooms across the road from the venue near the old port. This was a big room, but it filled, and the concert went well on the big stage, with another encore and a relaxing time in the band room, drinking homemade wine delivered in a plastic water bottle. The next morning we were at the airport, with assistance from my long time friend Orazio Arena, who i was sad to leave again, as i have done many times before. The weather was now raining (very heavily in Catania; schools were closed due to high winds) and this seemed to follow us for the rest of the tour.
Rome was the next stop and we made our way with bags and guitars to a small hotel in the historic centre. That afternoon, I gave a presentation for the Isabella Scelsi Foundation at the Conservatorio Santa Cecila in the centre of Rome on the 14th: this is the Conservatorium my musical hero Ennio Morricone attended, so i was excited to be there. My presentation was on Decibel’s work with the scores of Giacinto Scelsi, to a small but committed audience, including my friend Alvin Curran. The next day we visited the Foundation in what was Scelsi’s home, shown around by Alessandra Carlotta Paganinni, the centre director. I finally got to see Scesli’s Ondioline’s and tape equipment, after reading so much about them.
We boarded a train that afternoon for Venice, which was flooding up to 1.8m some days before we left, and was on the news everywhere. We changed our hotel from one on the island to one in Mestre, on the mainland. My visit to the Conservatorio was cancelled due to the floods, and we didnt end up visiting Venice at all. Lisa visited the famous mosaics in Ravenna while i worked back at the hotel, a modern ‘business’ style place that, one week in, was welcomed after a range of small shared rooms and not such great bed options (our least favourite was named ‘the grill’). We are big fans of the bath, and this place delivered on that a the best buffet breakfast for the tour. I did at least get to meet the director of Ensemble L’Arsenale, Filippo Perocco.
Next destination was the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and we took a flight from Venice to Manchester, then a car to a odd but pleasant hotel on the outskirts of Huddersfield. The following day, 18th November, we performed to a sold out, heavily packed crowd in a bar called Northern Quarter, integrating a cheezy 1970s organ that was in the room but taping down keys and bricking a pedal to create a drone. The next day i gave a talk about my opera Speechless at Huddersfield University, and we enjoyed as many of the concerts as we could. The University, whose VC was Prince Andrew, was embroiled in the controversy around the Monarch and his involvement with Jeffery Epstein It was great to meet new friends, especially those i had never met in person, but also old ones: Gabriella Smart from Adelaide was there, as was Andy Hamilton and David Pay amongst others.
Next stop was Montpellier, and this journey was probably the most arduous of all. Train from Huddersfield to London via Leeds, a few hours sleep in a hotel near Kings Cross before taking Euro Star (a few days after its 25th birthday celebration) to Paris, storing our luggage, then heading down to MontPellier. This concert was the following night, at a theatre in the Paul Valery University as part of the Bruits Blanc Festival. Performing after a wonderful electronic vibraphone and poetry reading duo, many of the sold out he audience left, but those who stayed were enthusiastic but it was a strange room to play in: feedback not so forthcoming and a formality we were not used to. I had always felt my bass noise playing was never very successful in France, and this reminded me that it still may be the case.
We got the TGV back to Paris, now 2 weeks into our tour where i stayed at the artist centre Anis Gras and Lisa met her boyfriend, staying in a hotel near the final concert, again as part of Bruits Blanc in Le Cube, a digital arts centre, in Issy Le Molineaux on the outskirts of Paris, on Thursday 28 November before flying out the next day. This was a productive week for me: cellist Judith Hamann and I met and worked with my collaborator Eliane Radigue, creating a new piece for us OCCAM RIVER XVI at her home over a few days, then I worked with ensemble IRE: a wonderful French Trio featuring electric bassist Kasper Toeplitz, harpist Helene Brechand and electronics master Franck Vigroux on a new piece, Black Vulture, to be premiered in the USA next year.
I got to see Ensemble InterContemporain perform works by James Dillon and Rebecca Saunders with my friend and collaborator Carol Robinson (and met Perth composer Kate Milligan there!) at Le Cite De Musique - it was incredible. Then, it was the final concert for Super Luminum, alongside video artist Derek Holtzer, again sold out (thought the theatre was not full): a great performance by us and a great way to end the tour.
You can see more photos and videos from the tour on the Super Luminum Instagram page.